"Adviser seeks changes in sewage plant rules" is the headline to this story today in the Louisville Courier-Journal. Some quotes:
A key state adviser on water-quality issues has recommended a series of sweeping changes in the way Indiana regulates small sewage-treatment plants.The complete document, titled: "Report and Recommendation(s) Prepared by David M. Wagner, Member, Water Pollution Control Board and Hearing Officer Appointed by the Board. November 8, 2004," may be accessed here. Click here to go directly to the recommendations.The recommendations are being made by David M. Wagner, a member of the state's Water Pollution Control Board.
They are the result of three hearings he conducted this fall to evaluate a proposal by two Floyd County organizations — the Greenville Concerned Citizens and Save Our Knobs — that are concerned about sewage-plant failures.
Wagner said the citizens' groups made such strong presentations to the board about failing private treatment plants in Floyd County — including some that serve subdivisions — that the board decided to review the situation statewide.
The board learned that the problem "is not just in Floyd County," Wagner said.
At a meeting Tuesday, Wagner said he will recommend against the adoption of a rule proposed by the groups. It would require treated sewage to be discharged into streams in which there is always at least 10 times as much water as sewage.
That's impractical, Wagner said, because up to 75 percent of the state's sewage-treatment plants are on streams that are sometimes dry.
But he said his recommendations to the water board — and to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which implements the board's rules — should help solve the problems highlighted by the groups.
Among other things, the recommendations would better define the advanced technology required of plants that discharge sewage into small streams, require proof that developers have the funding available to maintain the plants and improve government oversight of such operations.