Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - NACWA in the News
EPA Cedes Wastewater Planning to Groups
Oct 29, 2005 Water Technology Online
WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations the Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC) and the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA)
announced a plan to protect the public from exposure to inadequately treated
sewage, an NRDC release said.
The plan is an alternative to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal
that would have allowed wastewater facilities to discharge inadequately treated
sewage into waterways virtually anytime it rains, the release said.
The Clean Water Act allows facilities to release partially treated sewage only
during extreme weather events when it is not possible for a facility to fully
treat the entire flow, but the EPA plan would have allowed dumping even if full
treatment was feasible, the release said.
The EPA withdrew the proposal hours before Congress approved it and told the two
groups to devise a better plan, the release added.
The plan the NRDC and NACWA negotiated states that facilities must upgrade and
repair leaky sewage systems, fully treat sewage unless regulators see no
feasible way for it to be done and notify the public and environmental agencies
every time they discharge inadequately treated sewage, the release said.