Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - NACWA in the News
Report: Midwest Cities´ Sewer Problems Cause Widespread Contamination
By Bruce Geiselman
May 18 -- Untreated sewage is contaminating lakes and waterways in six states
in the upper Midwest because cities and towns are failing to stop sewer
overflows, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project and
other environmental groups.
Combined sewer overflows pose a major threat to public health and will degrade
upper Midwestern waterways for several decades if the problem is not brought
under control, according to the report, released May 17.
More than half of the municipalities in the six-state region -- which includes
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin -- do not meet
minimum Clean Water Act requirements for combined sewer overflows, according to
the report. Nor do they have approved long-term plans in place for upgrading the
sewage systems, according to the report.
Combined sewer systems carry both stormwater and sewage to a treatment plant.
Problems occur during heavy rainfalls, when the systems can overflow, spewing
raw sewage into lakes and rivers.
Cities and states need funding to correct the problems, but proposed federal
budget cuts threaten to make the situation worse, according to the EIP study and
representatives of regional environmental groups including Friends of the
Chicago River, Michigan Clean Water Action, Friends of Milwaukee´s Rivers, the
Great Lakes Public Interest Research Group, and the Ohio Public Interest
Research Group.
"We can afford to clean up [combined sewer overflows]," said Erin Bowser,
director of Ohio PIRG. "Cities like Youngstown and Toledo, Ohio, have
demonstrated that costs can be managed, but there is no question that cleanup
costs money, which is why Congress should reverse the Bush administration´s
proposed cuts to the federal revolving loan fund used to help offset the cost of
sewer upgrades."
The Bush administration´s proposed fiscal 2006 budget calls for a $360 million
reduction in funding for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which loans money
to communities for sewer upgrades. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has
defended the funding level as adequate, but Senate Environment Committee
Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., has criticized the funding level as inadequate
in light of the costs local communities must bear to meet federal standards.
The environmental groups also objected to plans by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency to approve a sewage blending policy, which they said would
give sewer system operators greater freedom to blend fully and partially treated
sewage during peak flow periods.
"This means that our waters will receive more viruses, toxic chemical and other
pollutants," said Michele Merkel, author of the EIP report.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., is introducing a measure that would block the EPA
from finalizing the sewage blending policy, saying it could cause public
illness, contaminate beaches and harm fishing.
Groups representing sewer system operators, including the Association of
Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, defend the blending policy, saying it is an
essential component of local sewer agencies´ strategies for dealing with heavy
rains and snowmelt. Blending allows system operators to prevent systems from
involuntary overflows resulting in the release of raw sewage, according to
proponents.