Atlanta leaders are negotiating behind the scenes with federal regulators to get more time to finish sewer upgrades required in a landmark decree by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1999.
Some civic leaders say the city should instead buckle down and finish the work on time.
City leaders say the current timeline — with all projects given a July 2014 deadline — is imposing a fierce financial burden, and it wants the federal government to push the deadlines more than a decade into the future.
In an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mayor Kasim Reed said the city’s lobbying was not an end-run around environmental standards.
“It’s not as if we’ll have less scrutiny, vigilance or reporting,” he said. “Our expenditures and work are being closely reviewed. They’re actually being reviewed in triplicate.”
Reed said a drawn-out timeline would give the city financial flexibility and save residents money in the long term. But even with a longer window, there are no plans to lower water and sewer rates, which have more than tripled since 2003.
“The only real reward [of an extension], if you will, is no rate increases for some identifiable period of time,” Reed said Thursday. “We’re not in a posture to reduce the rates.”
Atlanta has spent roughly $1.64 billion on federally required projects to stop sewer lines from overflowing and flooding creeks, parks, rivers and streams. It cut the number of untreated sewage overflows by 62 percent from 2004 to 2010, according to documents submitted to the City Council.
The city has spent roughly 65 percent of the $1.38 billion budgeted for repairs and expansion of its sanitary sewer system, which handles raw sewage.
Sally Bethea, executive director of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said she would support the request.
“The factors involved reveal that it is a high burden,” said Bethea, whose group’s lawsuit against Atlanta in the 1990s prompted the federal government to force Atlanta to stop sewage overflows. “I think [Atlanta’s] track record has been good on this project. It’s a massive one with lots of moving parts.”
Bethea said two promises from Atlanta leaders are key: to cut the volume of sewage spills by 99 percent by July 2014, and to finish each of the major sewer-related capital projects by that point. Smaller projects would be put off into the future if an extension is granted.
As federal regulators consider Atlanta’s request for a deadline change, a key question is whether pushing the target date out more than a decade would serve the interests of the city’s residents.
Ola Reynolds, who leads a neighborhood planning unit in northwest Atlanta, said she supports the request — but only if Atlanta leaders commit to maintaining the sewer system.
“If an extension is needed, I feel like the city should be granted that,” she said. “As long as things are done correctly and the time is not wasted.”
Among the skeptics is Ed Gilgor, who heads another neighborhood planning unit that covers Grant Park, East Atlanta and Ormewood Park.
“Before I would support delaying compliance with the consent decree, I would have to know what the impact of the delay is,” he said. “Specifically, I would want to know if the delay would raise the overall cost of the project, and whether it would increase the cost to the taxpayers.”
Local environmental activist Robert Schreiber says he believes Atlanta’s sewer pipes are contaminating local aquifers, and plans to use the public comment period to publicize it.
“That’s a direct violation of underground injection regulations,” said Schreiber, who hopes to raise the issue with federal judge Thomas Thrash, who has overseen the federally mandated improvements.
The city’s request for more time relates to its sanitary sewer system, which is designed to handle sewage only. Work under a separate consent decree related to a sewer system that carries both sewage and storm water was completed in 2008 at a cost of $711 million, about half a percentage point below budget.
As far back as February 2010, Atlanta told the EPA in a letter that “the city has reached the limits of its financial capability and is beginning to experience impacts to timely project implementation.”
In public, federal regulators are saying little about Atlanta’s pleas for a more lenient deadline.
An EPA spokeswoman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that a final decision would not be made until Atlanta, the EPA and Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division agree on terms and file documents with the U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
After considering and responding to public comments, the federal government would decide whether to back the proposal. Then, it would be up to the court to make the changes final, Davina Marraccini wrote in an e-mail.
Thrash declined to comment, as did officials from Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management.
But in a September interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta’s watershed commissioner said few other cities working through federal mandates under the Clean Water Act have faced such demanding schedules.
“It’s one of the shortest time frames of any major city,” said Jo Ann Macrina. “We just need more time.”
As Atlanta overhauled its sewage system — which was 100 years old in some places — deadlines were occasionally extended with approval from the regulatory agencies. At one point, a huge tunnel-boring machine broke down as engineers excavated a massive sewage-storage tunnel. Atlanta was able to get a one-year extension on the West Area CSO Tunnel.
In a letter sent to the EPA and Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division last May, the city argued that the economy, foreclosures, declining water usage and the burden on Atlanta’s residents should all be considered.
“No other wastewater utility in the United States has gone to these lengths to fund consent decree compliance,” wrote Dexter C. White, then interim commissioner of the city’s watershed department.
The city also said there were competing needs, including necessary upgrades to its drinking water system, that demand its money.
“Since 2001, the city has repeatedly made the case ... that the consent decrees impose a tremendous burden upon the city and its ratepayers, which would eventually become unsustainable at the pace it is required to keep,” according to the letter.
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