Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
EPA must provide wastewater treatment plants with more information on how to
address water received from decontamination procedures used in response to
chemical, biological and radiological attacks, a wastewater treatment official
told participants at a conference in Denver earlier this month, citing
uncertainty about health effects on treatment plant workers and how to address
specific contaminants.
Stephen Pearlman, speaking at an Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies
(AMSA) forum Nov. 7, said he was concerned that emergency response planning
among medical professionals, including decontamination planning, is further
along than the development of protocols for wastewater treatment officials on
how to handle contaminants. AMSA represents the nation's publicly owned
treatment works (POTWs).
"We are not always included in an equation in which we need to be included,"
said Pearlman, director of regulatory and connector relations for Denver's Metro
Wastewater Reclamation District, citing "myriad possible contaminants" that
could enter treatment plants through decontamination processes. "Communities are
preparing for this medically and we need to be prepared as well," he said.
Pearlman expressed hope that AMSA would tap a recently announced EPA grant
program that provides funding for security research, among other areas, and an
AMSA source said the group may seek funding through the program, called the
Water Quality Cooperative Agreements program, for which EPA requested proposals
Oct. 31.
Pearlman said treatment works must be involved with EPA in enhanced planning and
contaminant research to help determine whether they can accept waters and how to
treat them. "The problem is we do not have enough information to successfully
carry out the planning process," Pearlman said.
A paper he presented notes, for example, that POTWs need information on how
chemical agents may degrade in wastewater, concentrate in sludge and biosolids,
and how to approach many other issues regarding biological, radiological and
chemical contaminants. The paper is available on InsideEPA.com.
The concerns come as EPA is already exploring in detail how POTWs should cope
with potential terrorist attacks, according to EPA officials. The agency is
developing a protocol to help wastewater treatment works determine how to treat
anthrax contamination, and an EPA source says the agency is exploring how
treatment works should handle other potential contaminants as well.
One regional official who has worked with the agency's water protection task
force says EPA will likely issue guidance to POTWs that addresses treatment of
contaminated waters.