EPA going "flexible" on clean water?
Under assault from conservatives and the business community, the Environmental Protection Agency is showing its "flexibility" these days on a variety of regulatory fronts. Could they portend slower or delayed cleanups of polluted waters in Baltimore harbor and the Chesapeake Bay?
Case in point: EPA has been pressing for years to get cities to fix chronic sewer overflows that routinely foul rivers and streams with raw human waste whenever it rains. Baltimore, one of the early targets of the federal crackdown, is still working through a 9-year-old consent decree requiring $1 billion worth of repairs to clogged and leaky sewer lines. The job is far from done, either in the city or in neighboring Baltimore County - remember the 100 million gallons of diluted but unreated sewage washed into the Patapsco River after Hurricane Irene?
The agency released new guidance last week at a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington instructing regulators to show some "flexibility" in setting compliance schedules and allow for "innovative solutions" to pollution problems.
Cash-strapped local officials who've been pressing EPA for relief welcomed the move, including Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is co-chair of the mayors group's water council. In a statement issued by the mayors' group, Rawlings-Blake said: "While we share the goal of clean water, mayors must also safeguard the fiscal health of their cities. EPA is demonstrating that they are serious about moving forward in a true partnership with mayors across the country."
It's understandable Rawlings-Blake would be among those cheering EPA's new-found sensitivity to cities' fiscal straits. In addition to the ongoing sewer overflow work, the city is waiting for a new storm-water permit that's likely to require major reductions in polluted runoff from streets and parkings. And the city also faces marching orders in the next few years to curtail trash flowing into the harbor and to clean up sources of unsafe bacteria levels that make the harbor unsafe in places for human contact, including kayaking, rowing and swimming.
The costs of fixing those problems could run to tens of millions of dollars, which the city plainly doesn't have. Rawlings-Blake has been urged to raise revenue by imposing a storm-water fee on all property owners, but in the current anti-tax climate has yet to propose one. Baltimore County also is under a similar order from EPA issued in 2005 to fix chronic overflows in its aging sewer lines as well.
Some have been open in their challenge of EPA. The general manager of the District of Columbia's water authority, George Hawkins, recently complained to Congress about how the municipality has been required to make ever-more-costly upgrades to Blue Plains sewage treatment plant and its sewer infrastructure for progressively smaller reductions in pollution.
EPA's guidance says it's not lowering its regulatory standards, just planning to work with local officials on achieving "cost-effective solutions." The memo particularly encourages "green infrastructure." such as planting trees, creating roof gardens and laying down porous pavement to capture polluted rainfall runoff that would otherwise flush down storm drains into nearby streams. Those are often less expensive than digging up and replacing leaky and overloaded sewer lines - the question is, are they really as effective, or just less costly?
Environmental groups, who've pressed EPA to get tough on sewage overflows and leaks, are muted in their reaction to the guidance - in part because they're waiting for details the agency has promised on how it plans to carry out this new approach. "The key will be to see that the agency does so in a way that doesn't sacrifice environmental quality," Larry Levine, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Greenwire.
EPA's also trying to patch things up in Florida, where it's been under a sustained assault by farm, development and local government interests for its move to set strict numeric limits on nutrient pollution in the state's rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The agency only acted after being sued by environmental groups for tolerating state inaction on algae blooms caused by excess nutrients, but Florida government and business officials have complained the federal limits are too rigid and costly.
The agency has been in talks with Florida officials to resolve the dispute for weeks, and yesterday the state announced it was moving ahead to set its own numeric nutrient limits, which it said would be stringent but more flexible than the federal approach. The Miami Herald reports that EPA's regional administrator issued a statement endorsing the state's action, while reserving final judgment until it sees the details. But environmentalists accused the Obama administration of caving to local pressure and threatened to go back to court.
None of this automatically leads to EPA relaxing its push to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, but it's under political and legal assault for its "pollution diet" here requiring sharp reductiosn in nutrient and sediment pollution. Counties and municipalities are complaining about the costs, farm groups and their supporters are accusing the agency of using bad science and a flawed computer model. So far, the biggest concession from EPA seems to have been to grant state and local governments a little more time to come up with plans for accomplishing their share of the cleanup. But, to borrow an overused phrase from the pundits, this bears watching.
(Broken sewer pipes removed along lower Patapsco River after Hurricane Irene, Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)
