Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Advocates, Treatment Officials Should Work Toward Common Goals, NRDC Attorney Says
Despite their different views on the regulation of sewage treatment plants,
environmental advocates and municipal wastewater officials should work together
to meet common goals, a Natural Resources Defense Council attorney said May 25.
Speaking at a conference of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies,
Nancy Stoner, director of the clean water project for NRDC, said the two
organizations "need each other" to push for the common goal of getting more
funding for infrastructure.
Both groups want Congress to authorize a trust fund, similar to those that exist
for highways and airports, to help pay for needed upgrades and repairs of water
and wastewater infrastructure. The funding shortfall for water and wastewater
infrastructure is estimated at between $535 billion and $1 trillion over 20
years, depending on which factors are included.
Wastewater treatment officials need environmental advocacy groups to get the
word out to the public, and the groups need the political connections of an
organization such as AMSA to reach lawmakers, Stoner said.
Two Sides Need Each Other
"AMSA can't get a trust fund without someone telling the public about sewage
overflows and the need for treatment," she said, adding that on certain
regulatory issues, the two organizations should just "agree to disagree."
Several AMSA officials differed with some of Stoner's presentation, saying
environmental groups go too far in demonizing the industry to achieve their own
ends.
A case in point is a report released by NRDC and the Environmental Integrity
Project in February called Swimming in Sewage (33 DEN A-6, 2/20/04 ). The report
outlines the problem of aging infrastructure and the sewer overflows, many of
which the groups say would be avoided if wastewater utilities would improve
their operation and maintenance. It goes on to accuse AMSA of downplaying the
significance of "accidental or routine discharges of untreated sewage."
Lisa Hollander, assistant general counsel for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer
District, said a collaborative working relationship involves respect for what
each other does.
"You don't just need AMSA for its political connections," she said. "You need us
because we're the ones doing the work."
Common Ground on Some Issues
Stoner said AMSA and environmental groups also could work together on such
regulatory issues as the effluent limitation guidelines program. Specifically,
she cited the March 31 decision by the Environmental Protection Agency not to
establish effluent limits for the construction and development industry (63 DEN
A-18, 4/2/04 ).
The result, she said, is more runoff from construction sites that ultimately
will have to be dealt with by municipal separate storm sewer systems, also
called MS4s, many of which are linked or closely related to the wastewater
utilities that make up the bulk of AMSA's membership.
Wastewater treatment officials and environmental groups disagree on several
other regulatory issues, such as a draft policy to allow partially treated
sewage to be blended with that which has been fully treated before being
discharged. NRDC and other environmental groups oppose the practice, known as
blending, saying it does not protect against pathogens. AMSA and other municipal
groups say it is a cost-effective treatment practice that has been used for
decades and still meets Clean Water Act requirements that discharges meet
secondary treatment standards.
The groups also disagree on whether EPA should move forward with a draft rule
widely circulated in 2002 that would revise the total maximum daily loads
program. NRDC opposes the draft changes, which have never been formally
proposed, while AMSA and other industrial dischargers said the agency should
release the rule for comment so that it can be shaped to improve the unwieldy
TMDL program.
More Green Infrastructure Needed
Betsy Otto, director of the watersheds program at American Rivers, said the loss
of "the green infrastructure network" is causing problems for many AMSA members.
She was referring to the effects of urbanization on small streams and wetlands,
which she said play an important role in improving water quality by absorbing
stormwater, excess nutrients, and other pollutants. As these natural resources
get paved over or diverted into culverts or other stormwater management systems,
she said, the stormwater flows become the responsibility of wastewater treatment
facilities that must treat the discharges to meet Clean Water Act standards.
"A lot more can be done to integrate green approaches with point-source
approaches," Otto said.
Environmental groups and wastewater treatment officials should also have a
united front to ensure that an amendment setting aside close to $1 billion for
stormwater mitigation projects is included in the $318 billion highway bill
(H.R. 3550, S. 1072) currently being debated in Congress, Otto said. The Senate
version contains the amendment, but the House version does not, she said.
"The stormwater amendment is the No. 1 targeted issue in the bill for" state
departments of transportation, who do not support the set-aside, she said.
David Katz, deputy water commission for the Philadelphia Water Department, asked
how the regulatory requirements of the TMDL program can be reconciled with
cooperative, watershed-based solutions such as stream restoration efforts.
"We tend to spend money on things that don't do the most good and waste the most
money," he said, adding that restoration efforts do more, but are hard to
incorporate into a TMDL.
Stoner said the TMDL program is the best way to identify what the problems are
that can be addressed through innovative, cooperative approaches.
Regulatory, Cooperative Efforts Needed
Otto said the TMDL program can help achieve natural restoration goals in some
cases. She cited sediment control as an example. Major sources of sediment
impairing many urban streams are construction and development activities and
instream erosion caused by increased stormwater flows, she said. Natural
restoration activities would be one way to mitigate and reduce stormwater
impacts from development.
Katz said the TMDL program is "a poor tool to deal with sediment issues." A more
responsible approach, he said, is better watershed planning, which can be
hindered by the time and resources required to do TMDLs that may have a
negligible impact on water quality.
Otto said improving water quality requires both the regulatory approaches, such
as those in the stormwater and TMDL programs, and smart growth initiatives that
involve cooperative approaches to watershed management.
By Susan Bruninga