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Municipal waste discharge policies in washington state and recent discharge issues between the state and British Columbia
~ Pergamon
Waf. ScL Tecla. Vol. 38, No. II, pp. 1·6, 1998. C 1998 Published by Elsevier Science LId on behalf of the IAWQ. Printed in Great Britain. All righll reserved 0273·1223198 S19'00 + 0'00
PIT: S0273-1223(98)00633-7
MUNICIPAL WASTE DISCHARGE POLICIES IN WASHINGTON STATE AND RECENT DISCHARGE ISSUES BETWEEN THE STATE AND BRITISH COLUMBIA Lincoln Loehr
,
Heller. Ehrman, White &: McAuliffe, 6100 Columbia Center, 701·5th Avenue. Seattle. WA 98104·7098. USA
ABSTRAcr Federal and state laws mandated secondary sewage treatment for all municipal dischargen in the state of Washington regardless of need. Evidence supported the suitability of lesser amounts of treatment and the use of industrial source controls as protective of water quality. but could not be considered. The full implementation to secondary treatment is now complete. In the 1990's. the media, environmental activists and various local, state and federal politicians from Washington State became upset with Victoria, British Columbia when they realized that most of the sewage from the greater Victoria area was only screened prior to discharge to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The perception was tainted by a lack of undentanding of the benefits and power of rapid dilution. and also the mistaken impression that the excessive treatment requirements in Washington were actually needed for water quality reasons. A British ColumbialWashington State Marine Science Panel was established by the political leaden of the province and state to examine issues of the shared marine waten. The Panel concluded Victoria's discharges were not a problem. The media in Washington State did not report this. and the director of the state's environmental agency expressed disappointment rather than relief with the findina. C 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of the IAWQ. All rights reserved
KEYWORDS Policy; sewage; treatment; Victoria; Washington.
INTRODUcnON This paper presents a chronology of events that shaped sewage management policies in Washington State from an initial approach of responding to water quality needs to a mandated application of secondary treatment regardless of need which in tum diverted resources from other real water quality needs. Included within the chronology is a description of a controversy that evolved when media. activists and politicians in Washington State discovered that British Columbia did not impose equally stringent sewage treatment requirements.
2
L.LOEHR
WASHINGTON STATE CHRONOLOGY Much of the following chronology up to 1985 is described in greater detail in Loehr (1986). In the 1950's and early 1960's people in the Seattle area read increasingly of deteriorating water quality in Lake Washington. The problem was the excessive loading of nutrients from numerous small secondary treatment sewage treatment plants around the lake. The community formed a regional agency called METRO to solve the problem. In 1966 the discharges to Lake Washington shut down and all the sewage was routed to two new large regional sewage treatment plants in Renton and West Point. The Renton facility discharged to the Duwarnish River and provided secondary treatment The West Point facility discharged through a long deep outfall with an efficient diffuser to Puget Sound and only provided primary treatment. A rapid recovery of Lake Washington resulted and is often hailed as a regional success story. In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, which mandated secondary treatment for
all waste water from industries and municipalities alike, regardless of differences in receiving waters. Oceanic discharges were treated no differently than discharges to lakes or streams. For municipalities, Congress also set up a federal state partnership, whereby the federal government would pay 75% of the costs. Because this would require significant resources, the implementation was spread out over many years. In practice, the federal funds were awarded first to the inland dischargers where there were major water quality benefits to be realized. Most marine discharges in Puget Sound were unable to make the priority list as they had little impact. The federal funds did not remain at 75% and thus, the seemingly equal requirement became anything but equal. In 1974, METRO identified that stormwater discharges and combined sewer overflows were a significant
problem. They suspected that addressing these issues should be a higher priority than upgrading to secondary treatment. They funded over a million dollars of marine science studies to identify the effects of their effluents. Many of the studies were conducted by the University of Washington. The resulting data were used in 1976 to lobby Congress to change the Federal law to allow for waivers of the secondary treatment requirement for municipal discharges to marine waters. Other coastal communities joined the lobby effort. In 1977 Congress passed section 301(h) to the Clean Water Act which allowed for these waivers, emphasizing a number of scientific questions that would form the basis for the decisions. EPA developed their regulations in 1979 and set a three month time frame for dischargers to gather a year's worth of data to answer the questions. Large dischargers that had already invested in extensive monitoring could meet the deadline. Smaller dischargers without the data could not obtain the requested information in time. In 1980, in response to industrial pretreatment requirements which were required to be considered for a
secondary treatment waiver, METRO commenced another $8,000,000 worth of environmental studies to identify where the real problems were and the actions that they could take. The studies were collectively called the Toxicant Pretreatment Planning Study.
