Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
No. 215
Thursday, November 8, 2001 Page A-3
ISSN 1521-9402
News
Water Pollution
EPA to Move Ahead With Proposal To Reduce Sanitary Sewer Overflows
NASHVILLE--The effort to provide national consistency to the regulation of
sanitary sewer overflows is going to move forward with some revisions to the
preamble of a proposed rule that was signed, but not published, by the Clinton
administration, Environmental Protection Agency officials said Nov. 7.
In January, EPA announced a proposed rule that would have expanded Clean Water
Act permitting requirements for wastewater treatment facilities with the goal of
reducing sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs), which are illegal discharges of raw
sewage that are more likely to occur during wet weather.
The proposal was never published, but was made available to the public Jan. 5 (5
DEN A-7, 1/8/01).
The proposal was among Clinton-era rulemakings inherited by the Bush
administration that subsequently were delayed to allow the new administration an
opportunity to review them.
Recent Decision to Move Forward
G. Tracy Mehan, EPA assistant administrator for water, told a gathering of
municipal wastewater officials he decided Nov. 2 to move forward with the
proposal by using the general framework created by a federal advisory committee,
which worked on the rulemaking.
"I'm prepared to move forward with the rule with the understanding of its long
and tortured history," Mehan said at a pretreatment coordinators workshop
sponsored by the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies and EPA.
Mehan said he did not know when the proposal would be issued nor what specific
changes would be made, saying it was too early in the process to know.
Kevin Weiss, the sanitary sewer overflow program manager in the EPA Office of
Wastewater Management, said the January proposal was widely circulated, although
it was never published, and the agency intends to revise the preamble to reflect
comments it has received. He said EPA will propose the same regulatory language
that was supported by the federal advisory committee and included in the January
document.
The proposed regulations, Weiss said, would include provisions on recordkeeping;
capacity, management, operation, and maintenance; and expanded permit coverage
to satellite collection facilities.
One of the most contentious issues in the rulemaking, he said, is the role of
the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit compliance limits on
the capacity of treatment facilities. Sanitary sewer overflows can occur during
wet weather when treatment systems are overwhelmed by the additional water. One
way to address this problem is to increase the storage capacity of these
facilities, an option that comes at significant cost passed on to the
ratepayers.
Municipal officials have been particularly critical of the January "preproposal"
saying it relies too much on the premise that sanitary sewer overflows can be
eliminated and does not do enough to shield the municipalities from enforcement
action when overflows do occur.
"Even the most optimally operated and maintained systems can and do experience
unavoidable overflows," representatives of municipal groups, including the
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, said in a March 5 letter to EPA
asking it to re-evaluate and to rework the January preproposal (50 DEN A-1,
3/14/01).
Capacity, Management, Operation Provisions
Weiss said EPA received strong support for the capacity, management, operation,
and maintenance (CMOM) provisions in the January proposal, which he described as
a management system approach that includes a process for documentation as well
as proper installation, testing, and inspection of new and rehabilitated
systems. The CMOM provisions also would address flow from satellite systems,
Weiss said.
The goal of the CMOM provisions is to improve continually the performance of the
system by identifying problems and making changes, he said.
Weiss said EPA is seeking more information from wastewater treatment officials
to help write the proposal. For example, the agency seeks information on the
nexus between pretreatment activities and the CMOM and is considering guidance
for CMOM requirements and audit protocols.
Mediation Suggested to Resolve Issues
Mehan told BNA he wanted to get the proposal out to enable interested parties to
comment. He said he recognized the serious differences groups have over the
issue and suggested the rulemaking could go through some sort of mediation
process after the proposal to help resolve some of the issues.
On the question of extending permit coverage to satellite collection facilities,
several muncipal officials have said they are concerned about liability issues.
One official said he is concerned he would be held responsible for a satellite
system when he has no jurisdiction over that facility.
Weiss said that issue would be laid out in the preamble, and the agency would
take comment on how to address it. The advisory committee, he said, recommended
a permit for the municipal satellite entity, but with flexibility to allow the
regional entity to take some responsibility.
Officials at publicly owned treatment works have opposed including satellite
systems on their permits because they say they would be responsible for any
violations while having little authority to prevent overflows.
By Susan Bruninga