2004-10-26_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regulatory Environment On January 5, 2001, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) signed the long-awaited draft rule on sanitary sewer overflows. As with other regulations, the 120- day public comment period will not begin until the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register. That publication was delayed on January 24 when EPS withdrew the SSO regulations from the Office of the Federal Register to give the Bush Administration an opportunity to review the draft. Since January 200 I, EP A has received hundreds of comments to the original draft, resulting in a directive to the Office of Water Management to do the following: I. Propose regulations consistent with those originally recommended. 2, Summarize all comments received since and incorporate them into the preamble to the regulations, 3. Provide preamble discussion regarding the comments. Publication in the Federal Register is still delayed. The draft rule has been removed from the U.S. EPA Web site as of March I, 2004 and its status remains uncertain. Meanwhile, as municipalities await formal regulations, the fact remains that roughly 22,000 cities in the U.S. experience SSO during wet weather conditions. Despite the lack of formal SSO regulations, these unpermitted/untreated discharges are still prohibited under the Clean Water Act and subject to enforcement action. This is a serious concern in areas where wastewater flow increases significantly because of rainfall. Even infrequent rain events will not be a valid excuse for an SSO. At this time, MCES is the only National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit holder for the wastewater system. The draft rule addressed the role of the "satellite" communities and their collection systems as well as the regional system. Satellite communities may well become joint permittees and subject to the same NPDES regulatory requirements. If subject to an enforcement action as a co-permittee, the community could receive administrative orders to be part of a Consent Decree, as is currently happening to Duluth, Minnesota. The City of Duluth is a co-permittee of the collection system with the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District. In 2002, the City and District negotiated with MPCA to finalize the terms of a new five-year permit to operate the collection system. As part ofthe pemit conditions, Duluth agreed to a compliance schedule to control and eliminate SSOs where inflow and infiltration from the city's collection system was the primary cause. Unfortunately, SSOs actually increased in 2003 versus the prior two years, partly attributable to mechanical and operational failures on the District's system, and not just wet weather flow. This caught the attention of the U.S, EPA and on January 12,2004 the city of Duluth and the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District received an administrative order requiring the city and the district to furnish information and develop a plan of action relative to eliminating SSOs. The city and the district must submit the plan of action to the U,S. EPA by May 14,2004 as the starting point for entering into a Consent Decree to eliminate SSOs. 6