In 1982 Congress investigated EPA and strongly criticized them for not implementing the waiver provision
reasonably (US House of Representatives 1982). The published proceedings of the congressional committee that conducted the investigation referred to it as 'A Case Study of Lawmaking by Rulemakers'. Consequently, EPA changed the waiver regulations, and a total of 31 municipal dischargers to Washington State marine waters conducted the required evaluations and applied for the waiver.
In 1982, METRO began to quietly implement the industrial pretreatment program. This proved to be highly
successful at reducing loadings of toxicants of concern to the treatment plants, but the value of this program received little public attention. By 1985, total metals discharged from West Point were reduced to what
Municipal waste discharge policies
3
could have been achieved with secondary treatment even though the plant was still at primary treatment. Ultimately, the pretreatment program would develop to focus on protecting the quality of the sludge, that being the stronger driver than water quality. METRO refers to their sludge as 'biosolids.' In 1983, the waiver applications were completed and the evaluation process began. An obscure state law (RCW 90.52.040) was discovered which required the application of all known available reasonable treatment regardless of water quality standards or receiving water characteristics. 'Reasonable' could not consider what should be the ultimate objective, water quality. The Department of Ecology made a mild effort to change the law, but the marine science community was not made aware of or brought into the proceedings. The 1971 state law remained in place and as a result, all the science was swept aside and the waivers were denied. 1984 was a very significant year in further setting policy. METRO's studies provided strong evidence of environmental harm associated with stormwater dischargers and combined sewer overflows. (This finding would come back to haunt them later.) Six grey whales died in Puget Sound. Grey whales had died before, and would die again, but these attracted extra attention. The National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that they died of natural causes, but this was barely acknowledged. Rather, activists and the media proclaimed that pollution had killed the whales. 1984 was an election year and each of the candidates for Governor made Puget Sound cleanup a priority campaign issue and they raced to outdo each other. Another effort to change the technology based state law was defeated. All the marine waivers were denied, without consideration of any of the scientific data. In 1985, legislation created a Puget Sound Water Quality Authority ('PSWQA'). The newly elected Governor appointed the seven member board. No marine scientists were appointed. The PSWQA was tasked with preparing a comprehensive Puget Sound Water Quality Management Plan. The legislation included a provision that the PSWQA was to re-examine the secondary treatment issue. The Governor line-item vetoed that provision. In 1985, three communities (Port Angeles, Bellingham and Lynnwood) appealed the waiver denials.
