Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
EPA
proposes easing wastewater regulation during storms
By Elizabeth Shogren
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON The Bush administration proposed Monday to allow sewage treatment
plants to release partially treated sewage into waterways when utilities are
inundated with wastewater during heavy rainstorms or snowmelts.
The change would be the latest in a series of apparent rollbacks of
environmental regulations by the administration, a record Democrats hope to
capitalize on during the presidential election next year.
The Environmental Protection Agency said the proposal would help local utilities
prevent the accidental overflows of raw sewage into waterways that sometimes
occur when treatment plants are overloaded.
"We are working with these facilities to prevent backups of sewage in homes and
the environment while requiring all discharges to meet Clean Water Act permit
limits," said G. Tracy Mehan, assistant EPA administrator for water.
But environmental groups said the proposal would violate the Clean Water Act and
allow more viruses and parasites into drinking and swimming water.
"More Americans would get sick from waterborne illnesses because of this
indefensible and illegal policy change," said Nancy Stoner, director of the
clean-water program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national
environmental group.
Wastewater agencies said the proposal would merely explicitly authorize
treatment plants to continue doing what many have done for years.
"Blending has always been an accepted practice," said Adam Krantz, a spokesman
for the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies. The agency estimates that
between 20 percent and 50 percent of treatment facilities sometimes blend
treated water with partially treated water and then release it into waterways.
Blending is necessary, he said, to enable those plants to handle large amounts
of wastewater.
Neither Krantz's group nor the EPA had data on how much blending occurs and how
much might occur under the new rule.
The proposal would allow plants to divert some wastewater from biological
treatment, where tiny microbes eat pollutants. Before the diverted water is
blended with the treated water, it would be disinfected and solids would be
filtered out.
Some regions allow blending, and others forbid it unless there is no other
feasible alternative, according to James Hanlon, director of the EPA's Office of
Wastewater Management.
If the new policy is adopted, some states, including California, could maintain
tougher regulations. But 25 states prohibit environmental regulations that
exceed federal standards.
Tom Howard, deputy director of the California State Water Resources Control
Board, said the proposal would have little consequence in California, where most
sewage plants were designed to handle surges of wastewater. The state's
requirements would protect water quality as well.
"You can't just bypass treatment and dump sewage into waterways," Howard said.
The EPA stressed that all the water released into waterways would meet
requirements for various pollutants. But there are no standards governing
illness-causing protozoa.
Hanlon said that as wastewater agencies have improved their sewer pipes in
recent years, more water is reaching treatment facilities instead of seeping
into the ground. The water sometimes exceeds the capacity for treating it,
increasing the need for blending.
Hanlon said the EPA had no information to indicate whether the proposed policy
would increase illnesses, as environmentalists charged. However, he said the
proposed policy would encourage permitting agencies to consider putting
additional limits on blending if the water is released into waterways that are
used for recreation downstream.
Some drinking-water experts said they hoped the policy would improve drinking
water by letting local governments spend less on sewage treatment and more on
water treatment.
11/4/03 St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minn.) 2A
2003 WL 2627639