Heavy Rains Caused Sewage Treatment Plants to Overflow

The sewers in our region are so old that many of them are crumbling. Rainwater can easily get in and flood sewage treatment plants. The treatment plants are forced to either bypass the mixture of rainwater and sewage, or risk having the bacteria that are the basis of the treatment process get washed out to sea.

I'd be very surprised if that didn't happen on the Sound as a result of last week's rains, but I haven't heard about it. It happened in Rhode Island though. The Providence Journal reports:

Heavy rains caused extraordinary havoc at sewer plants along Rhode Island waterways over the weekend, forcing state officials to take the unusual step of closing both Narragansett Bay and all coastal ponds to shellfishing.

And the worst isn't over. Woonsocket's damaged wastewater treatment plant continues to dump millions of gallons of partially treated sewage into the Blackstone River.

State officials say they can't recall so much storm-related environmental damage in one period in Rhode Island.

Did it happen on the Sound and we just haven't heard about it?