City would pump $2B into sewers in deal

If OK’d by council, the agreement with EPA will pinpoint critical repairs to be made, lead to higher water bills

Houston would add $2 billion to its planned sewer system improvements over the next 15 years under a proposed deal with state and federal regulators that is expected to produce higher water bills as soon as next year.

The Environmental Protection Agency long has been concerned that Houston’s cracked, clogged and overwhelmed sanitary sewer pipes spill waste into yards and streets hundreds of times each year, contaminating local streams in violation of the Clean Water Act. Eighty percent of area waterways fall short of water quality standards for fecal bacteria.

Rather than sue the city over these chronic problems, the EPA initiated negotiations nearly a decade ago, hoping to produce a “consent decree” specifying projects and procedures Houston would use to reduce spills by upgrading pipes, improving maintenance and educating the public on how to avoid clogging the city’s more than 6,200 miles of sewers, 384 lift stations and 39 treatment plants.

Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Tuesday that talks have concluded and city council could sign off on the agreement as early as July 17.

“It’s good for the city of Houston,” Turner said. “I am proud to have resolved this long-standing problem in a way that will fix problems that have challenged our city for decades and will bring enhanced services to future ratepayers for decades to come.”

The deal would prioritize fixes in nine areas that experience voluminous spills during rainstorms. In an effort to reduce the more numerous spills that are a chronic problem when the skies are clear, the agreement would mandate a more aggressive schedule for assessing and repairing the city’s sewer system.

Houston also would commit to clean and inspect its 127,000 manholes and 5,500 miles of gravitydriven pipes every decade, to carry out more preventative cleanings in problem areas, and to emphasize its program to educate residents not to pour grease, oil and other fats down the drain.

One of Houston’s worst locations for high-volume

spills during storms is near the intersection of Travis and Commerce at the north end of downtown, near the south bank of Buffalo Bayou.

Armita Tajadod, the student government president at nearby University of Houston-Downtown, said the problem — “you can smell it before you see it” — is well-known to students. She cheered the idea of a fix.

“It’s not really an obstacle in our day to day at the university, but it’s just unpleasant,” she said. “It does raise concerns for students and just for people in the area at times.”

A map attached to the draft decree, released Tuesday by Houston Public Works, shows the spill site near UHD is among the nine on tap for fixes in the proposal; other problem sites include areas near Denver Harbor, NRG Stadium, Gulfgate, Alief, and near the intersection of Parker and U.S. 59.

It is unclear how much water bills would rise as a result of the federal decree. The city has begun a rate study that will incorporate the consent decree and other factors and suggest new rates to take effect in July 2020.

Some council members were told in preliminary briefings this spring that rates would rise about 4 percent in each year of the agreement, resulting in an increase of more than 70 percent by the end of the 15year term, though Turner professed ignorance at that figure Tuesday. Other cities under comparable decrees, including San Antonio, will double their rates during their agreements.

Turner stressed that the projected overall cost of the deal is “substantially less” than the $5 billion to $7 billion the EPA was demanding in the Obama administration’s final year.

Despite the mayor holding a news conference to announce the agreement, the Turner administration considers the decree confidential, distributing it only to the elected council members and topping it with a memo that mentions fines for those who disclose its contents.

City Attorney Ron Lewis, at a council briefing Tuesday, said the document may remain confidential until the council approves it, after which it would be filed in federal court. In Lewis’ view, the document is the product of active negotiations in a federal enforcement action, making the proper venue for public input the 30-day comment period that would be required once the decree is filed in court.

Jordan Macha, the executive director of the nonprofit Bayou City Waterkeeper, urged city council to push for a more open process as it weighs approval.

“It may be as Mayor Turner has stipulated, that this is a great consent decree for the city of Houston,” she said. “However, without us being able to see and without the public being able to see and make that evaluation for ourselves, it really puts us behind on being able to support this plan.”

Waterkeeper announced last summer it would sue Houston under the Clean Water Act if regulators did not curtail the city’s sewer spills. In response, the EPA and state regulators sued the city last September and got a judge’s approval to pause the case while talks concluded.

Councilman Greg Travis said he favors a more open discussion of the deal, in part because Lewis said federal and state authorities already have approved its terms, suggesting the sensitive negotiating period has passed.

“What’s going to change between now and the time it’s filed in court?” Travis said. “I can get not letting out too many details while you’re in the negotiation, but once it’s concluded, they should just give the information.”

Councilman Mike Laster echoed that, saying he was “puzzled” by the approach.

“I don’t know what we’re trying to avoid,” he said.

Councilman Jack Christie disagreed.

“It’s been hashed and rehashed for solutions to this that doesn’t bankrupt the city of Houston, but at the same time complies with environmental protection with the sewer systems that need updating,” Christie said. “At some point in any governmental action you have to trust your advisers.”

Houston’s sewers have lagged since the city’s post-World War II boom and never have caught up.

Whatever sewage treatment plants could not handle in the 1960s was dumped into the bayous, making Houston for decades the region’s single worst water polluter.

State or federal decrees in the 1970s, 1990s and 2000s prompted enormous investments in new pipes and plants, and at times restricted Houston’s pace of development until new treatment facilities were built. As recently as 2001, Public Works did not know what most of its sewer pipes were made of, and acknowledged less than a tenth were up to modern standards.

Today, 40 percent of pipes were built after 2000, and another quarter were laid in the 1990s. Still, Houston’s rate of spills per mile of pipe far exceeds the national average.