Lancaster Dumped Thousands of Gallons Of Sewage In Local Waterways After Rainstorm

Even after winter transitioned into spring, and now summer, Western New York's relationship with its most prized resource continues to be complicated, and no matter how much we want things to be better, sometimes they get worse.

While the 716 has, for the most part, pretty good weather in the summer, the last few days have seen the region get hit with a lot of rain. That combination of rain and strong winds often means we have to deal with damage to our properties and localized flooding. However, that's not all we need to deal with, and thanks to some data from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, people in the eastern suburbs of Erie County are again making things a little more difficult for thier neighbors in Buffalo.

Rainstorms Cause Sewer Overflows Around Western New York

One of the great things about living in the Northeastern part of America is that we have tons of old, historic infrastructure that makes it a pretty interesting place to be. However, and unfortunately for us as well, that old infrastructure often means that when Mother Nature decides to have a temper tantrum, the people who live in these communities have to deal with the aftermath.

That exact thing has been happening over the last day or so as major thunderstorms have brought quite a bit of rain to the region, and anytime we get an abundance of rain, it leaves us with a whole lot of raw, untreated wastewater that ends up in our waterways. It's quite common for our wastewater treatment plants to be overwhelmed by heavy rain when it hits town. We see it when our basements back up and our neighborhood sewer pipes get overloaded.

That exact thing happened a while ago when Cheektowaga's Wastewater Facility dumped tons of untreated wastewater and sewage into the Scajaquada Creek, and it seems that it just happened again in the Town and Village of Lancaster in just the last day.

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Thanks to New York State's Sewage Pollution Right-to-Know rules, we see that Lancaster has dumped several hundred thousand gallons of raw, untreated sewage and wastewater into Cayuga Creek and Plum Bottom Creek.

According to data from New York State's Sewage Pollution Right to Know tracker, in the last 24 hours, 139 gallons per minute have been dumped into Plum Bottom Creek and another 109 gallons per minute into Cayuga Creek. Some quick math shows that more than 357,000 gallons of untreated sewage were dumped into those two creeks.

Since they are both feeder creeks for the Buffalo River, the city's residents have to deal with the residual impact. Hopefully, New York State comes up with a solution for those of us who live in Buffalo and have to endure the waste generated by other communities.