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State, Local Officials Press Congress for More Sewer Funds
By Humberto Sanchez

WASHINGTON -- A group representing sewer authorities around the nation called on Congress yesterday to approve pending legislation that would over two years provide $1.5 billion in grants to states and local governments to help upgrade aging sewer systems and prevent combined storm sewer and sanitary sewer overflows. "We face financial challenges in the water infrastructure sector today that far exceed historical investment patterns and exceed the financial capacity of our local governments and ratepayers," Paul Pinault, executive director of the Narragansett Bay Commission, told a House water panel on behalf of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies.

The combined sewer overflow problem stems from the design of the nation's older sewer systems -- some of which are over 100 years old. Those systems carry sanitary wastewater -- domestic, commercial, and industrial waste liquids -- and storm runoff through a single-pipe system to a treatment facility. In periods of heavy rainfall or snowmelt, the amount of wastewater in a combined sewer system can exceed the capacity of the system or treatment plant.

Rather than have sewage back up into houses, buildings, and streets, built-in mechanisms allow the excess sewage to flow out of the systems at certain points upstream of sewage treatment plants and into the nearest body of water. However, the overflow comes at considerable cost to local water quality.

Approximately 800 communities, both large and small, have combined sewers, which could cost as much as $50.6 billion to bring up to Environmental Protection Agency standards, according to the EPA.

Sanitary sewer overflows are discharges of raw or inadequately treated sewage from municipal separate sanitary sewer systems, which are designed to carry domestic sanitary sewage but not storm water. These overflows -- which typically result from storm water infiltration or a failure in the sewer, such as a blocked or broken pipe -- often constitute a serious environmental and public health threat.

The EPA estimates that it would cost communities about $88.5 billion to improve sewers and bring them in compliance with EPA sanitary sewer overflow standards.

Through 2003, states have made about $3.4 billion in loans for CSO projects from the wastewater and drinking water state revolving funds, which provide low-interest loans to local governments and operators of sewer and water facilities, according to water panel aides. States have also made roughly $1.45 billion in loans for SSO projects over the same period.

However, the needs "across the nation have far outgrown the funding levels provided by the SRF," Pinault told members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's water resources and environment subcommittee.

A version of the sewer overflow bill, which was introduced last year by Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., is included in pending legislation that would have authorized spending $20 billion for wastewater SRFs over five years -- a significant increase over the $1.34 billion provided in fiscal 2004. But that bill has been stalled due to a proposal to include a controversial prevailing-wage requirement in the measure.

"While negotiations continue over the complex issues surrounding SRF reauthorization, at this point I think it is appropriate that we move sewer overflow legislation separate," Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., chairman of the subcommittee said at the hearing yesterday. "Communities all over the United States need help solving their sewer overflow problem." Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, introduced an identical bill last year in the Senate, but no action has been taken on the measure.