[Vision2020] Moscow Water Treatment Center

[Mark Solomon]

Tim,

My column from today's paper.

Mark

*********

  TOWN CRIER II: State at fault for Moscow's water woes

By Mark Solomon
Wednesday, December 6, 2006 - Page Updated at 10:53:38 AM


In the Daily News editorial (Weekend, Dec. 2 & 3), Murf Raquet comes 
down on the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed penalties for 
discharge violations at the Moscow sewage treatment plant blaming the 
EPA - that big, bad, out-of-touch federal agency - for once again 
threatening an innocent victim. Unmentioned in the editorial is what 
I believe is the underlying source of the regulatory problem: the 
Idaho Legislature's failure to trust its own agency, the Idaho 
Department of Environmental Quality, with implementing the federal 
Clean Water Act in Idaho.

The Clean Water Act was written with the intention that the states 
would implement the law. EPA was directed to act in an oversight 
capacity providing unified guidance to the states, but first, each 
state had to show it had the capability, from both a statutory 
framework and a staffing point of view, to administer a technically 
challenging regulatory program.

Two states failed to do that. Idaho and Alaska have the dubious 
distinction of being the only states in the nation that do not have 
their own water pollution point source permitting program. The 
result: all of Idaho's waste water discharge permits are written and 
monitored long-distance by EPA staff in Seattle rather than by 
Idaho's Department of Environmental Quality.

The National Pollution Discharge Elimination System regulates water 
pollution from point source dischargers such as Moscow's sewage 
plant. Wastewater dischargers vary both in size and pollution 
production. EPA, in Idaho's absence, has to oversee wastewater 
operations from small trailer park sewage lagoons to huge industrial 
facilities, a daunting task even if they weren't hundreds of miles 
away.

Every few years the howls from Idaho water pollution dischargers 
tired of the seeming randomness of regulatory attention from EPA get 
loud enough to move the Legislature to consider creating an Idaho 
NPDES program. Unfortunately, the Legislature deems the costs of 
implementing such a program to be too high. The costs come in two 
forms: hard cash for funding the program and serious political 
exposure if the state were to take on the responsibility of 
regulating major Idaho industrial polluters.

As an example of how Idaho fails even when it does take on its 
responsibility of monitoring pollution, let's sidestep into air 
pollution for a moment. Unlike water, Idaho has been in charge of air 
permitting since 1978 except for the years 1980-1983. The Clean Air 
Act, like the Clean Water Act, specifies state implementation under 
EPA guidance. In 1980 DEQ complied and wrote the first air pollution 
permit for the largest air polluter in Idaho, the Potlatch mill in 
Lewiston. Potlatch didn't like it, saying the cost of cleaning up 
their pollution was too high despite the fact that a good acid 
rainstorm would have the paint peeling off houses and cars in 
Lewiston not to mention the effects on people's health. This being 
Idaho, Potlatch made this troublesome permit disappear by 
successfully lobbying the Legislature to zero out the entire DEQ air 
quality budget.

Much to Potlatch's dismay, eliminating Idaho's air quality program 
did not make the Clean Air Act go away. Instead, EPA wrote Potlatch's 
permit, but it did not have the charge or incentive to negotiate 
solutions to some of the technical issues raised that occurred when 
Idaho was in control. After three years of EPA oversight, Potlatch 
and other big Idaho polluters were back at the Legislature asking for 
money to reinstate DEQ's air program. Their wish was granted, but 
this time when the agency went back to work there was an ominous 
cloud in the office: having been dismissed once, DEQ became gun shy 
when it came to writing and monitoring Potlatch and other industrial 
pollution permits. They tended, then and now, to fall on the industry 
side of any question rather than on the side of public interest.

Back to water: Who would I prefer be writing permits for the public 
interest: DEQ or EPA? That's a tough one as long as agencies are run 
by appointees more responsive to political masters' and permittees' 
interests than to science and public health. All things being equal, 
I prefer a decision that is made locally.

There are other issues that complicate Moscow sewer plant discharge 
requirements beyond the matter of who is actually writing the permit. 
But until the Idaho Legislature embraces environmental protection by 
authorizing a state NPDES program, adequately funding DEQ and staying 
the heck out of permitting issues for their corporate campaign 
contributors, EPA, whether they deserve the post or not, is the name 
of the game.

At 5:38 PM -0800 12/6/06, Tim Lohrmann wrote:
>CAUTION: NO CHRIST-CHURCH OR DOUG WILSON-RELATED CONTENT.
>                  REGULAR POST-ERS STRONGLY CAUTIONED!!
>
>
>What's the latest on the City of Moscow's water treatment center?
>It was reported last week that it is not in EPA compliance, and 
>needed to be brought up to specs or that the city was to be fined.
>I guess I haven't looked hard enough, but I haven't seen anything 
>else about it.
>     TL
>
>
>
>
>
>"Those 'technicalities' have a name, Bobby. They're called the Bill 
>of Rights."
> 
> ----Hank Hill
>
>
>
>Cheap Talk? 
><http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman8/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39663/*http://voice.yahoo.com>Check 
>out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20061206/4fef6005/attachment.html