Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport spilled an estimated 33,000 gallons of sanitary sewage into a wooded area next to Sullivan Creek, one of the Flint River’s tributaries, the airport announced Thursday.
The spill occurred Wednesday at a sanitary sewer lift station near the west end of Runway 10-28. A neutralizing agent was applied to the ground affected by the spill and lift station operations resumed about 90 minutes after the spill, according to the airport.
The cause of the spill is under investigation, downstream water quality is being monitored, and the airport said it “is working with state and local partners to mitigate the impact of the spill.”
“We are frustrated but not surprised that the airport has caused yet another damaging spill, this one raw sewage reported to be in excess of 30,000 gallons due to a lift-station failure,” Gordon Rogers, executive director of the nonprofit Flint Riverkeeper, said in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“The City of Atlanta needs to get VERY serious about protecting the Flint River; clearly they have not done so, yet, despite (the) Flint Riverkeeper’s legal notice to them of pending legal action.”
Rogers said his group went into the field Thursday to collect water quality data and early results showed an “extensive” fish kill, long sections of discolored water, water with very low dissolved oxygen reaching all the way into the Flint River and other “indicators of serious extent and damage.”
The Flint Riverkeeper is also testing for the presence of E. coli and results will be available Friday, according to Rogers.
This is the latest in a series of spills of fuel, sewage and other substances from the airport affecting the Flint River and two of the waterways that feed it, Sullivan Creek and Mud Creek. The Southern Environmental Law Center and the Flint Riverkeeper sent a letter to city officials in July threatening to sue over the pollution. The Flint provides drinking water to more than 400,000 people downstream of the airport.
Rogers said Thursday a lawsuit is “highly likely unless someone with the City reaches out with a serious proposition at this point.”
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
From 2010 to 2020, at least 13 sanitary sewage spills occurred from Hartsfield-Jackson. Ten of them were into Sullivan Creek, including two that killed fish.
In 2023, approximately 22,000 gallons of sewage from the airport again spilled into Sullivan Creek.
In January this year, a jet fuel spill at the Atlanta airport released an estimated 10,000 gallons from a fuel pipeline into the stormwater system and the Flint River, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.
The SELC said in its July letter there had also been major fuel spills in April and over Memorial Day weekend.
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