[L]egislators Thursday approved new rules requiring Vermont sewage treatment plants to comply with state and federal clean-water laws.
It’s long been illegal in the United States to dump pollutants into rivers and lakes, but state agencies have allowed the practice for 26 years.
At a hearing at the Statehouse, Rutland city official defended the state’s current policy. Many other witnesses at the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules meeting, however, said 16 municipalities release raw sewage into rivers and streams when heavy rains overwhelm the sewage treatment facilities.
The state has allowed sewage overflows under certain circumstances since 1990. When the policy was adopted, the Department of Environmental Conservation acknowledged that “untreated combined sewer overflows do not comply” with the Federal Clean Water Act. The department issued the policy with a warning that sewage releases should be addressed by “a statewide corrective strategy.”
The purpose of the policy was to “ensure that all combined sewer overflows are identified and issued compliance schedules.” The ultimate goal was compliance with state and federal clean water laws.
Critics say the department has failed to meet that charge.
Anthony Iarrapino, a Montpelier attorney, told the legislative panel that the state has “abetted” illicit sewage dumping by looking the other way when municipalities violated federal and state law. Iarrapino testified on behalf of the clean-water advocacy group, Lake Champlain International.
The head of Rutland City public works made the opposite argument. Jeffrey Wennberg, a former commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said combined sewage overflows aren’t actually sewage dumps.
“It is not dumping, it is not a spill,” Wennberg said.
Rutland City’s sewer systems are designed for such releases, he said.
The term “combined sewer overflow” refers to a wastewater-treatment plant design that combines both stormwater runoff and sewage and sends both through the treatment plant. The system removes pollutants contained in runoff while at the same time converting sewage into freshwater, Wennberg said.
During storms that overwhelm a wastewater-treatment plant’s capacity, however, the excess volume of combined sewage and runoff drain untreated into nearby waterways.
Rutland has been under scrutiny recently for leading the state in the number of combined sewage overflows, but Wennberg said that’s an unfair characterization.
Though official records say Rutland experienced 65 combined sewage overflows this year, Wennberg said, the city saw only 17 storms capable of causing such events. Because the city has four separate places where combined sewage overflows release into surface waters, each event gets recorded four separate times, he said.
Iarrapino said that is how the law is supposed to work.
“Each discharge point is a violation of the law, and has been a violation of the law since the 1970s,” he told legislators.
Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, several times during the hearing objected to the phrase “combined sewage overflow,” saying that it obfuscates the fact that raw sewage dumps really are the topic at hand.
The new rules, which the Legislative Committee on Administrative rules approved Thursday morning, tighten reporting requirements for sewage overflow events and prohibit any increase in the volume of untreated sewage released into Vermont’s surface waters. Municipalities that do not comply with state and federal clean-water laws are also required to come up with a long-term plan to address the problem.
Legislators on the committee voted unanimously in favor of the rules.
