Beating Around the Bush
When it rains it pours:
EPA allows mixing dirty with clean…
hands over enforcement of toxic runoff to industrial polluters.
EPA’S NEW SEWAGE BLENDING POLICY: CLEAN WATER + DIRTY WATER = DIRTY WATER
On January 23, 2006, Waterkeeper Alliance and 60 local Waterkeepers submitted comments to U.S. EPA opposing their new proposed “blending” policy as a needless, unjustified and flawed policy.

Sewage treatment typically involves at least two stages – primary treatment, which removes solid waste material, and biological or secondary treatment, which eliminates harmful pathogens. EPA’s policy essentially grants the permitting agency (usually the state) the right to allow industrial and municipal treatment plants to bypass secondary treatment during certain peak wet weather conditions. This pathogen-laden wastewater would then be “blended” with the fully treated wastewater and released directly into our bays, rivers and lakes. EPA’s policy interprets current regulations to mean that blending is acceptable when there are “no feasible alternatives.” But EPA neglects to define what “feasible” means – leaving a wide loophole for polluters. Waterkeeper Alliance believes there is no need for EPA to reinterpret current regulations. Wastewater should be cleaned up before it is dumped into our waters. This new guidance would impede progress in updating and upgrading sewage treatment facilities. Instead of requiring improvements to sewer systems, it legitimizes the illegal practice of “bypassing” or dumping untreated wastewater into our nations waterways.

EPA RELEASES ‘SELF-ENFORCEMENT’ PLAN FOR TOXIC RUNOFF FROM INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
In December 2005, EPA released the latest in its regulatory “reforms” to the Clean Water Act regulations that are supposed to limit the flow of pollutants carried in stormwater runoff from a wide range of industrial facilities. These facilities include various manufacturing and chemical facilities, mining operations, oil refineries, landfills, salvage yards, power plants and a range of other industrial categories. Uncontrolled runoff from these operations can carry nutrients, heavy metals and organic chemicals that are dangerous to both human health and the environment.

Essentially, the new rules call for factory operators to monitor their stormwater discharges quarterly, compare them to water quality benchmarks and report discharges that exceeded the benchmarks. In practice, this means that no one – not EPA, not the state environment agency, not the public – will review the facility’s stormwater control plan or ensure that the plan successfully prevents pollution from washing from their facility into our waters. In addition to setting up a flawed “self-enforcement” mechanism, the rule would do nothing to prevent pollution from runoff into waters that had been designated as having exceptional value, or runoff that would add pollutants to waters that are already impaired by excessive levels of these contaminants.

Waterkeeper Alliance, NRDC and the Conservation Law Foundation filed joint comments opposing this proposal.