EPA Proposes Blending Wastewater

By Kevin Forrest on Tuesday, January 4, 2005.

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The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to relax rules on the way localities handle sewage treatment.

The change would legalize a long accepted practice, but the proposal has environmentalists and lawmakers up in arms.

The Vermont Standard's Kevin Forrest filed this report:

During heavy rains or run-offs from snow melts,
Larger sewage treatment plants use a process called blending

Some of the wastewater flow is diverted around the time-consuming aeration stage of sewage treatment.

The untreated wastewater is then ?blended? back with the water that's been treated.

The EPA wants to make that standard practice the rule.

But Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont and 15 other senators see the proposed policy change doesn't comply with the intent of the Clean Water Act.

And The Senators fear that relaxed standards would lead to more blending.

Tom Berry handles environmental issues for Jeffords office.

Berry: If the changed rule goes through, it could become permitted standard operating procedure at sewage treatment plants and become essentially an accepted treatment option.

In a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt, Jeffords? contingent cites instances of blending leading to illness from bacterial contamination.

But Benjamin Grumbles with the EPA says he doesn't think the changes will lead to problems.

Grumbles: Clearly from the EPA perspective, blending, while it may be an acceptable practice under peak wet weather conditions, it?s not something we would expect to occur on a daily or frequent basis.

Grumbles says that as long as the effluent ultimately meets federal guidelines, then blending is a safe practice.

Grumbles: Our longstanding interpretation of the act has been and would continue to be that that it is legal if the wastewater at the end of the pipe meets clean water act requirements.

George Burlandy is with New Hampshire?s Department of Environmental Services.

He says cities like Manchester have been blending for years without a problem.

Burlandy: The wet weather blending that we?ve instituted in places like Manchester establishes a process where we can take additional flow into the treatment plant above and beyond its existing capacity and still maintain effluent limits at the end of the pipe.

Jeffords? spokesperson Tom Berry says the proposed change will allow treatment plants to avoid necessary upgrades.

Berry: And the EPA is being fairly straightforward in the fact that part of the reason or a large part of the reason for doing this is avoid the large investments that might be necessary to fix the problems.

Grumbles at the EPA agrees that costly upgrades are inevitable.

But ratepayer-supported operations need to watch their bottom line.

Grumbles: We just recognize that at some point, if they?re saying that it could cost them a billion dollars or more to have some type of holding tank at the facility in lieu of blending, that has to be taken into account

New Hampshire?s Burlandy says that blending merely uses a treatment facility to its full capacity.

Burlandy: The only other solution is to let it go out the pipes it?s going to. Then it goes directly to the river with no treatment. And how do you solve that? Okay, so I think that if I have an existing facility I should maximize its use before I start investing in any more structures.

The deadline for comments on the proposed change is mid-January.

That is when senators will be returning for the new session of congress.

For NHPR news, this is Kevin Forrest in Reading, Vt.