Allentown Fights For Right To Blend Sewage
By Peak Johnson
The act of sewage blending has long been controversial, with the U.S. EPA at one point scrapping the idea. In Allentown, PA, this controversy is playing out between the municipality and state regulators.
In 2005 the House of Representatives voted to block the agency from finalizing a proposal that “would have allowed sewer operators more latitude on when they could release partially treated sewage into the nation's waters.”
According to Seattle PI, sewage blending had been proposed by the EPA in 2003 and “had attracted nearly 100,000 written comments from industry, state and local officials, interest groups and the public.”
“Local sewage treatment agencies lobbied heavily for the change, saying they need an affordable solution to the problem of treatment plants that become overwhelmed by heavy flows during rainstorms and snow melts.”
According to The Morning Call, municipal officials in Allentown have been searching for a way to save money “on a sewer rehabilitation master plan, which must be submitted for approval to the EPA by year's end.”
Officials in Allentown said that blending would make wastewater treatment at least $37 million cheaper. However, “it also potentially poses a bigger environmental risk to the Little Lehigh Creek and Lehigh River.”
According to court documents obtained by The Morning Call, Allentown had asked the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in April 2013, a month after the EPA's ban on the practice had been overturned in court.
It was in September that the city finally received an answer from the DEP on the issue, after waiting three-and-a-half years. An official from the agency said that “blending would violate state regulations regarding biological treatment of sewage.”
In October, The Morning Call reported that Allentown filed an appeal to the state Environmental Hearing Board, “seeking a review of the Department of Environmental Protection's prohibition of sewage blending, a process which would help Allentown meet the requirements of a federal environmental permit.”
Allentown said that it could still comply with federal standards by blending, however, blending does not fully meet the DEP’s "significant biological treatment" standard and is prohibited, according to Colleen Connolly, community relations coordinator with the DEP.