From overloaded power grids to congested highways, much of the public infrastructure in the US needs an overhaul. Upgrading and modernizing systems—in many cases simply to maintain existing capacity—will cost cities and states billions of dollars. Some of the most bedraggled portions of the infrastructure, which are largely invisible to the public, are those that deal with water: delivering it where it’s needed, treating it once it’s used, preventing it from flooding our streets, and—as far as possible—protecting it from contamination.

We’ve made strides across the country in improving surface-water quality, such as tackling nonpoint-source pollution through NPDES Phase II and establishing total maximum daily loads for many polluted water bodies. But the nation’s many aging, leaky, and undersized sanitary and combined sewer systems are threatening to undermine that progress. According to one federal government estimate, the US experiences 1.2 trillion gal. of combined sewer overflows each year. Another EPA estimate places the number of sanitary sewer overflows at 40,000 per year.

For stormwater managers who have watched CSOs and SSOs reverse some of the advances they’ve made toward the “fishable and swimmable” goals for local lakes and rivers, EPA’s Capacity Management Operations and Maintenance (CMOM) program seemed like a bright spot on the horizon … or at least a promise of slow but steady improvement. CMOM—part of the NPDES Sanitary Sewer Overflow rule—requires public treatment plants to prevent system overflows, ensuring that they will be able to accommodate both base and peak flows. Although it has been much delayed—first approved by EPA at the end of the Clinton administration, then placed on hold along with many other new regulations by the Bush administration—CMOM seemed, finally, to be moving forward. EPA’s intent was to ensure that communities had both adequate capacity and good operation and maintenance practices and to help them—if not with funding—with an “SSO toolbox” of resources and information similar to the one available to Phase II communities.

At the same time CMOM is coming on-line, however, EPA is proposing a change in guidelines that, on the face of it, undermines the program. In November, the agency proposed allowing wastewater treatment plants to discharge excess flows during wet-weather events without undergoing the usual biological treatment step. The new policy would permit partially treated flows to be blended with fully treated effluent and then released to rivers, lakes, and coastal areas. Although the blended waste must meet previous discharge standards for such things as clarity and bacterial counts, critics of the change say other contaminants like viruses and parasites can still be present in effluent that has not passed through the biological treatment process and have a devastating effect on recreational waters and, potentially, on drinking-water supplies.

As many as half of the approximately 19,000 publicly owned treatment plants in the US already release blended effluent; regional EPA offices have allowed the practice in some areas but levied fines in others. Public treatment plant operators welcome the proposed change, saying they can’t afford the upgrades needed to fully treat wet-weather surges and at least now there will be a consistent national policy.

The situation is typical of the dichotomy between lack of funding on the one hand and the need to improve—or at least maintain—services on the other. Local utility rates are increasing across the country, and although local funding will not be adequate in most cases to handle all necessary upgrades, condoning this backsliding for treatment plants is shortsighted. The release of partially treated waste undercuts the efforts of stormwater programs, many of which have formed in the last two years in response to the requirements of NPDES Phase II—another unfunded mandate that communities are nevertheless finding ways to implement.

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SW January/February 2004