Although the METRO staff determined that implementing secondary treatment would not help to solve any of the identified water quality problems in the region, and that other problems were important and needed to be addressed, the METRO council decided to not appeal the waiver denial and to proceed with implementing secondary treatment This assured that needed resources would be diverted from the real problems of stormwater and combined sewer overflows. The appeals for the three communities were denied by the state's Pollution Control Hearings Board (,PCHB'). In one of the cases, the state's attorney filed a motion to have the PCHB disallow the submission of any evidence regarding Puget Sound, sediments, toxicants, chemistry, water quality, or the biota on the grounds that it was irrelevant under state law and prejudicial to the Department of Ecology's case. In another, the state's attorney introduced evidence that the Agency's review of the application showed that there was no water quality impact from the discharger and that they should be eligible for the waiver. This was acknowledged by the attorney who also declared that it was irrelevant under state law. In essence, pollution, ecology and the environment had nothing to do with the requirement. In each of the three appeals, the Chair of the PCHB refused to sign the decision, writing a separate concurring opinion instead (Faulk 1985). He was very critical of the state law that had tied their hands in the matter. He clearly stated that the evidence supported the position that these communities' primary-treated effluents were not having significant impacts on the marine environment, and that there were significant impacts related to economic costs and added requirements of disposing of additional sludge which outweighed the undefined benefits of secondary treatment. He stated several times that the State had to change the law to prevent this wasteful situation which 'violates any standard of fairness.' From 1986 to 1990 METRO was engaged in planning and designing the upgrade of West Point to secondary treatment. Major issues arose such as possibly tearing the facility down and building one elsewhere,
4
L.LOEHR
shoreline permitting, mitigation and more. The environmental impact statement did not describe the do• nothing alternative other than to state that it simply was not allowed by law. Other communities also proceeded with planning, designing and implementing secondary treatment. Only reduced levels of federal funding were available, but the state passed a cigarette tax to raise additional funds to help towards the upgrades. The combined state and federal funding available to help all the communities upgrade to secondary did not equal the 75% that Congress originally provided. In 1990, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (,NOAA') sued the City of Seattle and METRO for natural resource damages associated with combined storm sewer overflows and stormwater discharges. NOAA did not sue METRO for not using secondary treatment, as the data did not support natural resource damages from the primary treatment facility. Evidence of sediment contamination from the early 1980 studies by METRO provided the basis for the lawsuit. There is nothing unique about the stormwater or the combined sewer overflows from Seattle. The message here is that if similar environmental data are collected by other cities, they too may be subject to lawsuits of this nature. In 1991, a reporter from a major Seattle newspaper determined that the waste effluent from the Victoria, B.C. region was discharged by the Capital Regional District to the Strait of Juan de Fuca without any treatment. Without any attempts to seek out significant scientific information, the reporter decried this dumping into our shared waters and urged the state legislature to take action. Much of the rest of the press and even national media, as well as state and national politicians from Washington demanded that Victoria take a more responsible position as they expressed outrage at a perceived threat to Washington's waters. By 1992, a number of groups urged boycotting of Victoria. One in particular, an eighth grade class from Seattle, received considerable exposure both in Washington state and nationally. The class however turned it into a learning experience, studied the issue more, sent representatives to Victoria to hear what the Capitol Regional District did, invited speakers into the class, and ultimately reversed their boycott decision. The teacher provided this information back to all the press that had covered the class's boycott, but none of them opted to report this final outcome. Much of Victoria's municipal wastes are discharged with only screening, via two deep outfalls which are very well sited. The effluent achieves a very rapid initial dilution. The effluent is lacking in significant industrial wastes, and is essentially an organic waste stream discharged to an area that can readily dissipate, assimilate and recycle organic matter. Detailed environmental monitoring by the Capitol Regional District shows that the impacts are minimal. That an untreated discharge can be harmless seems improbable to Washington residents who have had to invest so much in secondary treatment. In 1993, the National Research Council completed a three year long study and released their findings in a book titled Managing Wastewater in Coastal Urban Areas. This study, requested by the U.S. Congress, said that we need to get away from the blanket technology based approach, and instead shift to using available site-specific information coupled with water quality and sediment 4uality standards to determine what is needed and what works best in a given situation. The NRC noted that biochemical oxygen demand ('BOD') and total suspended solids (TSS') were the waste constituents of least concern in the marine environment, yet secondary treatment in this country is defined by a very high rate of removal of these two constituents. The NRC noted that metals and other toxicants were higher priority concerns, but that they were best addressed by source control programs instead of end-of-pipe treatment. The NRC provided a management tool called Integrated Coastal Management as an inherently flexible approach to allow resources to be best channeled towards real problems in the best interests of the environment and the community. The NRC report also noted that physical-chemical treatment methods were also well suited to marine discharges. The NRC report provided a means for evaluating our actions in Washington State, as well as actions in British Columbia. In 1993, the Governor of Washington and the Premier of British Columbia agreed to appoint a 6 member British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel to evaluate issues of our shared marine waters. The Panel, once convened, sponsored a two day research symposium in 1994, and also solicited written and oral
