The Paducah McCracken Joint Sewer Agency (JSA) has entered into a Consent Judgment with the Commonwealth of Kentucky and has received an Administrative Order from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Judgment was entered into Franklin Circuit Court in September of 2007. While JSA continues to work toward completion of requirements from the Consent Judgment, the EPA released JSA from the Administrative Order in 2016.
The Consent Judgment requires JSA to address sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) and discharges from combined sewer overflow outfalls (CSO outfalls). This is very common in the sanitary sewer industry.
It also requires that JSA develop, submit for approval, and implement plans for the continued improvement of the sewage collection and treatment system.
JSA is one of seventeen communities in Kentucky with permitted CSO outfalls. Each of these communities, including Frankfort, Henderson, Louisville, the Northern Kentucky Sanitation District #1, and Owensboro, are under similar consent judgments.
There are up to 100 additional communities in Kentucky that the state is considering additional action to address SSOs.
JSA has prepared and submitted plans related to work to mitigate the effect of sanitary and combined sewer overflows. Work toward this goal has been ongoing since 2008. JSA also continues to perform maintenance and rehabilitation throughout its collection system. Since 2008, JSA has performed over $70 million dollars worth of work to expand and increase capacity of the system, reduce the amounts and the effects of combined sewer and sanitary sewer overflows, rehabilitate the collection system and repair and upgrade the treatment plants that serve the system. JSA still needs to perform over $80 million of capital work from now to 2038 to comply with the requirements of EPA and Kentucky Division of Water.
Click here to review the Consent Judgment for the JSA.