Posted on 04/30/2015 7:56:09 AM PDT by RBW in PA
The visit from environmental inspectors had the nerve-rattling effect of an IRS audit.
Three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staffers and a pair of engineers from Colorado spent two days in Manor Township, Lancaster County, poring over page after page of government records. They spent hours eyeballing government properties, construction sites and storm drains. They grilled employees about stormwater, pollution protections and record-keeping.
It wound up being a costly exercise for township taxpayers. Manor, with an annual budget of around $5 million, paid $150,000 in legal, engineering and staff costs related to the federal orders and citations it received. That was after a specially hired attorney managed to negotiate a $175,000 fine down to about $41,000.
The experience soured some in the south-central Pennsylvania municipality. "They scrutinized areas that I didn't think warranted being scrutinized," said Barry Smith, the township's former manager. "It was apparent to me that their mandate was to go and find something that's noncompliant."
That comprehensive 2010 review, among many the EPA has launched across Pennsylvania in recent years, could foreshadow things to come in the region as the federal government carries out an aggressive crackdown of regulations designed in the 1990s to protect rivers and streams from sediment and contaminants such as gasoline and pesticides.
Following national studies that showed the nation's stormwater regulatory program wasn't meeting objectives under the Clean Water Act, the EPA has been bringing the hammer down on municipalities whose mandated stormwater protection efforts bore little activity, and in some cases, no activity.
Regulatory tsunami
Municipal engineer Bill Erdman, who has long warned of a day of reckoning, said some townships, boroughs and cities that put off the work for years, may be in for a rude — and costly — awakening. "When this started, it was not taken very seriously," said Erdman, who retired last year from Keystone Consulting Engineers, Wescosville. "For 10 years, it was like a joke. But there is a regulatory tsunami that is coming down the road."
The implications for municipalities and their taxpayers could be significant. Some government officials have discussed adding staff to keep up with the requirements. Others could face increased engineering bills and an added workload for public works department employees who inspect stormwater collection systems. And the threat of fines looms for those not in compliance.
The regulations also could have a trickle-down effect. For some property owners, engineering studies could be required to add a structure such as a shed. Some communities are requiring the use of rain barrels in construction to limit stormwater runoff. Abington Township in Montgomery County now requires rain barrels on all construction projects — including, patios, sheds and decks — under 250 square feet.
Others such as Radnor Township, Delaware County, have begun levying a stormwater fee under a new law that allows municipalities to create stormwater authorities. Radnor residents are assessed $29 to $116 annually depending on the size of their properties. The fee helps fund stormwater projects, maintenance and inspections of stormwater collection systems and watershed studies.
Down the drain
The wave of government review is centered on municipal storm sewer systems, commonly referred to as MS4s. They are networks of municipal-owned stormwater systems — storm drains, pipes, ditches — that are separate from wastewater systems and carry rain and runoff to waterways. The required work includes everything from educating the public about stormwater management to mapping storm sewer systems, monitoring development sites and preventing pollutant runoff at government properties.
Among the visible signs of the program are stencils and stickers on storm drains that read, "When it rains, it drains," as well as street cleaning that prevents sediment, gasoline and other contaminants from getting into storm drains.
Once local governments devise stormwater plans and carry them out, they must document everything. Erdman said the paperwork itself will become a monumental task for some. "EPA is taking a very hard-line position that unless it is in writing, it doesn't exist," he said. "If you had meetings with homeowners association presidents or developers or property owners, they're saying, 'Show us the minutes of the meeting and what was discussed.' "
Preparing for visit
Ryan Strohecker, current manager of Manor Township, said his township received five to seven citations for deficiencies related to what he described as "minor" administrative issues. For example, in a township building where employees gas up vehicles, there was a process in place to address gas spills, but the township did not have a sign showing what should be done in the event of a spill. EPA cited that as a violation.
"We know what our guys are doing, which is correct, but we didn't have the documentation to say, yes, this has been done," Strohecker said. "We know darn well all of our guys don't let gas spill into a storm drain. Those were the kinds of things that were frustrating."
Paul Bruder, a Harrisburg attorney who represented Manor and other municipalities that received federal orders or were fined, said that while legitimate violations were found, "a lot of it was pretty nit-picky, and a lot of it was paperwork violations." He said the EPA sent notices to dozens of municipalities warning them about noncompliance and then zeroed in on a half dozen or so.
Jon Capacasa, director of the EPA's water protection division in the Mid-Atlantic region, which includes Pennsylvania, said municipalities generally haven't been complying. He said the EPA's inspection and audit efforts in the region that includes Pennsylvania, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia has been "intense" since 2009.
The reason for the crackdown from EPA's perspective is simple. "Stormwater continues to be a growing source of pollution to our streams," Capacasa said. "Protecting public health and the environment has been a priority. It's not just a priority in Pennsylvania but across the region and nation."
Myron Arnowitt, the Pennsylvania director for Clean Water Action, an environmental advocacy group, said his organization and others have been pushing environmental regulators to do more about stormwater management.
"It's a problem across the state in terms of not nearly enough action has been happening to make sure that municipalities are reducing stormwater pollution," Arnowitt said. "We find that some townships are way ahead of others.
