Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
When it Rains, EPA Would Let Waste Pour
Plan could boost dumping into lake
By Michael Hawthorne
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
February 15, 2004
The Bush administration wants to make it easier for cities to release partially
treated sewage during heavy rains and snowmelts, a policy shift that could boost
levels of disease-causing pathogens in Lake Michigan and other waterways.
Sewage spills into the lake already are a source of E. coli and other bacterial
"bugs" that frequently lead to beach closings during the summer. Chicago banned
swimming at Lake Michigan beaches 130 times last year; there were 178 beach
closings in Lake County.
Under a policy change pushed by the Environmental Protection Agency, municipal
sewage plants around the lake and across the country would gain explicit
authority during wet weather to skip a required treatment that kills most of the
bacteria, viruses and parasites in wastewater.
Some EPA officials have privately fought against the proposal, noting the agency
rejected a similar policy in the early 1980s because partially treated sewage
may still contain potentially harmful pathogens.
Plant operators and business interests have continued to lobby for the practice,
which they call "sewage blending."
They contend the alternatives are even worse. Surges of storm water can
overwhelm treatment plants and force operators to pump raw, untreated sewage
into waterways, they say. Or waste can back up into basements before it reaches
a treatment plant.
"We felt it was necessary to issue a definitive national statement that this is
an acceptable option," said James Hanlon, director of the EPA's Office of
Wastewater Management. "Continuing to prevent it may not be necessary from a
public health standpoint."
The only other option, Hanlon and others say, is to spend billions of tax
dollars upgrading treatment plants, something that appears unlikely in the
current political climate. Federal funding for plant improvements and other
clean water projects would be cut by nearly $500 million in Bush's proposed
budget for 2005.
Environmental and public health groups have flooded the EPA with thousands of
letters and e-mails protesting the policy shift. They contend it is another
rollback of a long-standing environmental regulation by the administration.
"This is totally opposite of what the general public wants to see," said state
Sen. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest), who sponsored a recent study that identified
human waste in Lake Michigan as a source of E. coli and other bacteria
responsible for beach closings in Lake County.
Another opponent is the state of Florida, led by Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's
brother. Among several criticisms filed with the EPA, the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection said the blending policy would reward utilities that
haven't upgraded their treatment plants to handle storm runoff.
"This is an extraordinary short-sighted policy," said Dale Bryson, another
opponent who formerly directed the water division at the EPA's regional office
in Chicago. "You can't fix the problem at the end of the pipe."
20th Century achievement
As the bulletin announcing the EPA's policy shift points out, building sewage
treatment plants for America's teeming cities and small towns is considered one
of the greatest public health achievements of the last century. Gone are the
days when thousands of people died of cholera and typhoid fever in 19th Century
outbreaks. So are the days when Lake Michigan, the source of Chicago's drinking
water, also served as the region's sewer.
Today human and industrial waste normally goes through a three-step treatment
process before the water left over is pumped into lakes, rivers and coastal
waters. Solids are removed first, then the sewage is sent to tanks filled with
microbes that break down remaining solids and kill pathogens. The water
typically is disinfected with chlorine before it is released into waterways.
Treatment plants are currently allowed to alter the routine only during
maintenance or if lives and property are threatened.
The EPA plans to make its policy shift final after considering public comments
filed with the agency. It would allow sewage plants to route waste around the
biological treatment tanks during heavy rains or snowmelts, when rushes of storm
water can flush out the beneficial microbes. Partially treated waste would be
screened, disinfected and diluted with fully treated sewage, according to the
EPA.
Political pressure forced the EPA to abandon a similar proposal in 1984. Six
years later, in a report to Congress, the agency concluded that skipping
biological treatment could be a "hazard to public health."
Without that form of treatment, sewage plants are much less effective at
removing pathogens such as E. coli, Cryptosporidium, Giardia and salmonella.
Bacteria, viruses and parasites in sewage can cause a variety of ailments,
including diarrhea and other gastrointestinal illnesses, dysentery, hepatitis,
and ear, nose, throat and respiratory problems.
Nearly a million people suffer waterborne infections in the U.S. each year,
according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In one of
the most infamous outbreaks, more than 100 people were killed and some 400,000
others sickened in 1993 by Cryptosporidium that had contaminated Milwaukee's
water supply.
Supporters of the EPA's proposal stress that any blended wastewater pumped into
lakes and streams would still meet limits established by a treatment plant's
operating permit.
"The environmentalists are spreading outright lies about this," said Ken Kirk,
executive director of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, which
represents public treatment plants. "Blending has been an accepted,
environmentally beneficial practice for decades."
No standard for pathogens
However, there are no standards for Cryptosporidium, Giardia and many other
sewage pathogens because it is assumed that complete treatment kills most of
them.
"If bypass of treatment equipment is allowed," the EPA concluded when it
rejected the idea two decades ago, "there is no assurance that these unlimited
pollutants will be controlled, even though those specifically limited still meet
permit limitations."
In the past, enforcement has been haphazard when municipal plants have released
partially treated sewage. Regional EPA officials in the Mid-Atlantic and South
generally have been more strict than their counterparts in the Midwest, a
disparity that fueled the campaign for a national policy.
Critics agree there are times when storms sweep through so fast that even the
best-equipped treatment plants can't handle the deluge. But they want the EPA to
be more specific that blending is allowed only during the most extreme weather.
"This policy would let treatment plants off the hook," said Laurel O'Sullivan,
water quality manager at the Lake Michigan Federation. "We're concerned they
will rely on blending instead of spending the money needed to upgrade their
facilities."
In Chicago, releases of storm runoff and human waste into Lake Michigan have
become relatively rare since the Deep Tunnel opened during the mid-1980s.
The tunnel acts as 1.5 billion-gallon rain bucket that siphons water before it
overwhelms aging sewers. A network of tunnels and reservoirs store the water
until it can be treated and sent into the Chicago River and its tributaries.
Raw sewage dumping rare
Raw sewage and storm runoff once was routinely dumped into Lake Michigan during
a sizable rain. But since the tunnel went online in 1985, untreated waste has
been released into the lake just 17 times, most recently after an August 2002
rainstorm.
"Our practice has always been to run everything through complete treatment
unless the plants are overloaded," said John Farnan, general superintendent of
the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. He supports the
proposed blending policy but doesn't think the district would need it.
Treatment plant operators contend that bacteria from seagull droppings and other
animal waste cause many beach closings. Chicago did not release untreated or
partially treated sewage into Lake Michigan last year, Farnan said, but the city
still closed its beaches on several occasions.
Milwaukee, the largest source of treated sewage dumped into Lake Michigan,
already has won Wisconsin's approval during wet weather to skip biological
treatment of wastewater.
Greater Milwaukee has its own Deep Tunnel. But officials there see blending as a
way to reduce the amount of untreated sewage pumped into the lake or backed up
into basements.
A state permit awarded last year allows the local sewer district to legally
release up to 60 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the lake every
day during wet weather.
About 60 billion gallons of waste flowed through Milwaukee's treatment system
last year, of which 57 million gallons was blended or partially treated,
according to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
"We see this as a safety valve," said Kevin Shafer, the district's executive
director. "It's better to have a blended flow into the lake than to let
untreated sewage get into the environment."