Municipal waste discharge policies
briefs from a broad range of individuals and groups. The panel also drew on scientific journals and books and a range of technical reports. A representative of the National Research Council briefed them on the NRC report. Additional briefings for the panel were held in Washington and in British Columbia. In their final report on The Shared Marine Waters of British Columbia and Washington' (British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel 1994), the panel was silent about Victoria. At the press release meeting the panel members acknowledged that Victoria's discharges were simply not a problem. The press in Washington said nothing. In 1995, this author observed how the British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel's work had been considered at the level of the Governor's office and the Department of Ecology. At a meeting of the PSWQA on March 15, 1995, the director of the Department of Ecology (who also served as the director of the PSWQA) stated that there was a 'hidden agenda' in appointing the Marine Science Panel and that was to 'urge Victoria to get on with its secondary treatment.' She stated that the panel came back and said that Victoria really was not a problem. Instead of expressing relief, she said that 'we were very disappointed', that 'it was politically tough' and that 'we need to be carefu what we ask'. HopefuIly this total disregard for science does not represent the views of these same offices today, as there is a new Governor and a new Director of the Department of Ecology. What is more likely is that neither the new Governor nor the new Director of the Department of Ecology even know anything about the British ColumbiaIWashington Marine Science Panel's conclusions in this matter. In 1996, the facility at West Point completed its upgrade to secondary treatment. The new discharge permit included a fact sheet that explained how there was no reasonable potential to exceed water quality standards for toxicants (other than for chlorine, which is intentionally added to kiIl bacteria), and that therefore there was no need for water quality-based effluent limits for toxicants. It would be easy to say that this is an accomplishment of secondary treatment and pretend that major water quality improvements had resulted. However, the reasonable potential to exceed determination, foIlowing state and EPA procedures (which also consider a limited dilution area), used a very large effluent data base from when the facility was stiIl at primary treatment. This is simply another demonstration that the NRC was right. Effective and protective removal of toxicants is best addressed by source controls, rather than end-of-pipe treatment. Although secondary treatment does remove additional toxicants, the removal in this case is not necessary to protect water quality and therefore, is of minor or no benefit. CONCLUSIONS Expenditures for upgrades to secondary treatment for municipal discharges to Puget Sound are in the range of $1,000,000,000 US. The benefits from these upgrades are in many cases minimal at best. There are some locations, where secondary treatment or greater is necessary, and some locations where it would be best if there were no discharges, but those dischargers were providing secondary treatment and had not applied for secondary treatment waivers in 1982. Washington State Law needs to be changed, or we will continue to expend resources needlessly in the future. The NRC report lays out the framework to manage waste discharges more effectively in the future, if only the state and the federal government will allow it. Neither Canada nor any other country should look to Washington state for an example of a rational way to manage its waste discharges. Rather, they should look to site-specific conditions to evaluate what combination of tools (including dilution and screening) best addresses real water quality needs. The NRC report can be a useful tool for British Columbia if they will consider it. Efforts are needed to educate and inform the public better so future decisions might provide a more effective allocation of scarce resources to address real problems and to allow ourselves the lUXUry of not spending resources needlessly on non-problems. It is possible to re-examine past actions and learn from them in order to adjust future actions accordingly.
6
L.LOEHR
REFERENCES British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel (1994). The Shared Marine Waters of British Columbia and Washington. Report to British ColumbialWashington Environmental Cooperation Council. Faulk, Lawrence, J. (1985). Concurring opinion in the decision of the Pollution Control Hearings Board in the Case of the City of Bellingham's appeal of the state's denial of their 301 (h) application for the waiver of the secondary treatment requirement (PCHB Case No. 84-211). Loehr, L. C. (1986). The Exclusion of Science from Major Water Quality Decisions. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 17(11),489-493. National Research Council (1993). Managing Wastewater In Coastal Urban Areas. National Academy Press. US House of Representatives. Committee on Public Works and Transportation, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight December 1982. Implementation of the Clean Water Act concerning Ocean Discharge Waivers (A Case Study of Lawmaking by Rulemakers).