Every Solyndra et al taxpayer dime should come out of the EPA budget, dollar for dollar.
Just zero out their budget. Sell their offices. Problem solved.
Just the faceless bureaucracy flexing it’s muscle to let the peons know who’s still boss.
They’re hitting us hard in small town northwest Iowa too. Our little town has been forced by regulation into a total rebuild of our whole sewer and drainage system. And now our water and sewer bills have tripled. They’re almost as much as our electric and gas bill each month. It’s obscene.
While I agree they tend to be Rain Nazis, It irritates me to no end that when heavy rains come the larger Cities tend to just let the rain water flood the City Sewers that overflow into Rivers. The State Agencies have pretty much ignored the problem for Decades. The only thing the seem to do is Issue no contact and E coli warnings for swimmers. The
Cities whine about how much it will cost to fix the problem.
The Detroit River, Grand River, Saginaw River are famous for the raw sewer dumps in Michigan.
You want to live in a city fine, your crap doesn’t need to flow in the Rivers when it rains...
If that happened on my Property the Health Department would condemn my property, Issue a very large fine and require me to repair it Immediately.
It’s the Governments Water keep your hands off it ,LOL
our town(formerly a city but due to white flight....) had a team from EPA do a check up, and a lot of problems made themselves known. Mayoor Percy Bland said we are working together with the EPA to address these issues....It may help that the power conglomerate is theoretically going to buy our wastewater to cool the turbines at the coal gassification plant that is only 6 billion overcost and not running yet.
Been happening in Florida for several years. Every municipality is required to participate, no matter how small. LOTS of paperwork, yearly filing, meetings, audits and there are always violations. Always. Most are minor, but there is always something found. The EPA uses sub-consultants and depending on who is doing the audit that year will depend on the nature and number of violations found.
The company I worked for was the city engineer of a very small city in central Florida. The county that the city was in was trying to charge the city, actually all of the cities within the county, more money for the city’s “share” of all these requirements that people in the unincorporated county paid through their property taxes. Some of the cities paid the county the money, but we advised our city that they not pay because city residents paid the same county taxes plus city taxes. The county, of course, was not very happy with us, but we were shocked that other cities just went ahead and paid the money.
The problem is that most Cities didn’t expand their sewage system to allow for population expansion or the expanded areas of pavement and asphalt that required drainage.
Nor did most ever separate the Rain Water and Sewage system.
It all was piped together to lagoons that overflow during heavy rain runoff that ends up in Creeks, rivers and lakes.
The Government has taken up a cause of make-believe and pretending.
Not enough, we need to make sure these ECO-Nazis are disarmed too! It's insane that under Lord Foul the arming of every friggin Federal department has escalated to ridiculous levels.
here’s a factoid from Michigan...
2005 Michigan total CSO
19,763.5 million gallons
CSO=Combined Sewage overflow.
That’s 19.763 Billion gallons of raw sewage combined with rainwater dumped into the lakes and rivers in one state in one year.
Or not.
You said Raw sewage, how is that happening? Something is wrong if in this day raw sewage is being dumped.
“Just zero out their budget. Sell their offices. Problem solved.”
Sadly that won’t solve the problem. The ultimate target is the property owner. I deal with this stuff everyday - mountains of paperwork and lots of land wasted on projects to allegedly clean the rainwater. When your locality gets hit, you will start to notice that any new building site has some land set aside for these things.
Anyway, here’s one small example of how impossible it is to run away from these regulations: If our fire department has to use a lot of water to put out a fire...its a ‘reportable event’ which gets logged and is open to EPA scrutiny. The water, you see, has been treated with chlorine, and that kills the fish.
No it is not treated. When heavy rain floods the sewers the overflow dumps into the rivers. I believe the have check valves that keep the overflow from overwhelming the treatment plants. But it is untreated mixed rainwater and sewage dumping directly into our rivers and lakes.
Most Cities build their water treatment facilities next to rivers to allow for the dumping of treated waste waters back into the rivers. But when the intake is more than the treatment system can handle it dumps the raw stuff there too.
I have seen first hand on the Detroit River feminine napkins, tampons, Condoms (Detroit River Squid) and fecies floating down the river after a heavy rain from runoff out of the Rouge River. Funny to see it all going down river to the Detroit “Fresh Water intake” building near Fighting Island.
I have also seen the “mud Line” from the Grand River dumping into Lake Michigan full of the same stuff (Grand River Brown Trout)running out for miles after flooding. Again if the wind and current is right towards the Grand Rapids fresh water intake. Yummy!
http://www.glslcities.org/documents/CSOUpdateFactSheet_GrandRapids.pdf
Notice the lower left Image and corresponding text.
It really is disgusting that Cities have been allowed to let this happen forever.
I don’t feel any pain for them. Cost of City Life....
I am required to keep my sewer up to code and inspection.
If my drain field clogs they will kick me out of my house until it is fixed. Can’t have any raw sewage leaks, but cities are allowed to dump Billions of gallons of it in our Rivers and Lakes?
Local water tables drop, downstream communities scream for freshwater,streams disappear, rivers shrink and river beds dry up and wind blows their EPA designated toxic residue all over.
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