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Indiana Clean Water Coalition
Sewage in Our Streams Newsletter
October 2002 Edition
Newsletter Items For more information on IKE's CSO efforts.
- Facility Construction Permit Database On-Line.
- 60% of Permits Get Deficiency Letters.
- Resolution on CSO Right-to-Know Rulemaking?
- Indy Takes a Leadership Role on Use Attainability Analysis.
- IDEM Continues to Issue Permits that Increase Sewage Overflows.
- A Test Situation - Stormwater Separation / Retention.
- 3.5 Billion Gallons of Sanitary Sewer Overflows and Bypasses Since 1997. Acronyms: - IDEM = Indiana Department of Environmental Management - CSO = Combined Sewer Overflow - LTCP = Long-Term Control Plan - NPDES = National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System - EPA = Environmental Protection Agency - DMR = Discharge Monitoring Report
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This newsletter is written and edited by Tom Neltner of Improving Kids’ Environment on behalf of the Indiana Clean Water Coalition. For information about the newsletter articles, please contact Tom Neltner at mccabe@ikecoalition.org or 317-442-3973.
For recent reports on sewage in our streams, see these additional reports:
2. 27 CSO Communities Regularly Violate Reporting Requirements - June 2002.
Facility Construction Permit Database On-Line: IDEM issued more than 11,000 permits to construct sewers and wastewater treatment facilities in the past 10 years. Most of these permits involve new sewage and commercial / industrial wastewater flows to existing wastewater treatment plants. Some of permits cover new wastewater treatment plants or renovations to existing facilities.
IKE obtained a copy of the database and has posted it on its website in a searchable form. IKE also has summarized the information for each county and for the larger municipalities.
Citizens and communities should use this information to get a better handle on the impact of new sewage flows on existing sewer systems. Coupling this information with IKE's on-line database of sewer overflows and plant bypasses provides a better understanding of the cumulative impact of these permits (see below). Adding new flow to a system that is regularly experiencing overflows only makes the problem worse. In some communities, the new permitted flow is more than 30% of the existing treatment plant capacity.
The 11,116 permits cover more than 370,000,000 gallons of daily average sewer flow. However, the total only represents additions or changes. It does not include reductions in flow through tighter sewers and through sewer disconnects. In addition, some of the permitted construction never occurs or the flows on a given permit never reach the permitted total. It is important to look at each community one at a time. For that reason, IKE posted the database on-line.
For the record, here are the totals for the top five counties.
| County | # of Permits | Total Flow (gallons per day) | Largest Flow (gallons per day) |
Total Statewide | 11,116 | 370,504,169 | 9,000,000 |
| Marion | 1,635 | 57,359,108 | 8,240,000 |
| Hamilton | 1,024 | 31,147,731 | 3,000,000 |
| Hendricks | 658 | 23,162,208 | 1,460,410 |
| Allen | 642 | 14,596,671 | 1,131,500 |
| Lake | 506 | 25,410,733 | 7,320,000 |
60% of Permits Get Deficiency Letters: 60% of the wastewater facility construction permit applications IDEM receives are incomplete. As a result, IDEM has issued 6641 deficiency letters demanding corrections to the application. IKE found that the Top 40 engineering firms submitted 43% of the applications. Surprisingly, these firms fared only slightly better than average. They had 58% of their applications deemed incomplete. By far, the best performer was the City of Elkhart with only 17% of its 72 applications rejected. For the breakdown on these Top 40 firms click here. Click here to search the database yourself.
IKE did not check for yearly trends. However, something is clearly wrong when that many errors are found. The deficiencies drive up IDEM's costs, the community's costs and delays the permit.
Resolution on CSO Right-to-Know Rulemaking? In May 2002, Indianapolis was the first - and remains the only - Indiana community to tell its residents when combined sewers overflow. IKE is not aware of any community that routinely tells residents when a sanitary sewer overflows or a treatment plant bypasses. They report it to IDEM and tell the public only when the public notices or the danger is particularly high.
On April 10, the Water Pollution Control Board preliminarily adopted - over objections from municipalities - a rule that would require public notification of combined sewer overflows. This rule was mandated by Senate Enrolled Act 431 in 2000. At the meeting, IKE acknowledged the legitimate concerns of municipalities. This proposal will be published in the November 1, 2002 Indiana Register for comment. The Board should consider the rule for final adoption in January 2003.
On June 11 and October 18, IDEM assembled environmental and municipal stakeholders to work through concerns raised at the Board meeting. Two Board members - Bowden Quinn and Dave Wagner - attended the most recent meeting. After several drafts and a line-by-line review, we reached a tentative consensus on the rule. IDEM should have that version for final comment by the end of October.
Contact Tom Neltner at mccabe@ikecoalition.org or Larry Wu at lwu if you want a copy of the revised rule. For more information, click here.
Indy Takes a Leadership Role in Use Attainability Analysis: In September 2002, IDEM issued guidance to cities to develop Long-Term Control Plans and to conduct a Use Attainability Analysis for sewage. A UAA is a critical step in the process to determine whether it is appropriate to lower the designated use of a waterbody.
