Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Cities Swamped By Sewer Costs
Monday, November 22, 2004By Sarah Kellogg
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - When it rains, it still pours - sewage, that is.
State and local agencies have spent billions of dollars to repair Michigan
sewer systems over the last 15 years, but millions of gallons of raw sewage
continue to flow into lakes and streams after heavy rainstorms and snow melts.
Local officials say they're working to rehabilitate sewage systems that are
crumbling due to age and overuse, but they concede they're not able to complete
the work because they don't have the money to do it.
"There are just so many operational and financial challenges that the cities in
this state are facing right now," said Don Stypula, executive director of the
Grand Valley Metropolitan Council, an alliance of local communities in the Grand
Rapids area. "Sewer repairs are one of those things that rarely pop up on the
radar screens of citizens in general, so sometimes they're hard to fund."
Environmentalists say the financial challenges municipalities face will get
worse in 2005 with Congress and the Bush administration trimming nearly$260
million from a federal loan fund that helps finance sewage system repairs and
construction.
Moreover, they fear that without the federal government putting sewer system
repairs at the top of the agenda, water pollution from sewage overflows will
continue unabated.
"We did a report in 2001 that found that billions of gallons of raw and
partially treated sewage was entering Michigan's waterways every year," said
Cyndi Roper, executive director of the Michigan chapter of Clean Water Action, a
national environmental group. "We don't think that number has changed much in
three years. We have allowed our sewer systems to decay so incredibly that we're
threatening our water quality."
The Bush administration proposed trimming the Clean Water State Revolving Fund,
which finances water infrastructure projects, from $1.3 billion in 2004 to $850
million in 2005. Congress pared back the cut, leaving the program at about $1
billion for fiscal 2005.
Environmentalists predicted Michigan could lose between $10 million and $15
million in state revolving loan funds. The state received $57.6 million in
2004,according to Clean Water Action estimates.
"Frankly, sewers have always been a local responsibility, paid for out of local
funds or by sewer fees," said U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids. "The
federal government only stepped in to help in exceptional circumstances."
Ehlers said Congress never committed to financing the sewer improvements
indefinitely. Instead the plan was to provide seed money to get the federal and
state revolving funds started and to deal with the biggest problems -- sewer
overflows into waterways.
To combat the overflows, local governments spent $47 billion nationally and more
than $2 billion in Michigan to repair and rework their combined and sanitary
sewer systems between 1989 and 2004.
Combined sewers, which are generally older and found in large cities, carry
storm water and domestic sewage in the same pipes. When too much storm water
enters the system, the pipes overflow, sending raw sewage into lakes and rivers.
Sanitary sewers have separate pipes for domestic sewage and storm water, but
overflows do occur when pipes break or pumps aren't large enough. These
overflows often result in basement backups.
Raw sewage in local rivers or lakes poses a serious health threat, say
environmentalists, noting that sewage overflows have closed dozens of beaches
along the Great Lakes in the last year.
In the early 1990s, the state and cities made combined sewer systems the
priority, splitting wastewater into separate pipes for sewage and storm water,
or creating holding basins to accommodate extra flow. In the last 15 years, the
number of combined sewer systems in Michigan has shrunk from more than 90 to
about 40.
And more repairs are in the pipeline. The Michigan Department of Environmental
Quality has 40 projects approved, at a cost of about $1.5 billion. The largest
is in the city of Detroit for about $802 million.
Michigan is luckier than most states because it has a pot of extra cash. In
2002, voters approved a ballot measure establishing a $1 billion bond fund
earmarked for clean water projects.
Up until now, the state hasn't issued bonds to finance loans from its State
Revolving Fund. The combination of annual federal contributions, state dollars
and loan dollars paid back by cities who borrowed from the fund have kept it
afloat. In 2005, there is more than $200 million in loan money available and
$180 million in projects slated for funding.
That doesn't mean all of Michigan's needs are being met, or that more money
won't be needed, said Chip Heckathorn, chief of the loan fund. Dozens of cities
have yet to fully commit to rehabilitation projects or some of them are in the
early stages of repair.
To keep the work moving forward, especially in tight budget times when cities
are often forced to choose between the fire department and sewer overhauls, the
public needs to understand the challenge ahead.
"Everybody figures it's a God-given right to turn a faucet on every morning and
get into the shower," said Lee Garrigan, a spokeswoman for the Association of
Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, a national group that represents sewer systems.
"The sewer system is a lot like any other infrastructure system, except on the
way home when you hit a pothole and it wrecks your car, you know about it. When
the pipes break down, you don't always know about it and not knowing can be
disastrous."
Contact reporter Sarah Kellogg at (202) 383-7810 or e-mail her at skellogg@boothnewspapers.com.
© 2004 Booth Newspapers. Used with permission
Copyright 2004 Michigan Live. All Rights Reserved.