A federal judge on Thursday released Jefferson County from a decades-long consent decree ordering rehabilitation of its sewer system.

The County Commission and the Cahaba River Society, which filed the case forcing the sewer work, filed a joint request to terminate the 1996 consent decree, which also included the Environmental Protection Agency.

As part of the agreement, the county committed to completing several additional capital improvement projects by early 2027 that are planned and funded to further reduce sewer overflows.

The settlement confirms that Jefferson County has met the goals for improving the system’s infrastructure, operations and maintenance under the decree, achieving industry best practices to minimize sewer overflows.

U.S. District Court Judge David Proctor signed the settlement late Thursday, releasing the county from the federal court’s oversight.

“We’re extremely pleased with the progress that the county has made,” said Beth Stewart, former executive director of the Cahaba River Society. “They have a very well-run sewer system now. They’ve made tremendous improvements.  We felt it was the time to congratulate them of their progress and close this chapter.”

The society is represented in the case against the county by the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The sewer decree was the last federal consent decree under which the county was operating. Almost four years ago, it was released from a decree that for 45 years had governed its hiring and employment practices.

County Attorney Theo Lawson said Jefferson County is always working toward doing the best it can do to serve its citizens.

“That’s always been our goal and we’re just happy that was recognized by all the parties to the decree,” he said. “All, ultimately, agreed that we should be relieved of it.

“Since I got there, it’s always been my goal to try to make sure the county is compliant with all state and federal laws,” Lawson continued. “After we were able to successfully be released from (the employee consent decree), this was my next goal, to ensure that everybody knew that we were not the same county that we were years ago. It has always been our goal to be in compliance of all laws and to review that and be sure it was appropriate to ask for that termination.”

County Commission President Jimmie Stephens said he feels a great deal of gratification, a great sigh of relief and “a little bit of ‘Attaboy, see what you can get done when you get everything working in the same direction and have everyone focused laser sharp to reach a goal.’

“Throughout the past decade and a half, it’s been one of our primary objectives to be relieved from this consent decree that’s plagued the citizens of Jefferson County,” he said. “I want to thank the staff, our fellow commissioners and our legal staff for working together and to remain laser focused for the continuation and finally the resolution of this consent decree.”

David Denard, Jefferson County director of Environmental Services, said the lifting of the consent decree is the culmination of the hard work of a lot of people in his department over a pretty long period.

“It really just represents an improvement in the entire system to where the entire system is operating sustainably in a way where it really hasn’t ever operated for most of its existence,” he said. “It’s a big improvement for water quality in Jefferson County and really represents how we will do business going forward to protect water quality and to do that efficiently as we can.”

Denard acknowledged that in the 1990s and early 2000s, the county could discharge hundreds of millions – sometimes a billion – gallons a year of raw sewage into local waterways. That is no longer the case.

“We’ve eliminated 99.9% of that,” he said. “The compliance rate is about 99.9%. We drastically reduced our overflows, both in terms of occurrences and volume both. Between our refunding that we accomplished at the first of this year and now closing out the consent decree, it’s the culmination of a lot of work from a lot of people who are very competent professionals.”

The Cahaba River Society isn’t going to rely just on the competency of the county’s professionals, though. Stewart said it will remain vigilant.

“In the settlement, we will continue to receive reports from the county about sanitary sewer overflows and their progress on the remaining repair project through March of 2027,” she said. “We have been vigilant and have been meeting with the county annually and reviewing their reports quarterly, I think for over a decade now. We’ve appreciated that relationship with the county where they share that information and where we have the ability to sit down and talk through what issues they’re facing to help us understand their system and their planning tools.

“We’ve become very impressed with the state-of-the-art systems they’ve put in place,” Stewart added. “It’s our expectation, under the professional management that they have, that that will continue.”

The groups entered the 1996 consent decree after Cahaba River Society and private citizens sued Jefferson County for permit violations, including unpermitted discharge of wastewater containing raw sewage into the Black Warrior and Cahaba rivers and tributaries in violation of the Clean Water Act. The decree contained a multi-phase plan of implementing system upgrades and monitoring to bring the system into compliance.

The county’s $3.2 billion debt for fixing its sewers over many years was the largest factor in the county’s filing for bankruptcy in 2011, at the time the largest municipal bankruptcy ever in the country.