Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
No. 30
Wednesday, February 13, 2002 Page A-2
ISSN 1521-9402
News
Water Pollution
Draft Wet Weather Policy Criticized By Environmental Groups in Letter to EPA
Draft guidance being circulated by the Environmental Protection Agency that
would allow discharges of partially treated sewage under certain conditions
during wet weather is misguided and should be made available for public comment,
according to environmental advocacy groups.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups commented on the draft
policy in a letter Feb. 8 to Tracy Mehan, EPA assistant administrator for water.
"We believe that this draft guidance is seriously misguided from a public health
perspective and environmental standpoint," the letter from NRDC, the Cahaba
River Society, and the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said. "We also
believe it is unlawful to make such fundamental changes to legal requirements
through a guidance document."
The comments referred to a Dec. 1, 2001, draft that would clarify National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit requirements for publicly owned
treatment works, or POTWs, in three specific situations related to wet weather
events (4 DEN AA-1, 1/7/02).
The scenarios addressed in the draft are discharges from emergency overflow
structures, discharges from physical/chemical treatment processes used
exclusively for treating peak excess flows located within municipal sanitary
sewer collection systems, and wet weather treatment scenarios at POTW treatment
plants.
Enforcement Discretion
The draft guidance would allow some enforcement discretion for bypasses, which
are illegal under the Clean Water Act. Bypass discharges occur during extreme
wet weather events when excess flows threaten to overwhelm the treatment plant.
To avoid inundating the treatment facilities, these flows bypass the secondary
treatment phase and are discharged directly into a water body with only primary
treatment.
The Clean Water Act requires wastewater be treated to secondary standards, which
address pathogens and other pollutants. Bypasses are only allowed if the
publicly owned treatment works can show that they were unavoidable, that there
was no feasible alternative, and if the permitting authority is notified.
Issues such as what constitutes a feasible alternative would be clarified in the
draft guidance.
Also addressed in the draft is a measure known as blending, whereby flows are
routed around the secondary treatment during peak flows and recombined with
effluent that has been treated to secondary standards before being discharged.
The environmental groups said the draft guidance essentially would "allow
dilution to substitute for treatment in a number of circumstances in which it is
now illegal."
FACA Should Be Consulted, Groups Say
A federal advisory committee that advises EPA on wet weather issues should be
consulted on the draft guidance, the environmental groups said. In addition, the
groups said they were concerned that the agency had sought comment from sewage
treatment officials whose operations are affected by the draft.
The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies commented on the blending
provisions of the draft in a Jan. 10 letter, but were not privy to the draft
before it was published by BNA Jan. 11, one AMSA official said Feb. 12.
Moreover, the AMSA official said, the agency's intentions regarding blending
have been well known for about a year because the agency sent letters outlining
its thinking on the issue in response to concerns raised by several members of
Congress.
"We were only commenting on the blending provisions," the AMSA official said.
An EPA official said in January that the draft was submitted to states and EPA's
regional offices for comment.
AMSA officials said at their winter conference Feb. 5-8 that they would like to
comment on the draft guidance and are pulling together ideas to submit to the
agency.
In the Jan. 10 comments on the blending policy, AMSA said that the use of
blending "is absolutely essential for many POTWs to treat wet weather flows and
still meet secondary effluent limitations."
Public Health Issues
The environmental groups said the agency needs to look closely at the public
health issues surrounding instances of blending and bypasses.
"Allowing increased discharges of inadequately treated sewage in rain events can
be expected to significantly expand the public health threat from waterborne
pathogens," the groups said. They cited an EPA-sponsored study published in the
August 2001 issue of the American Journal of Public Health showing that more
than half of the waterborne disease outbreaks in the United States in the past
50 years were preceded by heavy rainfall.
Neither the draft guidance nor the AMSA comments "even mention pathogen
reduction as a goal of wastewater treatment," the letter said.
The AMSA comments said that during wet weather conditions, the POTWs receive and
must treat flows that are much higher than those during dry conditions. The
collection systems and treatment plants often cannot accommodate the excess, and
it would be "inefficient and technologically infeasible" to redesign them to
accommodate these conditions.
"If the operator decides to force more flow through the plant than it is
designed for, he/she risks biological washout and extended treatment process
failure," AMSA said. "If the operator decides to protect the plant and not
accept additional flow, he/she risks increased overflows from the collection
system, basement flooding, and a potentially significant bypass around the
entire treatment process."
Movement Toward Reality
At their winter conference, AMSA officials said they were concerned about how
the draft guidance would fit in with the agency's efforts to craft a regulation
setting consistent standards for sanitary sewer overflows.
Lisa Hollander, an attorney with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District,
said at the conference that the blending policy in the draft guidance showed
"some movement toward reality."
However, she was concerned that it might contradict some elements in the
proposed SSO rule that was signed in January 2001 but never published.
The draft guidance would allow blending if it can be included in the National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for the POTW, she said. However,
getting a blending provision in the permit may be difficult to do.
"The permits have to be more flexible," she said.
The draft policy also discusses requirements for a policy on capacity,
management, operation, and maintenance, known as a CMOM, which is a staple of
the SSO proposal. However, since the SSO proposal is not a final regulation,
technically that means there is no CMOM policy, one official said.
State Officials Comment
Meanwhile, several state officials did comment on the draft guidance.
Officials with the Tennessee Division of Water Pollution Control said that EPA's
regulations at 40 CFR 122.41(m) prohibits "sending any part of sewage around any
portion of the treatment train."
Roger D. Lemasters, the division's chief engineer, said in Feb. 4 comments that
while the POTW may argue that blended flows meet secondary standards, the state
is constrained by the regulation that allows bypassing only if it is "essential
maintenance to assure efficient operation."
Lemasters also raised the concern about references in the draft policy to the
SSO proposal that has not been officially proposed.
EPA officials have said they expect to circulate a draft of the proposal by June
and formally propose it in about September.
Agency officials were not available for comment Feb. 12.
By Susan Bruninga