Waf. ScL Tecla. Vol. 38, No. II, pp. 1·6, 1998. C 1998 Published by Elsevier Science LId on behalf of the IAWQ. Printed in Great Britain. All righll reserved 0273·1223198 S19'00 + 0'00
PIT: S0273-1223(98)00633-7
MUNICIPAL WASTE DISCHARGE POLICIES IN WASHINGTON STATE AND RECENT DISCHARGE ISSUES BETWEEN THE STATE AND BRITISH COLUMBIA Lincoln Loehr
,
Heller. Ehrman, White &: McAuliffe, 6100 Columbia Center, 701·5th Avenue. Seattle. WA 98104·7098. USA
ABSTRAcr Federal and state laws mandated secondary sewage treatment for all municipal dischargen in the state of Washington regardless of need. Evidence supported the suitability of lesser amounts of treatment and the use of industrial source controls as protective of water quality. but could not be considered. The full implementation to secondary treatment is now complete. In the 1990's. the media, environmental activists and various local, state and federal politicians from Washington State became upset with Victoria, British Columbia when they realized that most of the sewage from the greater Victoria area was only screened prior to discharge to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The perception was tainted by a lack of undentanding of the benefits and power of rapid dilution. and also the mistaken impression that the excessive treatment requirements in Washington were actually needed for water quality reasons. A British ColumbialWashington State Marine Science Panel was established by the political leaden of the province and state to examine issues of the shared marine waten. The Panel concluded Victoria's discharges were not a problem. The media in Washington State did not report this. and the director of the state's environmental agency expressed disappointment rather than relief with the findina. C 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of the IAWQ. All rights reserved
KEYWORDS Policy; sewage; treatment; Victoria; Washington.
INTRODUcnON This paper presents a chronology of events that shaped sewage management policies in Washington State from an initial approach of responding to water quality needs to a mandated application of secondary treatment regardless of need which in tum diverted resources from other real water quality needs. Included within the chronology is a description of a controversy that evolved when media. activists and politicians in Washington State discovered that British Columbia did not impose equally stringent sewage treatment requirements.
2
L.LOEHR
WASHINGTON STATE CHRONOLOGY Much of the following chronology up to 1985 is described in greater detail in Loehr (1986). In the 1950's and early 1960's people in the Seattle area read increasingly of deteriorating water quality in Lake Washington. The problem was the excessive loading of nutrients from numerous small secondary treatment sewage treatment plants around the lake. The community formed a regional agency called METRO to solve the problem. In 1966 the discharges to Lake Washington shut down and all the sewage was routed to two new large regional sewage treatment plants in Renton and West Point. The Renton facility discharged to the Duwarnish River and provided secondary treatment The West Point facility discharged through a long deep outfall with an efficient diffuser to Puget Sound and only provided primary treatment. A rapid recovery of Lake Washington resulted and is often hailed as a regional success story. In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, which mandated secondary treatment for
all waste water from industries and municipalities alike, regardless of differences in receiving waters. Oceanic discharges were treated no differently than discharges to lakes or streams. For municipalities, Congress also set up a federal state partnership, whereby the federal government would pay 75% of the costs. Because this would require significant resources, the implementation was spread out over many years. In practice, the federal funds were awarded first to the inland dischargers where there were major water quality benefits to be realized. Most marine discharges in Puget Sound were unable to make the priority list as they had little impact. The federal funds did not remain at 75% and thus, the seemingly equal requirement became anything but equal. In 1974, METRO identified that stormwater discharges and combined sewer overflows were a significant
problem. They suspected that addressing these issues should be a higher priority than upgrading to secondary treatment. They funded over a million dollars of marine science studies to identify the effects of their effluents. Many of the studies were conducted by the University of Washington. The resulting data were used in 1976 to lobby Congress to change the Federal law to allow for waivers of the secondary treatment requirement for municipal discharges to marine waters. Other coastal communities joined the lobby effort. In 1977 Congress passed section 301(h) to the Clean Water Act which allowed for these waivers, emphasizing a number of scientific questions that would form the basis for the decisions. EPA developed their regulations in 1979 and set a three month time frame for dischargers to gather a year's worth of data to answer the questions. Large dischargers that had already invested in extensive monitoring could meet the deadline. Smaller dischargers without the data could not obtain the requested information in time. In 1980, in response to industrial pretreatment requirements which were required to be considered for a
secondary treatment waiver, METRO commenced another $8,000,000 worth of environmental studies to identify where the real problems were and the actions that they could take. The studies were collectively called the Toxicant Pretreatment Planning Study.
