EPA will scuttle proposal to mix sewage in rains

Andrew Edwards

After receiving nearly 100,000 comments from the public, the

Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday that officials

had abandoned a proposal that would have allowed sewer operators to

dump rainwater mixed with sewage during heavy storms. The EPA’s

proposal was opposed by local water-quality advocates in the

Surfrider Foundation and Defend the Bay. Bob Caustin, founder of the

latter organization, greeted the EPA’s decision as good news.

“No one wants to have that in the water supply,” he said.

Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Board spokesman Kurt Berchtold

said the board was not worried about the EPA’s proposal. Since mixed

sewage would have been diluted with rainwater, the board did not

expect impurities to exceed permitted levels.

“We didn’t really see much impact one way or another,” Berchtold

said.

In 2003, the EPA proposed rules that would have allowed sewer

operators to mix rainwater with untreated sewage during storms. The

idea behind the proposal was to address sewer operators’ concerns

that heavy flows would be harmful to facilities that use

microorganisms to treat wastewater.

In order to safeguard those facilities, the EPA would have allowed

sewage that had not been treated with microbes to be mixed with storm

flows before being discharged.

In a statement, the EPA indicated that it would consider other

methods to solve the microorganism problem.

The agency’s assistant administrator for its Office of Water,

Benjamin Grumbles, said blending water was not a long-term fix that

would meet the EPA’s desires to cut down on overflows and enhance

treatment.

The use of microorganisms to treat sewage after wastewater is

filtered is called secondary treatment. In 2002, the Orange County

Sanitation District voted to add secondary treatment facilities. In

March, sanitary district technical director Robert Ghirelli said the

cost to add the new facilities was $450 million. At the time, he said

it would cost more to expand facilities to handle massive storm flows

without blending.

Caustin said he would prefer that environmental agencies fund

expansions rather than limit protective measures.

“It’s the cost of doing business,” he said. “It’s the cost of

protecting public health and the environment.”

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards

@latimes.com.