The City of Maumee discovered in 2020 that we had been not reporting illegally pumping sewage into the Maumee river for the past 25-30 years. The City self-reported the discovery to the EPA. Self-reporting was the best option, as if it had been found that we continued to to lie about, the potential punishments would have been much worse. There is an ongoing criminal investigation into the people who did this.

The EPA issued a “Director’s Findings and Orders” requiring the City of Maumee to stop illegally discharging sewage into the Maumee River. It also stipulates and requires massive testing and study of the problem, and to submit a plan with a timeline on how long it will take to solve the problem. 

The reason why we have sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) is because during and after high rain events, stormwater water enters into the sanitary sewer system through inflow and infiltration (I&I). Inflow means direct connections into the sanitary sewer, through footer & floor drains, sump pumps, downspouts, and more. (These type of connections have been illegal since 1981, but many homes still have them.) Infiltration is when stormwater enters the system through leaky joints or damaged sewer lateral pipes.

When the sewer pipes are too full, there are only two options: either allow sewage to back up into people’s houses and basements, or pump the excess into the river. Both of these options are illegal, but the second at least saves people’s homes.

 The city has been working on correcting the issues on the public side and commercial side, but studies show that residential I&I is a significant contributor to SSOs. On June 17, 2024, city council passed Ordinance 20-2024, which required anyone selling their home to have a city sewer inspection and fix any issues within 90 days. Unfortunately, because these inspections also required homeowners to replace sewer pipes made of clay even if they were in good condition, people received quotes in the tens of thousands of dollars. Due to an enormous public outcry, city council repealed the ordinance on July 31, 2024.

In August 2024, a series of City-hosted roundtables, council member-hosted information-gathering sessions, and citizen-led meetings attempted to untangle this complicated problem. Through these events, much information has been shared about the state of our sewer system, what steps have been taken so far, and what needs to happen next.

During this time, the Citizens of Maumee Action Committee was created. We as a group, have been researching, studying, and learning about way to help solve this problem. 

The city has stated that at least 400-600 homes per year over the next five years must fixt their I&I if we want to avoid building large, expensive, and smelly holding tanks. However, as we’ve already seen, these repairs can be very expensive, and many will not be able to afford fixing the issues in their homes. Many other Ohio communities have grant or loan programs for homeowners, but Maumee does not. The City of Maumee’s stance is that creating these programs is not a proper or legal use of public funds, and that all the other communities that are doing this are wrong. Also, the money has to come from somewhere, and any funds used for something like this would have to be taken away from budgets to continue fixing the public side of the sewer issue.

The City Council, Mayor, and Administrator have reached out to this committee to work with them so that we can find a way to solve this problem together. CMAC has a list of recommendations to share and research to support our ideas. You can read about our research by clicking the link below: