ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area relocate to pensacola florida

EPA May Ease Its Drinking Water Rules
By NEIL JOHNSON njohnson@tampatrib.com
Published: Jun 26, 2003




TAMPA - Every day, 640 million gallons of sewage in Florida is injected deep underground, where it's supposed to stay far away from drinking water supplies.
But what goes down is coming up, migrating into portions of the aquifer that cities and counties tap for their water supplies, a violation of current federal regulations governing drinking water.

Officials from the federal Environmental Protection Agency were in Tampa on Wednesday to get public opinion about a controversial proposal to relax those rules and allow what's called deep-well injection of sewage to continue, even if the treated effluent is mixing with drinking water.

Changes are opposed by environmental groups, but utilities - mainly in South Florida - want the regulations altered. The change would apply only to Florida.

Although the vast majority of the injected sewage is in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, St. Petersburg uses that method to dispose of an average of 20 million gallons a day - about 3 percent of the state's total and almost exclusively during the rainy season when demand for its reclaimed water hits bottom.

Either of two changes the EPA is considering could cost the city's sewer customers dearly.

Patti Anderson, director of the city's utility department, told the EPA panel that St. Petersburg would have to spend $100 million to meet the changes.

That would cause the typical city sewer bill to rocket from $50 a month to $200, she said.

It also would force the city to dump the sewage now going underground into waterways that flow into Tampa Bay, Anderson said.

``That's going backward,'' she said.

Also, because there is no drinkable water left in the aquifer under St. Petersburg, the city should not be subject to rules that apply to drinking water portions of the aquifer, Anderson said.

But if the relaxed rules allow pollution of the Floridan Aquifer, the source for nearly all the state's drinking water, people far from the coastal cities will also pay because their water supplies would be fouled, said Scott Randolph, an attorney with the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation.

``If those rules are changed to allow utilities to inject into the aquifer wherever they want, the rural communities will be hit by a hidden tax,'' he said.

Tampa resident Thelia Potter, a Sierra Club member, was astonished the federal agency was considering a change to its regulations.

``I'm here because I'm so shocked this issue is even here for discussion,'' she said.

But there were only a handful of others there to talk against the proposed changes.

Under its proposal, the EPA is considering two options. Both would allow utilities to inject sewage underground even if it migrates to where drinking water is withdrawn.

* Option 1 would let the wells operate but with more thorough treatment and disinfection of the wastewater first, and to do studies to prove the sewage is not harming drinking water supplies.

* Option 2 would let individual utilities do studies to show the water in the aquifer where the sewage was injected continued to meet drinking water standards. Also, all utilities would have to improve their treatment and disinfection by 2015 regardless of what the studies showed.

The final rule is expected to be adopted by December 2004.


Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (352) 544-5214.