Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
National Policy on Sanitary Sewer Spills Needed, Treatment Group Say in Proposal
A national policy to control overflows from sanitary sewers should be
developed to provide flexibility while reducing the number of spills and the
amount of sewage released, a group representing wastewater treatment agencies
said in a plan announced Jan. 18.
The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies sent an "action plan" to the
Environmental Protection Agency and Congress in response to an agency report on
overflows from combined and sanitary sewers.
"A national policy on SSOs remains an essential missing piece of the complex
overflow puzzle," the AMSA action plan said. "Without a regulatory policy and/or
program on SSOs, EPA's current enforcement policies are forcing many communities
to commit tremendous resources in a fruitless attempt to eliminate all SSOs."
In August 2004, EPA released its Report to Congress on the Impacts and Control
of Combined Sewer Overflows and Sanitary Sewer Overflows, the second of two
publications required under the fiscal year 2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act
(P.L. 106-554) amending the Clean Water Act. The report said that while 850
million gallons continues to be released annually from sewer overflows, progress
on reducing the number and frequency of spills is being made (166 DEN A-10,
8/27/04 ).
Part of the reason for the progress is the 1994 policy issued by EPA calling for
cities to implement nine minimum controls to reduce combined sewer overflows
(CSOs), agency and AMSA officials agree.
The key to this policy is the development and approval of long-term control
plans that outline steps municipalities will take to reduce their overflows.
Long-Term Control Plans
These long-term control plans are often developed as part of a consent agreement
between EPA and a city whose spills continue to cause quality problems. For
example, in some cities, the plan calls for the construction over 10 or 20 years
of deep tunnels or other types of storage facilities where excess wastewater
from storm events can be held until they can be conveyed to the treatment plant.
Combined sewer systems carry both sanitary sewage and stormwater in one pipe
that is designed to release directly into a river or lake once its carrying
capacity is exceeded. This is to prevent the excess flows from overwhelming the
treatment plant.
While the 1994 policy has shown success for CSOs, and was codified in 2000 by
Congress, no similar policy exists for sanitary sewer overflows.
The Clean Water Act prohibits discharges, including sewer overflows, without a
permit, but EPA has not been consistent in how it enforces against SSOs,
wastewater officials have said.
EPA's 2004 report to Congress provides further justification for a national SSO
policy that offers flexibility, AMSA said, adding that overflows can never be
prevented.
A national SSO policy should use "holistic, watershed-based approaches" that can
ensure limited resources are directed to the overflows having the greatest
impact, AMSA said.
In addition, the agency should develop a "national municipal collection system
permitting program" that relies on the management, operation, and maintenance
model as the standard for measuring compliance, the action plan said.