EPA lets cities dump more raw sewage into rivers
Environmentalists say pathogens and chemicals in water
The Environmental Protection Agency has made it easier for cities to keep dumping raw sewage into rivers by letting them delay or otherwise change federally imposed fixes to their sewer systems, according to interviews with local officials, water utilities and their lobbyists.
Cities have long complained about the cost of meeting federal requirements to upgrade aging sewer systems, many of which release untreated waste directly into waterways during heavy rains — a problem that climate change worsens as rainstorms intensify.
These complaints have gained new traction with the Trump administration, which has been more willing to renegotiate the agreements that dictate how, and how quickly, cities must overhaul their sewers.
The actions are the latest example of the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back nearly 95 environmental rules that it has said are too costly for industry or taxpayers. That list grew last week when the administration stripped clean-water protections from wetlands, streams and other waterways.
“When you walk into the current EPA, as a local government, you’re not treated as evil,” said Paul Calamita, a lawyer who represents cities seeking to change their agreements. “Which we’d gotten, quite frankly, from prior administrations.”
Cities that said they are renegotiating their sewage agreements with the agency include
Cleveland; Seattle; Kansas City, Missouri; South Bend, Indiana; and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Other cities, including Pittsburgh; Louisville, Kentucky; and St. Louis have already concluded talks for new terms.
The scale of many of the upgrades required by prior administrations is enormous.
Washington, D.C., which is considering whether to renegotiate its own deal with the EPA, is currently drilling the second of three mammoth tunnels designed for one thing: to hold 190 million gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater. The tunnels will be used when the city’s aging sewer system is overwhelmed so that untreated wastewater doesn’t flow into the Anacostia River as it now does — 15 to 20 times a year.
While officials in many of these cities praise the Trump administration’s flexibility, environmentalists said that the changes threaten safety by allowing pathogens and chemicals to keep flowing into rivers and along beaches and back up into streets or basements during storms.
“This trend is yet another example of the administration’s deregulatory agenda threatening our natural resources and public health,” said Becky Hammer, deputy director for federal water policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “If cities face genuine cost concerns, there are other methods to maintain affordability while still keeping sewage out of our lakes and rivers.”
Since the start of the Trump administration, the EPA has undertaken rollbacks of dozens of environmental regulations, including limits on the use of pollutants near streams and wetlands, on toxic emissions from industrial facilities and on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Asked to comment on the EPA’s increased willingness to let cities keep releasing sewage, Michael Abboud, a spokesman for the EPA, said in a statement that the agency “has consistently stated that it hopes to achieve full compliance” with the law.
Modern federal rules outlaw the release of raw sewage. But older cities across the Northeast and Midwest have older sewer systems designed to carry sewage and rainwater in the same pipes. When rain overwhelms those systems, untreated sewage gets released into local waterways.
Climate change has worsened the problem, causing systems to overflow more often.
Starting in the 1990s, the EPA, along with the Department of Justice, began entering agreements that let cities like these avoid fines by committing to detailed plans for reducing or eliminating overflows. Those agreements, called consent decrees and approved by judges, impose rigid timelines for the work.
Under past administrations, the EPA would sometimes let cities modify these deals, according to Cynthia Giles, who led the agency’s Office of Enforcement
and Compliance Assurance under President Barack Obama.
But the bar was high, she said, citing the example of a major unforeseen disaster that made timely compliance too difficult.
“A consent decree is not the opening bid of a negotiation,” said Giles, now a guest fellow at Harvard Law School. “It’s a legally binding commitment that is ordered by a federal court.”