Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
EPA Policy To Bring Savings? Forget It!
By BOB SHRALUKA
Reopen the vault. Start digging in the purse. Revisit your friendly banker.
That big hope of a couple of weeks ago -- that the City of Decatur might be able
to save some of the millions of dollars it must spend on a couple of unfunded
mandates dealing with waste and storm water -- has been put to rest. Buried,
actually. Dead and gone. R.I.P.
When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on November 4 that it
would formalize a policy allowing sewage treatment plants to skip a process for
killing some pathogens after heavy rains or snow melts, it raised hopes that
Decatur could avoid spending at least some of the $7 million-plus to remove
three Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO) in its treatment system. The project is
already under way, although in its early stages.
At a city council meeting the same night the story broke, Mayor Fred Isch and
others in the city administration declined to comment, understandably not
knowing what -- if any -- impact the EPA policy would have here.
Jeff Ponist of Commonwealth Engineering, the Indianapolis firm the city has
hired to guide it through to meeting the unfunded mandates -- the other deals
with storm water runoff -- was on hand for Tuesday night's city council meeting
and brought the bad news: no savings.
In reality, the EPA announcement was "nothing really new," Ponist explained, but
more like a clarification. "It's actually something that's been around for 10
years."
The impact here? "Really, not much," he said.
THE EPA had been asked by the Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies to spell out its
policy and so it did. According to Ponist, the policy was being "interpreted in
different ways" by some communities, so the EPA came forth with the draft
policy, or clarification.
The draft policy issued by EPA focuses on the practice of blending, which occurs
when large volumes of wastewater, caused by heavy rain or snow, exceed the
capacity of the secondary treatment units at a sewage treatment facility.
"We are in some degree doing some of that blending and treating" in the
Long-Term Control Plan the City of Decatur has put together to correct the
overflow problem here, according to Ponist. "We found it more cost effective for
Decatur to separate," he continued. "So there is not a substantial impact to
Decatur..." from the EPA draft policy.
Ponist earlier informed council that Commonwealth has received bids for the
ultraviolet system that will be part of the new Decatur treatment setup.
"So we're moving forward on it (the project)," the engineer said, noting that it
is hoped construction on Phase 1 of the project can begin next summer.