Many Indiana CSO communities appear to assume that the UAA process is simple. Several claim that no recreational uses occur that involve contact with sewage-laden water. They ignore IDEM's guidance that presumes that children are playing in streams except when access to the river is physically limited.
In contrast, Indianapolis has taken IDEM's guidance seriously and undertaken an outstanding process to get the facts on recreational uses. It has:
Used digital photography and GIS mapping to identify potential uses and physical barriers to stream access.
- Conducted independent community surveys to determine potential stream uses;
- Reviewed health department records of stream use;
- Met with neighborhood associations to understand these current and historical uses; and
- Plotted all of this information on a map that provides a comprehensive look at the issue.
For more about the process, check out http://www.indygov.org/dpw/waterway_use/index.htm.
From IKE's perspective, Indianapolis has chosen to get the facts and avoid the assumptions. It has committed to making decisions based on these facts. Because of this fair and open process and the city's commitment to strictly follow the law, IKE applauds Indianapolis!
IDEM Continues to Issue Permits that Increase Sewage Overflows: In September 2001, the environmental community asked for a rule to stop municipalities from allowing sewer connections that increase combined sewer overflows. Citing the urgent need for action, the Water Pollution Control Board said the existing rules are not perfect but are sufficient to address the concerns raised. In January, the Board directed IDEM to develop a non-rule policy document to respond to those concerns. Dave Wagner, Board member and hearing officer for the issue, drafted a document to show IDEM the way. The draft was based on an unpublished IDEM document that IDEM claimed to be following. State law requires that all such policies by published in the Indiana Register. IKE agreed with this approach because it would have a quicker impact.
IDEM did not see the urgency! It released a draft document that made only one significant change in practice by saying that dry weather CSOs are those that occur more than one day - not the current three days- after a rain stops. Dry weather CSOs are illegal. IDEM set virtually no limits on sewer connections that would increase wet weather CSOs. IDEM disagreed with the Hearing Officer's report and claimed that the rules would not allow them to address the concerns raised by the environmental community and the Board.
After months of stalling, IDEM admitted at the September Board member that it had reached an impasse. However, instead of beginning the rulemaking process to revise the rule, IDEM continued with the status quo - unwilling or unable to make a decision. IDEM will advise the Board on December 11 how it plans to proceed.
In the interim, IDEM continues to issue construction permits that increase sewage overflows.
A Test Situation - Stormwater Separation / Retention: One way to tell whether your CSO community is taking the CSO problem seriously is to see how it handles stormwater separation and retention. When an area served by combined sewers undergoes extensive renovation, do the sewers get separated? Many communities simply reinstall combined sewer systems in these brownfield redevelopments. IDEM nods its head and allows combined sewer systems to be reinstalled despite the potential short-sightedness of this approach.
Many municipalities justify the decision by explaining that the separated storm water would be polluted and cause them problems under the new stormwater regulations. They defer to long-awaited and long-overdue Long-Term Control Plans. They ignore the reality that sewage is much more dangerous to public health and the environment than contaminated stormwater. They seem to disregard the solution that is used in suburban areas - stormwater separation coupled with retention.
What municipalities seem to be missing is that ponds can overflow back into the sewer system when the system has the capacity. They can store the stormwater for later treatment. A direct discharge is not the only option. Since stormwater storage is much cheaper - an order of magnitude cheaper by many estimates - than sewage storage, municipalities can reduce more CSOs at a lower overall cost.
Indianapolis has taken a step in the right direction. It requires limited retention of stormwater collection systems in construction and reconstruction projects. It is working on a broader policy to look at stormwater retention in larger brownfield redevelopments as part of its LTCP.
Check out your community's plan to see how they handle this issue.
3.5 Billion Gallons of Sanitary Sewer Overflows and Bypasses Since 1997: In July, IKE issued a report of its analysis of 6500 overflow and bypass incidents that were reported to IDEM since 1997. The reports cover 3.5 billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage discharges. These incidents cover all-weather sanitary sewer overflows and treatment plant bypasses as well as dry-weather CSOs. Wet weather CSOs are not included: they are reported in a separate monthly report. Check out the site and search the database yourself.
Apparently, IDEM rarely takes enforcement action based on these overflows despite the fact that many of them occur so often that they clearly violate the permit. Instead, IDEM relies on sewer connection bans and early warning notices to catch problems before they occur.
IKE researched that issue and tried to correlate the issuance of early warning notices and sewer connection bans with sewage overflows. For a summary of its findings, click here. IKE could not find way to rationalize the process and has gotten none from IDEM. Three years ago, IKE asked IDEM to explain its decision-making process to no avail. The commissioner promised twice that a draft non-rule policy document would be available but it fell low on the priorities despite a self-imposed deadline of June 2000. As it stands, IKE can see not fair and consistent application of IDEM decision-making process. Since this system is IDEM's primary method to evaluate the cumulative impact of new sewer connections, IKE is disappointed that IDEM cannot explain its process in any form much less in the form of a non-rule policy document as required by state law.
Tom Neltner
Improving Kids' Environment
5244 Carrollton Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3181
317-442-3973 or 317-283-5648
Fax: 866-234-8505
www.ikecoalition.org
mccabe@ikecoalition.org