Agency sees wait for EPA on sewer
Posted on Thursday, December 4, 2008
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality on Wednesday asked federal regulators to end an objection to a sewer plant permit so construction can begin.
The Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority plans to open construction bids for the $ 30 million sewer plant and $ 30 million sewage transmission lines next week after bid openings were delayed Oct. 16 and again Nov. 13.
Now, Wednesday’s bid opening appears unlikely because of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s questions about the project. John Sampier, the conservation authority’s director, said a decision about whether to postpone the bid opening will be made Monday.
“Realistically, we doubt [the ] EPA can respond in time for us to open those bids,” Sampier said.
Steve Drown, chief of the Environmental Quality Department’s water division, said the “best-case scenario” provides for the conservation authority to have a final federal permit issued in March. Construction won’t start until after a federal permit is issued, Sampier said.
“We’ve got a 17-month construction project we’d like to have done in the summer 2010,” Sampier said. “Does getting it done in the fall of 2010 pose serious problems ? I don’t believe so.”
In 2003, the conservation authority promised Bentonville to have its plant operating this year, but that goal has long been forgotten. Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin said the delays are OK — for now.
On Wednesday, Drown told Miguel Flores, director of the EPA’s regional water quality protection division in Dallas, by letter that the conservation authority’s sewer plant planned west of Lowell on Osage Creek should be held to the same phosphorus discharge standard as other major sewer plants in the Illinois River watershed. The creek is a tributary to the Illinois River.
Sewer plants at Rogers, Springdale and Tahlequah, Okla. — all in the river’s watershed — must limit phosphorus discharges to 1 milligram of phosphorus per liter of treated effluent.
Flores in a Nov. 6 letter to Drown said Arkansas failed to provide “sufficient information to clearly indicate why” the sewer plant would be allowed to discharge 1 milligram of phosphorus per litter of treated effluent into the creek “in a watershed already impaired for phosphorus, when treatment technologies are available to achieve a lower limit.”
The EPA also said the state didn’t show that a sewer plant on Osage Creek “will not cause or contribute to a violation of water quality standards in an impaired receiving segment.”
The EPA in 2002 put Osage Creek on a list of impaired rivers in Arkansas, over state objections.
Excessive phosphorus flowing out of Arkansas into Oklahoma has sparked a contentious environmental debate between the states.
In 2003, Oklahoma implemented numeric phosphorus limits for the state’s six scenic rivers. Four of those rivers, including the Illinois, start in Arkansas.
Later that year, Arkansas promised four Northwest Arkansas cities would cut phosphorus discharges from sewer plants to 1 milligram or less. Rogers had to comply by 2004, Springdale by 2007, Siloam Springs by 2009 and Bentonville when it begins discharging sewage via the conservation authority’s plant.
Springdale and Rogers formed the conservation authority in 2002.
Eight other cities joined later: Bentonville, Bethel Heights, Cave Springs, Centerton, Elm Springs, Highfill, Lowell and Tontitown.
Only two of those cities — Bentonville and Tontitown — plan to send sewage when the new plant starts operating, but other members may someday send sewage to it.
In June 2004, at the EPA’s suggestion, the state Environmental Quality Department and Arkansas Natural Resources Commission encouraged those cities and others in Northwest Arkansas to join together to build a large regional sewer plant rather than several smaller ones.
“We felt like we’ve done what EPA has asked us to do and felt like we were following their guidance by building a regional plant,” said Britt Vance, senior project engineer with USI Consulting Engineers, a Springdale firm working on the sewer transmission lines.
Sampier said he’s certain the EPA will permit the sewer plant. He’s less certain about when.
“We’re caught up in these processes,” Sampier said.
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