In 1982 Congress investigated EPA and strongly criticized them for not implementing the waiver provision
reasonably (US House of Representatives 1982). The published proceedings of the congressional committee that conducted the investigation referred to it as 'A Case Study of Lawmaking by Rulemakers'. Consequently, EPA changed the waiver regulations, and a total of 31 municipal dischargers to Washington State marine waters conducted the required evaluations and applied for the waiver.
In 1982, METRO began to quietly implement the industrial pretreatment program. This proved to be highly
successful at reducing loadings of toxicants of concern to the treatment plants, but the value of this program received little public attention. By 1985, total metals discharged from West Point were reduced to what
Municipal waste discharge policies
3
could have been achieved with secondary treatment even though the plant was still at primary treatment. Ultimately, the pretreatment program would develop to focus on protecting the quality of the sludge, that being the stronger driver than water quality. METRO refers to their sludge as 'biosolids.' In 1983, the waiver applications were completed and the evaluation process began. An obscure state law (RCW 90.52.040) was discovered which required the application of all known available reasonable treatment regardless of water quality standards or receiving water characteristics. 'Reasonable' could not consider what should be the ultimate objective, water quality. The Department of Ecology made a mild effort to change the law, but the marine science community was not made aware of or brought into the proceedings. The 1971 state law remained in place and as a result, all the science was swept aside and the waivers were denied. 1984 was a very significant year in further setting policy. METRO's studies provided strong evidence of environmental harm associated with stormwater dischargers and combined sewer overflows. (This finding would come back to haunt them later.) Six grey whales died in Puget Sound. Grey whales had died before, and would die again, but these attracted extra attention. The National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that they died of natural causes, but this was barely acknowledged. Rather, activists and the media proclaimed that pollution had killed the whales. 1984 was an election year and each of the candidates for Governor made Puget Sound cleanup a priority campaign issue and they raced to outdo each other. Another effort to change the technology based state law was defeated. All the marine waivers were denied, without consideration of any of the scientific data. In 1985, legislation created a Puget Sound Water Quality Authority ('PSWQA'). The newly elected Governor appointed the seven member board. No marine scientists were appointed. The PSWQA was tasked with preparing a comprehensive Puget Sound Water Quality Management Plan. The legislation included a provision that the PSWQA was to re-examine the secondary treatment issue. The Governor line-item vetoed that provision. In 1985, three communities (Port Angeles, Bellingham and Lynnwood) appealed the waiver denials.
