Brown touts infrastructure bill as cure for sewer system ills
WASHINGTON — Sen. Sherrod Brown unveiled legislation Wednesday that he said would help communities across Ohio make vital upgrades to outdated sewer systems, without jacking up residents’ water rates.
Hamilton County could serve as Exhibit A for that conundrum. The Metropolitan Sewer District is required under a federal consent decree to make $3.2 billion in sewer district renovations, needed to bring the region into compliance with the Clean Water Act. Sewer rates have increased to nearly $1,000 a year for the average user to cover the cost of those fixes.
Brown’s bill would give sewer districts more flexibility in meeting federal requirements. It would also authorize $1.8 billion in federal grant funding to localities that need to upgrade combined sewer systems, which collect both sewage and storm water. Such systems are particularly problematic because anytime the system overflows, it can pollute drinking water.
“Every time it rains, these systems are overwhelmed, and untreated waste and sewer water is dumped straight into rivers, creeks and lakes — the same rivers, creeks, and lakes from which we draw our drinking water,” Brown told Ohio reporters in a conference call Wednesday. “The cost of treating that water is passed along to consumers in the form of higher water bills.”
The Cincinnati region is just one of 70 communities across Ohio that confronts this problem. Nationwide, Brown said, the federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates 800 billion gallons of untreated wastewater and stormwater is released into nearby streams and other bodies of water.
As Brown touted his bill, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee heard from Lima’s mayor, David Berger, about the budgetary stress that infrastructure water costs are putting on local governments. Berger said the federal government was not matching its mandates on water infrastructure with the needed funding to make upgrades — instead making ratepayers foot the bill. Berger was speaking on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Brown’s bill would give municipalities new wiggle room to push back EPA deadlines for making certain upgrades. For example, if a region has lost significant population or low-income residents have been subject to steep rate hikes, local officials could seek delays in federally mandated compliance dates.
The bill would also:
*Require the EPA to give local governments more flexibility to use “green infrastructure” projects to fix water overflow issues, such as planting grasses or creating a creek instead of constructing cement barriers or storage wells.
*Authorize $1.8 billion over five years in competitive grants for communities to make the federally required upgrades.
*Allow communities to re-prioritize their water infrastructure spending if it will save ratepayers money.
The legislation is similar to a bill introduced last year by Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Westwood. Chabot’s bill would direct the EPA to fund 15 pilot programs aimed at finding more innovative ways to address wastewater and storm water problems. Brown said his bill is more expansive, as it would fund such efforts across the country.
The prospects for both proposals are murky. Brown and Chabot have been working on the sewer infrastructure issue for years, without getting real traction.
But Brown said the issue has taken on new urgency in recent months, with Congress increasingly focused on the nation’s drinking water infrastructure after dangerous lead levels were discovered in tap water in Flint, Mich., and a host of other American cities.
“There is increasing interest in this,” Brown said. In addition to the Flint crisis, he said, lawmakers are hearing more complaints from constituents struggling to pay high water bills and businesses looking for access to reliable water systems.
“As we’re seeing with Flint, contamination costs money,” Brown said. “Just how stupid is (it for) public policy to wait until something bad happens … instead of really planning these upgrades?”