By Rich Anderson
June 29, 2009

Albuquerque (NM) Mayor Martin J. Chávez, Chair of the Mayors Water Council, delivered comments on how current policies in America fail to solve an emerging water crisis in the nation's major cities. During the June 15 Plenary Session of the 77th Annual Meeting, Chávez touched on national policy implemented by the stimulus legislation (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009-ARRA), and how the EPA is driving unnecessarily costly solutions in wet weather overflow negotiations with cities.

Chávez commented on how the Conference of Mayors developed policy recommendations for consideration by Congress and the Administration as they were drafting what became ARRA. The policy recommendations were generated by merging existing policy resolutions adopted by USCM over the last decade, current research results from a series of city surveys on water infrastructure needs, an analysis of local government spending on public water and wastewater systems, and a 2008 Conference report on the value-added to the economy from public investments in water infrastructure.

Some of the policy recommendations delivered to Congress and the Administration included: increased capitalization of the State Revolving Fund (SRF) loan programs; forgiveness of principal debt on SRF loans; no- or low-interest loans to cities; and to allow "green infrastructure" to qualify for projects approved for the SRF loans. Chávez reported that Congress included all of these recommendations in the final legislation, but they also directed the disbursement of the $6 billion in the law for water and wastewater to be directed by the states. The net effect of this approach was to ensure that very little of the stimulus funds for water and wastewater would go to cities over 10,000 population.

Chávez stated that the ‘affordability' provisions in state law or policies controlling the SRF programs aim the vast majority of the loan funds to very small communities. He stated that Kansas City (MO) Mayor Mark Funkhouser explained the consequences of the ‘affordability' for his city of over 500,000 population. Chávez called upon the mayors to work together to change the outdated ‘affordability' policy to ensure that the larger cities with legitimate need for increased infrastructure investment have access to SRF loans in the future.

Chávez also discussed USCM's longstanding history of support for the goals of the Clean Water Act, even though the cost to comply with the Act has fallen squarely on the cities. One of the goals of the Act is to reduce and eliminate wet weather overflows (WWOs) that occur when storm events result in flushing contaminated rainwater into streams, lakes and estuaries impairing their water quality. The cities have traditionally channeled stormwater through storm drains and pipes, often in what are called combined sanitary and storm sewers also referred to as Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). Additionally, EPA has identified overflows from sanitary sewer systems (SSOs) as contributing to the WWO problem. Thus, reducing and eliminating the WWOs has emerged over the last two decades as a major cost requirement for so many of our medium and large cities across the nation.

While the goals of the WWO program authorized by the Clean Water Act are not in question, the cities have learned through experience that the way the EPA negotiates solutions to prevent overflows always errs on the side of overly expensive costs to cities. Cities also have learned that the consent decrees they sign are subject to modification by EPA negotiators with new requirements and added costs.

What is most important to understand is that cities want to fix this problem, but they need EPA to agree to ‘reasonable solutions.' Chávez stated that it is common to hear that the result of consent order negotiations with EPA on CSO agreements involves hundreds of millions of dollars for new infrastructure. A 2004 EPA Report indicates the need for an additional public sector $50.6 billion investment to capture 85 percent of CSO volume; and an additional $88.8 billion to control SSOs over a 20 year period.

He stated that cities are reporting that while the law provides for some flexibility in enforcing the WWO control program, the EPA and the state regulators are not exercising that flexibility. Indeed, they appear to be forcing the most expensive control options. As a general matter, cities have found that the CSO regulatory and enforcement process is driven by inflexible policies that do not allow stakeholders to work together to achieve the best environmental result. For example, some cities have expressed concern that EPA is discouraging rather than encouraging ‘green infrastructure' as part of the solution. In these cases cities have learned that EPA says the green infrastructure approach does not have the same level of ‘certainty in outcome' as the traditional bricks and mortar approach. "This type of attitude is out of step with what we as mayors are trying to accomplish to reduce carbon footprints and fix water problems simultaneously," stated Chávez. Again, this appears to be an outdated attitude about policy implementation that is out of step with 21st Century thinking of the mayors who strongly support active local reductions in carbon footprint.

arbon footprints and fix water problems simultaneously," stated Chávez. Again, this appears to be an outdated attitude about policy implementation that is out of step with 21st Century thinking of the mayors who strongly support active local reductions in carbon footprint.

Chávez cited several areas that have been identified where cities and EPA can negotiate better outcomes:

1. Consider limits on a city's ability to raise funds, particularly municipal bonding problems;

2. In assessing affordability of particular control options, look at the costs of those options in relation to the incremental benefits that they provide;

3. Factor in carbon footprint impacts of new control technologies, so one solution on water does not exacerbate our efforts to reduce global warming;

4. Promote green infrastructure (for example, through flexibility on schedules);

5. Focus on meeting performance criteria instead of detailed review of specific technologies and designs; and

6. Allow more than 20 years on CSO and SSO schedules.