Although the METRO staff determined that implementing secondary treatment would not help to solve any of the identified water quality problems in the region, and that other problems were important and needed to be addressed, the METRO council decided to not appeal the waiver denial and to proceed with implementing secondary treatment This assured that needed resources would be diverted from the real problems of stormwater and combined sewer overflows. The appeals for the three communities were denied by the state's Pollution Control Hearings Board (,PCHB'). In one of the cases, the state's attorney filed a motion to have the PCHB disallow the submission of any evidence regarding Puget Sound, sediments, toxicants, chemistry, water quality, or the biota on the grounds that it was irrelevant under state law and prejudicial to the Department of Ecology's case. In another, the state's attorney introduced evidence that the Agency's review of the application showed that there was no water quality impact from the discharger and that they should be eligible for the waiver. This was acknowledged by the attorney who also declared that it was irrelevant under state law. In essence, pollution, ecology and the environment had nothing to do with the requirement. In each of the three appeals, the Chair of the PCHB refused to sign the decision, writing a separate concurring opinion instead (Faulk 1985). He was very critical of the state law that had tied their hands in the matter. He clearly stated that the evidence supported the position that these communities' primary-treated effluents were not having significant impacts on the marine environment, and that there were significant impacts related to economic costs and added requirements of disposing of additional sludge which outweighed the undefined benefits of secondary treatment. He stated several times that the State had to change the law to prevent this wasteful situation which 'violates any standard of fairness.' From 1986 to 1990 METRO was engaged in planning and designing the upgrade of West Point to secondary treatment. Major issues arose such as possibly tearing the facility down and building one elsewhere,
4
L.LOEHR
shoreline permitting, mitigation and more. The environmental impact statement did not describe the do• nothing alternative other than to state that it simply was not allowed by law. Other communities also proceeded with planning, designing and implementing secondary treatment. Only reduced levels of federal funding were available, but the state passed a cigarette tax to raise additional funds to help towards the upgrades. The combined state and federal funding available to help all the communities upgrade to secondary did not equal the 75% that Congress originally provided. In 1990, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (,NOAA') sued the City of Seattle and METRO for natural resource damages associated with combined storm sewer overflows and stormwater discharges. NOAA did not sue METRO for not using secondary treatment, as the data did not support natural resource damages from the primary treatment facility. Evidence of sediment contamination from the early 1980 studies by METRO provided the basis for the lawsuit. There is nothing unique about the stormwater or the combined sewer overflows from Seattle. The message here is that if similar environmental data are collected by other cities, they too may be subject to lawsuits of this nature. In 1991, a reporter from a major Seattle newspaper determined that the waste effluent from the Victoria, B.C. region was discharged by the Capital Regional District to the Strait of Juan de Fuca without any treatment. Without any attempts to seek out significant scientific information, the reporter decried this dumping into our shared waters and urged the state legislature to take action. Much of the rest of the press and even national media, as well as state and national politicians from Washington demanded that Victoria take a more responsible position as they expressed outrage at a perceived threat to Washington's waters. By 1992, a number of groups urged boycotting of Victoria. One in particular, an eighth grade class from Seattle, received considerable exposure both in Washington state and nationally. The class however turned it into a learning experience, studied the issue more, sent representatives to Victoria to hear what the Capitol Regional District did, invited speakers into the class, and ultimately reversed their boycott decision. The teacher provided this information back to all the press that had covered the class's boycott, but none of them opted to report this final outcome. Much of Victoria's municipal wastes are discharged with only screening, via two deep outfalls which are very well sited. The effluent achieves a very rapid initial dilution. The effluent is lacking in significant industrial wastes, and is essentially an organic waste stream discharged to an area that can readily dissipate, assimilate and recycle organic matter. Detailed environmental monitoring by the Capitol Regional District shows that the impacts are minimal. That an untreated discharge can be harmless seems improbable to Washington residents who have had to invest so much in secondary treatment. In 1993, the National Research Council completed a three year long study and released their findings in a book titled Managing Wastewater in Coastal Urban Areas. This study, requested by the U.S. Congress, said that we need to get away from the blanket technology based approach, and instead shift to using available site-specific information coupled with water quality and sediment 4uality standards to determine what is needed and what works best in a given situation. The NRC noted that biochemical oxygen demand ('BOD') and total suspended solids (TSS') were the waste constituents of least concern in the marine environment, yet secondary treatment in this country is defined by a very high rate of removal of these two constituents. The NRC noted that metals and other toxicants were higher priority concerns, but that they were best addressed by source control programs instead of end-of-pipe treatment. The NRC provided a management tool called Integrated Coastal Management as an inherently flexible approach to allow resources to be best channeled towards real problems in the best interests of the environment and the community. The NRC report also noted that physical-chemical treatment methods were also well suited to marine discharges. The NRC report provided a means for evaluating our actions in Washington State, as well as actions in British Columbia. In 1993, the Governor of Washington and the Premier of British Columbia agreed to appoint a 6 member British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel to evaluate issues of our shared marine waters. The Panel, once convened, sponsored a two day research symposium in 1994, and also solicited written and oral
