Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Return of the dilution solution EPA should not weaken local water-quality standards
Before the 1972 Clean Water Act became law, a widely used expression told why
communities dumped untreated sewage into rivers, lakes and coastal waters:
"Dilution is the solution to pollution." That bromide, stomped flat more than 30
years ago by the U.S. Congress, is breathing new life.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to relax treatment standards so local
governments will no longer be required to remove disease-causing microbes when
heavy rains result in heavier-than-usual flows at waste-water treatment plants.
When pathogens are not removed, they end up in rivers, lakes and waters along
U.S. coasts, including the Gulf of Mexico.
The Bush administration's plan, which is subject to a 60-day public comment
period, has strong backing from the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies, which represents local government utilities. If the relaxed standards
are used, localities will save the $90 billion to $190 billion it would cost to
meet current standards for treating high flows, according to the association.
That's a lot of money, indeed.
But what of the human toll, health-care costs and monetary and intrinsic expense
of the eenviornmental damage caused by not taking pathogens out of waste water
whenever possible? After all, people drink water pumped from rivers downstream
of waste-water plants, and they swim, fish and boat in those waters. It's no
coincidence that health departments close beaches after heavy storms.
Before the EPA weakens the treatment standards, EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt,
still in his first full week on the job, should be asked to appear on Capitol
Hill and explain the benefits and costs -- financial as well as environmental --
of the proposed policy change.
Economic benefits derived from environmental regulations often outweigh the
costs, according to a recent report by the White House's Office of Management
and Budget.
Also, thought should be given to the message that the proposed change sends.
Local governments -- including some that have already spent the money to handle
most high flows -- would be told that adequately treating waste water is no
longer a goal.
There are times -- such as when a tropical storm hits Florida -- that even the
best- equipped waste-water plants cannot treat all the water that comes through.
Those exceptional situations will happen, and fines should not automatically
follow.
But local governments should not be told it's OK to pollute every time there's a
heavy rainfall.
It would discouraging if one the EPA's first big changes under Leavitt's watch
is be to weaken water-quality standards. That is an inauspicious beginning.