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Monday, February 21, 2005

Environment - Bill, EPA may help with sewage woes

"Bill, EPA may help with sewage woes: State measure would protect against lawsuits as cities tackle problem; feds' plan deals with discharges," reads the headline today to this Indianapolis Star story by Tammy Webber. Some quotes:

[P]roposals before the state legislature and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are aimed at helping cities and towns begin the expensive task of stemming billions of gallons of untreated sewage that overflow into rivers and streams each year from antiquated sewer systems.

The legislature will consider Senate Bill 620, which would let communities change water-quality standards during storms -- meaning waterways would not have to be clean enough for human contact for up to four days. That would protect the state from lawsuits while lawmakers work to solve the problem.

And the federal EPA is close to approving guidelines letting communities release a blend of fully and partially treated sewage during storms, rather than requiring them to build plants large enough to fully treat all waste.

"This is in no way meant to get local governments off the hook for correcting (overflows)," said Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield, who introduced the bill. "We want to (help them) move ahead."

SB 620 has not yet been passed out of the 1st house committee. However, it is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Energy and Environmental Affirms Committee, chaired by Senator Gard, this morning at 9:30 a.m.

The proposed federal blending policy has been highlighted in the ILB before, most previously in this Dec. 9th entry titled "EPA May Allow the Discharge Of Partially Treated Sewage."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 21, 2005 07:30 AM
Posted to Environment | Indiana Law