Municipal waste discharge policies
briefs from a broad range of individuals and groups. The panel also drew on scientific journals and books and a range of technical reports. A representative of the National Research Council briefed them on the NRC report. Additional briefings for the panel were held in Washington and in British Columbia. In their final report on The Shared Marine Waters of British Columbia and Washington' (British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel 1994), the panel was silent about Victoria. At the press release meeting the panel members acknowledged that Victoria's discharges were simply not a problem. The press in Washington said nothing. In 1995, this author observed how the British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel's work had been considered at the level of the Governor's office and the Department of Ecology. At a meeting of the PSWQA on March 15, 1995, the director of the Department of Ecology (who also served as the director of the PSWQA) stated that there was a 'hidden agenda' in appointing the Marine Science Panel and that was to 'urge Victoria to get on with its secondary treatment.' She stated that the panel came back and said that Victoria really was not a problem. Instead of expressing relief, she said that 'we were very disappointed', that 'it was politically tough' and that 'we need to be carefu what we ask'. HopefuIly this total disregard for science does not represent the views of these same offices today, as there is a new Governor and a new Director of the Department of Ecology. What is more likely is that neither the new Governor nor the new Director of the Department of Ecology even know anything about the British ColumbiaIWashington Marine Science Panel's conclusions in this matter. In 1996, the facility at West Point completed its upgrade to secondary treatment. The new discharge permit included a fact sheet that explained how there was no reasonable potential to exceed water quality standards for toxicants (other than for chlorine, which is intentionally added to kiIl bacteria), and that therefore there was no need for water quality-based effluent limits for toxicants. It would be easy to say that this is an accomplishment of secondary treatment and pretend that major water quality improvements had resulted. However, the reasonable potential to exceed determination, foIlowing state and EPA procedures (which also consider a limited dilution area), used a very large effluent data base from when the facility was stiIl at primary treatment. This is simply another demonstration that the NRC was right. Effective and protective removal of toxicants is best addressed by source controls, rather than end-of-pipe treatment. Although secondary treatment does remove additional toxicants, the removal in this case is not necessary to protect water quality and therefore, is of minor or no benefit. CONCLUSIONS Expenditures for upgrades to secondary treatment for municipal discharges to Puget Sound are in the range of $1,000,000,000 US. The benefits from these upgrades are in many cases minimal at best. There are some locations, where secondary treatment or greater is necessary, and some locations where it would be best if there were no discharges, but those dischargers were providing secondary treatment and had not applied for secondary treatment waivers in 1982. Washington State Law needs to be changed, or we will continue to expend resources needlessly in the future. The NRC report lays out the framework to manage waste discharges more effectively in the future, if only the state and the federal government will allow it. Neither Canada nor any other country should look to Washington state for an example of a rational way to manage its waste discharges. Rather, they should look to site-specific conditions to evaluate what combination of tools (including dilution and screening) best addresses real water quality needs. The NRC report can be a useful tool for British Columbia if they will consider it. Efforts are needed to educate and inform the public better so future decisions might provide a more effective allocation of scarce resources to address real problems and to allow ourselves the lUXUry of not spending resources needlessly on non-problems. It is possible to re-examine past actions and learn from them in order to adjust future actions accordingly.
6
L.LOEHR
REFERENCES British ColumbialWashington Marine Science Panel (1994). The Shared Marine Waters of British Columbia and Washington. Report to British ColumbialWashington Environmental Cooperation Council. Faulk, Lawrence, J. (1985). Concurring opinion in the decision of the Pollution Control Hearings Board in the Case of the City of Bellingham's appeal of the state's denial of their 301 (h) application for the waiver of the secondary treatment requirement (PCHB Case No. 84-211). Loehr, L. C. (1986). The Exclusion of Science from Major Water Quality Decisions. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 17(11),489-493. National Research Council (1993). Managing Wastewater In Coastal Urban Areas. National Academy Press. US House of Representatives. Committee on Public Works and Transportation, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight December 1982. Implementation of the Clean Water Act concerning Ocean Discharge Waivers (A Case Study of Lawmaking by Rulemakers).