EPA Seeks Comments on Proposed TMDL Rule
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is soliciting comments on state resources required for development and implementation of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), estimated annual costs to the regulated community, and estimated costs to small businesses resulting from regulatory changes to the TMDL program.
Congressional committee reports accompanying EPA's appropriation for fiscal year 2001 direct EPA to conduct a comprehensive assessment of state and regulated community costs related to TMDLs, to solicit comments from the states and general public on these costs, and to present the results of the study to Congress within 120 days of the signing of the appropriation bill.
At a minimum, the report should (1) identify any expected increase in State personnel needed to develop and implement 40,000 TMDLs; (2) specify additional data collection activities to make listing decisions; (3) identify the cost of conducting the needed studies to collect high quality data on the current loads from sources (point and nonpoint sources) of a pollutant on listed waters slated for TMDL development; and (4) provide an estimate of the annual costs to the private sector due to TMDL implementation and related costs.
EPA will consider all comments received by early January. Comments received after this time may be reviewed at EPA's discretion.
Lab Executives Sentenced for Falsifying Test Results
Randy S. Haring, the president of Hydro-Analysis Associates Inc. of Kutztown, Pa., and Robert J. Spare, the former company's laboratory director, have been sentenced for their role in falsifying their customers' environmental testing results, including those for municipal drinking water and wastewater.
Spare was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and three years of probation. Haring was sentenced to six months house arrest and five years of probation. The corporation was sentenced to a $500,000 fine. The three defendants are jointly and severally liable for $481,073 restitution to be paid to defrauded clients. The defendants previously pleaded guilty to several criminal violations.
A joint federal-state investigation of Hydro-Analysis uncovered evidence that the company performed fraudulent analysis of drinking water, wastewater, and soil between 1994 and 1998. As of July 15, 1999, Haring, Spare, and the company pleaded guilty to falsely representing to customers that they were using proper laboratory testing instruments, equipment and EPA-certified methods in tests conducted on drinking water, soils and underground storage tanks, and other environmental tests of wastewater.
The investigation found Hydro-Analysis' testing for hazardous wastes and public drinking water included: 1) fabricating test results, 2) failing to follow required EPA-approved test methods, 3) failing to use essential testing equipment, 4) improperly calibrating test instruments, 5) using improper analytical methods, 6) and failing to follow minimal quality assurance procedures.
Hydro-Analysis took steps to conceal these deficiencies during the Commonwealth's laboratory certification inspections. Two weeks after a criminal search warrant was served by agents, the laboratory closed its business in December 1998. During the investigation, EPA's National Enforcement Investigation Center Computer Forensics Group and the Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Laboratories assisted in efforts to uncover the fraud.
A growing trend of environmental testing fraud had prompted investigation of lab fraud. This is the third successful prosecution of environmental lab fraud since 1997. All have resulted in closing the laboratories and prison terms for company officials.
City Ordered to Clean Up CSOs
EPA has announced a proposed administrative order that would require the City of Springfield, Mass., to immediately address combined sewer overflow (CSO) impacts to the Mill River, a tributary of the Connecticut River.
Unveiled after months of negotiations among the city, EPA and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the proposed order requires the city to address six of its 25 CSO outfall pipes that discharge untreated sewage and stormwater into the Connecticut River and two of its tributaries, the Mill and Chicopee Rivers. The order also requires the city to reduce stormwater pollution to Watershops Pond, the headwaters for the Mill River.
The order allows the city to take more time to explore additional pollution abatement options before deciding how it will address its remaining CSO outfalls. By postponing work on those outfalls, the city and its residents will ensure that future money spent on CSO controls will be wisely spent.
"CSO discharges are a huge problem all across New England, but the EPA also needs to be sensitive to the stiff price tag it takes for municipalities to fix them," said Mindy S. Lubber, regional administrator of EPA's New England Office. "This agreement with Springfield strikes a good balance between the problem and the price tag. It will enable us to fix CSO pollution sources most directly impacting the city in a way that is affordable."
Springfield's 25 CSOs discharge an estimated 700 million gallons of wastewater a year into the Connecticut River and its tributaries. These discharges are a major reason why all three rivers routinely violate water quality standards after heavy rains.
Springfield is among numerous cities on the Lower Connecticut River wrestling with CSO problems. Holyoke and Chicopee are under compliance orders for abating their CSO discharges, while the communities of Agawam, West Springfield, Ludlow and South Hadley have already eliminated their CSOs or are close to eliminating them.
Florida WWTP Facility, Owner Sentenced
South Bay Utilities of Sarasota County, Fla., and its president, Paul L. Paver, were sentenced on Nov. 20, for violating the Clean Water Act (CWA) by discharging inadequately treated sewage directly into Dryman Bay.
South Bay Utilities was sentenced to pay a fine of $315,500 to the United States, pay $309,000 to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Ecosystem Management and Restoration Trust Fund, pay $400,000 to the Sarasota County Pollution Recovery Trust Fund and pay $270,500 to the Middle District of Florida Environmental Restitution Fund. Paver was sentenced to pay a fine of $205,000 to the United States and pay $250,000 in restitution to the Middle District of Florida Environmental Restitution Trust Fund.
The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center, EPA's Office of Inspector General, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Sarasota County Office of Pollution Control, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa prosecuted the case.
CWA Cost-Benefit Study Expected
EPA plans to release a report in January that will conclude that the benefits of the Clean Water Act are equal to or exceed the costs of implementing the rule, according to published reports.
The report apparently is part of the Clinton Administration's effort to demonstrate a positive legacy in the environmental area. The report will complement EPA's recently released Retrospective Assessment of the Costs of the Clean Water Act from 1972 to 1997. The cost report concludes that the Clean Water Act cost about $14.1 billion in 1997. That figure, however, is an estimate of what was spent solely because the Clean Water Act was in place. The cumulative total cost of all activities related to the Clean Water Act in 1997 was about $48 billion. About $34 billion of this would have been spent even if the rule did not exist, leaving a $14 billion remainder attributable to the rule.
