U.S. Forest Service Ran Banned Cesspools for 15 Years, EPA Says

The U.S. Forest Service operated cesspools in two states as recently as 2020, 15 years after it was supposed to stop using them to prevent water contamination, the EPA said Thursday.

The Forest Service stopped operating the 77 cesspools that serve large residential buildings in 11 national forests in California and Arizona under an agreement it reached with the Environmental Protection Agency, which in 2016 discovered they were still in use.

The EPA banned the cesspools in 2005 under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The cesspools discharge untreated sewage directly underground and can contaminate both groundwater and surface water that ...