COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed an emergency motion in court Tuesday to force the eastern Ohio village of Harrisville to stop an ongoing wastewater treatment system failure that is pouring untreated sewage into a local waterway and down a hillside near a baseball field.
The legal action, filed in the Harrison County Common Pleas Court, comes after a complete collapse of local government oversight at the facility. According to the Attorney General’s office, a village official revealed that the entire village council has resigned and the mayor currently lives outside city limits, leaving no local leaders available to authorize emergency repairs.
“When sewage is flowing into a creek and local officials refuse to act, the state will take them to court,” AG Yost said in a statement.
Inspectors with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documented that the village has failed to maintain its wastewater plant for nearly five months. The site has had no designated operator overseeing the treatment facility since March 8.
The state EPA’s investigation revealed a string of severe environmental violations at the site, including:
- A treatment plant manhole actively overflowing and completely bypassing the filtration system.
- Raw, untreated sewage pooling outside the plant and spreading down a hillside directly adjacent to a local baseball field.
- Visible sewage flowing out of the plant’s discharge pipe.
- The growth of sewage fungus and algae inside Sloan Run, a local creek.
- Strong, foul odors radiating along the creek bed.
The emergency court order seeks to legally compel the village to take immediate corrective action, starting with the hiring of a certified, qualified operator to secure the facility and stop the environmental contamination.
Harrisville, located in Harrison County, is a small community of roughly 259 residents and 90 homes. The case was officially referred to the Attorney General’s Environmental Enforcement Section by the Ohio EPA for immediate intervention.
