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Draft Guidance on Blending Attacked By 64 House Members in Letter to EPA
Sixty-four House members, including 10 Republicans, criticized draft
Environmental Protection Agency guidance allowing excess stormwater to be routed
around the biological process at sewage treatment plants before recombining it
with treated wastewater.
In a Jan. 12 letter to EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt, the House members said
the draft guidance, designed to clarify when the practice known as blending
would be allowed, would mean too much untreated sewage would be discharged into
rivers and lakes. EPA published the draft guidance Nov. 7 (68 Fed. Reg. 63,042;
213 DEN A-13; 11/4/03 ). The comment period on the draft expires Feb. 9.
"This draft guidance would turn back the clock on clean water protections, and we urge the EPA to enforce and strengthen these protections, rather than consider actions that would increase the threat of waterborne illnesses and environmental degradation," the letter, circulated by Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and E. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), said.
Sewage treatment plant officials said they have used the practice known as "blending" since the 1970s as a way to keep the biological treatment system from being inundated during storms when flows often exceed the facility's storage capacity. This excess flow is diverted around the secondary, or biological, treatment system and recombined with the wastewater that has been treated before being discharged. The resulting effluent still meets the secondary standards required under the Clean Water Act.
Bypass Regulations
However, the House members, some EPA enforcement officials, and environmental
advocates argued that blending violates the Clean Water Act's prohibitions
against bypassing any portion of the treatment process. As a result, pathogens
are released into rivers and lakes untreated, the letter said.
"The absence of this secondary treatment stage would allow the inclusion of
numerous dangerous viruses and parasites such as Hepatitis A and Giardia in the
product that is released into waterways," the letter from the House members
said.
While disinfection is a common method of treatment, the letter said that without
biological treatment, large quantities of chlorine would have to be used.
"Yet this draft guidance does not even require this disinfection stage, unless
it is necessary to meet water quality standards," the letter said.
The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies said the guidance is needed to
establish a consistent policy on the practice of blending. Municipalities in
several EPA regions have either faced enforcement action or been threatened with
it for allowing blending at their treatment plants. In July 2002, three
municipal groups sued the agency alleging that the agency's Region III office in
Philadelphia, Region IV office in Atlanta, and Region VI office in Dallas
specifically ban blending and that the prohibition is an uneven application of a
policy that is not supported by the agency's Clean Water Act bypass regulation.
Safer Alternatives
The House members said in the letter they understood the problem of excess flows
during storms, but said blending sewage during rain events is an unacceptable
alternative.
Rather, treatment facilities should consider alternatives cited in the draft
guidance, including building additional capacity or short-term storage until all
the sewage can be treated, the letter said.
"We find it disappointing that your agency has advanced a dangerous and
environmentally harmful approach that threatens public health over these safer
alternatives," the letter said.
AMSA officials said the alternatives are prohibitively expensive and would
ultimately be born by ratepayers.
Nancy Stoner, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which
opposes the blending policy, said the bypass regulations, 40 C.F.R. 122.41(m),
already spell out when wastewater can be legally diverted around the treatment
process. These include extreme circumstances, such as to prevent a loss of life,
or when no feasible alternative is available. However, the latter would require
doing a feasibility analysis, she said.