By Judy Sheahan
March 5, 2012

Mayors and city staff participated on behalf of the Conference of Mayors at five Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) workshops held in Atlanta (January 31), New York (February 6), Seattle (February 13), Kansas City (KS) (February 15), and Chicago (February 17). The purpose of the workshops was to provide input to EPA regarding an Integrated Planning Approach Framework that they unveiled on January 17 and presented at the Conference of Mayor Winter Meeting. EPA’s framework is a direct response to concerns raised by mayors and the Conference of Mayors Water Council regarding the runaway costs of EPA’s wastewater mandates and in particular, the mandates associated with compliance with Combined and Sanitary Sewer Overflow consent decrees. Over the past decade, many cities, both large and small, have been saddled with huge costs that range from the millions to billions of dollars.

As envisioned, integrated planning would be a voluntary tool that can be used by local governments who would like to identify their most pressing public health and environmental protection issues as it relates to wastewater and stormwater, determine the best course of action for investment for their community and work with their states and EPA regions to implement that plan. According to EPA, the purpose of an Integrated Plan is to provide local governments with an opportunity to “identify efficiencies in implementing the sometimes overlapping and competing requirements that arise from distinct wastewater and stormwater programs, including how best to make capital investments.”

Participating mayors included Environmental Committee Chair Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, Kansas City (KS) Mayor Joe Reardon, Mayors Water Council Co-Chair Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, and Lima (OH) Mayor Dave Berger. City staff that participated on behalf of their mayors included Al Foxx on behalf of Mayors Water Council Co-Chair Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Howard Neukrug on behalf of Conference of Mayors Vice-President Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Tom Ward on behalf of Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, and Bob Stubbe on behalf of Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle.

Mark Pollins, Director of EPA’s Water Enforcement Division, and Deborah Nagle, Director of EPA’s Water Permits Division, outlined EPA’s draft approach and sought feedback on the principles, elements, and implementation of an integrated plan.

The mayors thanked EPA for listening to their concerns and introducing this new approach to address these water mandates. They also discussed the importance that EPA and the states work in partnership with local communities to create cost-effective, affordable solutions that take into account other mandates, economic concerns, environmental justice issues, new technology, and protection from lawsuits.

Some of the points made by the mayors outlining their concerns are:

• Drinking Water Mandates Should Be Included – “EPA should allow Drinking Water requirements to be included in an Integrated Plan if a local government wants it,” Cooper said. “We see Integrated Planning like a recycling chart where source water protection is an integral part of our planning process especially given the fact that the money comes from the same ratepayer.”

• Providing Real Relief – “Just sequencing all of our Clean Water mandates won’t work,” Berger said. “We have to be able to set our priorities with a limited budget.”

• Common Sense Approach – Ballard stated, “A successful Integrated Plan must map out a reasonable approach that does not add more fiscal constraints on communities, it must, as the city of Indianapolis program did, allow for technical and fiscal concepts to be considered that protect the community and reward holistic planning and engineering.”

• Determining Affordability – “I have a commitment to protect our water, including the Puget Sound, which includes a major Superfund remediation, but the costs to our taxpayers and businesses must be considered. We would like to be able to tell you (EPA) what we can afford and we would like for you to believe us,” Strickland said.

• Recognizing the Work Already Accomplished – “Cities need to be recognized for the tremendous work they have already done,” Benjamin said. “Although we are still in the progress of negotiating our consent decree, we have analyzed and reduced our Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs) from 445 to 336 to 260 overflows. That is a 42 percent decrease without being required to.”

• Partners Not Prosecutors – “We need a federal government that is not just a regulatory agency but a partner with local governments to meet these challenges,” Reardon said. “Don’t bring all of your lawyers but bring answers.”

• Providing Enough Time to Implement the Solution – “The Clean Water Act passed 40 years ago and we should be proud of the results we have achieved so far but staying in place costs money as well and to try to shoehorn deals in 15-20 years might not be realistic or cost effective.”

• Environmental Justice – “While EPA sees Environmental Justice as it relates to underserved populations, the mayors of this nation see Environmental Justice as the cost burden placed on our taxpayers. In Hallandale Beach, 15 percent of my population makes $15,000 or less; they can’t afford the huge rate hikes that are called for with compliance with these mandates,” Cooper said.

The Conference of Mayors submitted two sets of written comments to EPA regarding the Integrated Plan. Final comments were due on February 29 and EPA is supposed to release a new version of the framework by March 30.