Sewage pollution has long been an invisible problem across the Lower Galveston Bay watershed. From 2011 to 2017, wastewater treatment facilities reported more than 13,000 overflows, representing more than 80 million gallons of sewage evading treatment. Houston’s system has been responsible for a large portion of these overflows, and lower-income and Black and brown communities experienced the greatest burden of sewer problems within the city.

In 2018, Bayou City Waterkeeper served the City of Houston with a notice of intent to sue over more than 9,300 of these overflows as violating the Clean Water Act, prompting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, joined by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, filed a federal enforcement action. In Spring 2021, a federal judge in Texas approved a legal settlement requiring the City of Houston to invest $2 billion in its sanitary sewer system over the next 15 years, or through 2036.

The agreement requires the City to meet strict timelines to eliminate releases of untreated sewage into local neighborhoods, parks, and bayous. The City must also pay penalties for ongoing releases in the meantime. For problems with private sewer laterals, the consent decree focuses on education and enforcement, rather than providing financial assistance for repairing broken sewer lines, as cities like Jackson and St. Louis have done.

Learn more in our story map and timeline video.

Yes, as of 2023, our preliminary analysis shows that the city has completed 35 of the 81 “early action” projects already planned under the consent decree, and 44 more are listed as “in progress” by the city. The city must inspect and assess more than 5,867 miles of gravity sewer mains (which are underground pipes) and has finished inspections of 762.31 miles. The city also must inspect and assess 129,603 manholes across the city and has finished its inspection of 63,791 manholes. 

While this represents important progress, this doesn’t represent the full scope of work being done under the consent decree, as this preliminary work, alongside more planning and assessment, will add to the list of what the city must do to bring total sewage overflows across the city down to zero. 

We’re seeing progress in other ways. Most notably, as reflected in recent news coverage, a criminal investigation of legal violations at a City of Houston wastewater treatment plant in Kingwood resulting in the revocation of several contracts with the private contractor Inframark is likely the direct result of the consent decree requiring better oversight and enforcement overall.

Watch our summary of the City’s progress, which combines information from the City’s own annual report with our analysis of sewage overflows against demographic and income data.

No. Based on Bayou City Waterkeeper’s analysis of public data from 2013 to 2018, the City of Houston reported more than 9,300 overflows, or approximately 150 per month on average. This number included both problems associated with the public system, as well as problems with private sewer laterals. (This excludes Hurricane Harvey data, when larger-than-average overflows were reported across the watershed, and some sewage plants overtopped or failed.)

This average has seemed to increase through the first two years of the consent decree. While overflows for which the city accepts responsibility total 2,254 over 22 months (averaging approximately 103 per month), private sewer lateral overflows totaled 3,061 over a 14-month period (or 219 per month). This may reflect not a true increase in overflows, but may instead be the result of better tracking and reporting mandated by the consent decree, as well as an increased focus on enforcement, enabling us to understand the true scope of the city’s sewage problem.

Reported volume of overflows has decreased. This may be the direct result of early-action projects under the consent decree that prioritize investments to address overflows associated with wet weather. It is important to recognize that volume may be under-estimated, however, because when volume is unable to be calculated for whatever reason, overflows are listed as having a volume of “0.” In 2021, the city reported that 338 overflows has a volume of zero gallons; in 2022, 671 overflows were listed as having a volume of zero. Further, no volume for overflows is listed for private sewer laterals.

The data confirms this continues to be an environmental justice issue: The neighborhoods during the most overflows are in Northeast Houston and the Gulfton/Wayside area of Houston, which are predominately Black and brown neighborhoods.

Sewer back-ups are often caused by problems with private sewer laterals, the lines connecting homes and businesses to the city’s main system. The consent decree requires the City of Houston to invest $2 billion in long-overdue infrastructure updates, pay $4.4 million in fines for past overflows, and also pay ongoing and future fines as more overflows occur (as they are). 

None of this money is going toward an abandoned promise to fund repairs or replacement of the lines connecting homes and businesses to the city’s infrastructure. Instead, the consent decree focuses on education and enforcement, leaving low-income residents to figure out their sewage problems on their own — or potentially face fines of their own. Although the City never explained why, the Trump administration’s whittling down of the use of a policy that made community-centered environmental projects a part of settlements possibly stood in their way. The Biden administration has since removed all obstacles to amending the consent decree to divert ongoing penalties into such a program, but so far, the City has not worked to resolve this gap.

This presents a problem of environmental justice. Private sewer lateral problems concentrate in neighborhoods that are lower-wealth, Blacker, and browner. Without a clear plan to address these problems, Houston’s $2 billion investment will leave these communities behind.

While overflows happen across the city, they disproportionately affect communities that are lower in wealth and less white. This was true before the consent decree was finalized and continues to be true, according to our internal analysis, reflected in the Justice in the Sewers dashboard, created in collaboration with Rice University’s Spatial Studies Lab. This dashboard examines the city’s reports of sewage overflows required by the consent decree, alongside U.S. Census Bureau income and race or ethnicity data. 

The Justice in the Sewers dashboard analysis shows that sewer problems across the city continue to disproportionately expose Black, brown, and underinvested communities to unsafe sewage across the city, particularly because of problems associated with private sewer laterals. This is especially troubling because the city has disclaimed any financial responsibility for fixing sewer lateral problems, even when property owners lack resources to make repairs.  

For past legal violations underlying the federal enforcement action, the city of Houston agreed to pay $4.4 million penalties, an amount that was divided between the U.S. government and State of Texas. None of this money was reinvested in a local supplemental environmental project.

The city also agreed to pay stipulated penalties for ongoing overflows from its wastewater collection system, in amounts ranging from $300 to $5000 per incident. In a presentation given to City Council’s Transportation, Technology, and Infrastructure committee in March 2022, Carol Ellinger Haddock, Director of Houston Public Works, and Phillip Goodwin, Regulatory Compliance Director of Houston Water explained that the city had been invoiced $293,600 for overflows in fiscal year 2021 and estimated the city would owe another $1.2 million in stipulated penalties for fiscal year 2022. Our understanding is that the city is paying these penalties as they are invoiced. Currently these penalties are being paid to federal and state regulators and not being reinvested in a local supplemental environmental project.