Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Copyright (c) 2002 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sunday, August 25, 2002
LR one of many cities with wastewater woes EPA regulations spur upgrades
across U.S.
C.S. MURPHY ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Little Rock's subterranean sewer network is no longer out of sight or
out of mind.
During periods of rain, in fact, the system's muck is in full view,
spewing from overflowing manholes and trickling into rivers and creeks.
To avoid federal fines and court intervention, Little Rock Wastewater
Utility will soon embark on a sewer improvement project carrying a price
tag of $171 million to $180 million.
"You could spend a reasonable amount of money and solve a majority of
the problems, but you can spend billions of dollars and never fix the
entire problem," said Jim Pender, chairman of the Little Rock Sanitary
Sewer Committee. "How clean is clean?"
Scores of cities across the nation are wading through similar sewer
overflows -- and the corresponding sticker shock that makes Little
Rock's planned expense appear paltry.
Baltimore will spend $940 million. Baton Rouge, $461 million; Akron,
Ohio, $377 million; Atlanta, $1 billion; Washington, D.C., $1.26
billion. The list goes on as does a national debate over whether the
federal government can go too far in imposing budget-busting
regulations.
Although sewer overflows have been illegal since the creation of the
federal Clean Water Act in 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency in
recent years has been getting tough with municipalities by imposing
fines reaching $31,000 per day, per violation.
To avoid fines, many cities are entering into consent agreements
promising to make improvements. Others, such as Little Rock, have been
forced to action by lawsuits from environmental groups.
A settlement struck nearly a year ago in a lawsuit filed by the Sierra
Club against the Little Rock Wastewater Utility has accelerated the
city's improvement effort.
The utility agreed to have a plan in place to reduce sewer overflows --
now common in some areas of the city during extended periods of rain --
by the end of September. The utility also agreed to clean up sewer
overflows and notify residents when they occur.
Soon, Little Rock wastewater customers will realize the effect of
heightened federal enforcement.
If approved by the Little Rock Board of Directors on Sept. 3, sewer
bills will increase by at least 37 percent. Rates will likely increase
again in coming years as the city fixes overloaded, leaky pipes, expands
the capacity of older wastewater treatment plants and builds a plant in
burgeoning northwestern Little Rock.
"We'd prefer not raising rates a penny," Pender said. "But because of
this settlement, we have to spend this money. We don't have a choice."
So far this year, more than 250 sewer overflows have been reported in
Little Rock. EPA guidelines don't allow for any.
"It's a practical impossibility to build a system with no overflows"
Pender said. "Do we want to spend all of our available dollars
addressing this issue?"
NO TOLERANCE
Patrick Karney, director of the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater
Cincinnati, said the EPA's no-tolerance policy on overflows is
unrealistic and unreasonable.
"That's impossible. There's no way to defend such a position," he said.
"What you're dealing with in some cases is purely insane."
To appease the EPA, Cincinnati agreed to spend about $74 million to
correct that city's worst overflow sites and reduce the amount of raw
sewage flowing into rivers and streams by 100 million gallons per year,
Karney said.
Karney said he expects to raise rates by 6 percent per year for the
foreseeable future to pay for improvements.
But to eliminate sewer overflows as the EPA demands, the city would have
to spend between $1.25 billion and $3.6 billion, he said.
"This could bankrupt a number of cities in the country," said Karney,
who has testified before Congress on the issue. "You would have to
rebuild the spine of your entire system. That's clearly beyond the
reality of any municipality in the country."
Karney estimates that an average Cincinnati customer's monthly bill
would jump from the current $26.67 to more than $425 if city leaders
agreed to revamp the system to eliminate overflows.
Adam Krantz, spokesman for the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies, estimates $100 billion will be spent in the coming years
upgrading the nation's sewer systems. Many association members are
struggling to catch up with ever-changing and expensive federal sewer
regulations, he said.
"EPA regulations are always changing and they're always getting more
stringent," he said. "What happens in five years when there are 20 more
rules that no one expected? Sewer is a required, basic need that people
have to have to live a civilized life."
Krantz said EPA's sewer overflow regulations are "the single most
expensive federal regulation that municipalities have to handle."
Association members are pushing for more financial assistance from the
federal government to pay for EPA-mandated upgrades.
"The notion of increasing rates to pay for everything is not realistic,"
he said. "If the federal government is going to make regulations that
cost hundreds of billions of dollars, they should help out."