Published on 7/8/2007 in Home<http://www.theday.com/default.aspx>
>Editorial<http://www.theday.com/news/Editorial.aspx> >Perspective
'Breathing life into the Sound," published July 1, thoughtfully reports
on the pollution of Long Island Sound created by the release of
nitrogen from municipal wastewater-treatment facilities.
An impressive panel of experts was assembled and a balanced report was generated.
The story is this:
The nitrogen coming out of municipal wastewater-treatment plants is "food" for algae.
Huge populations of algae grow during the summer. At times, so many algae exist that the
oxygen level in the Sound drops low enough to cause fish kills.
Nitrogen is cast as the villain in the story of Long Island Sound.
For Long Island Sound to be healthy, better wastewater service is
required. The solution appears simple: spend money on equipment to
remove more nitrogen at municipal wastewater-treatment plants.
Accordingly, the Connecticut Clean Water Fund - a source of municipal
grants and loans for sewage treatment plant upgrades - has been cast as
the "hero" of the Long Island Sound story.
The Clean Water Fund is a pork-barrel program. The Clean Water Fund
pumps millions of taxpayer dollars into the wallets of engineers,
lawyers, bureaucrats, equipment suppliers and contractors. Some of the
$100 million appropriated this year will be well spent, but far from
All of it. Nitrogen may be appropriately cast as a villain
in the story of Long Island Sound, but the Clean Water Fund is not
the hero of this story.
There is a hero. Actually, there are 775 heroes: Connecticut's licensed
wastewater-treatment-plant operators, the people who care for the
state's 105 municipal sewage treatment plants. These people, sadly,
garner little respect outside of their work-a-day world. And, because
sewage workers toil in such low-status occupations, few consider them
capable. As a result, good-minded people concerned about the
environment ignore the folks who are in the best position to affect change.
Environmentalists and municipal officials believe it necessary to bring in
the experts to redo sewage treatment plants.
They lobby for ever more Clean Water Funds.
Pollution-control staff hears wrong message. Those of us who work at
water-pollution-control facilities hear the message: Without outside help
that is, new equipment), we are incapable of doing better.
Wastewater operators have become so accustomed to this mindset that
far too many wait for help to arrive.
The effort has become so circular that the Department of Environmental Protection
absurdly considers the funding program they administer to be the hero of Long Island Sound.
If not lobby for more money for more equipment, what are the friends of
Long Island Sound to do? Short answer: Raise your expectations. Empower
wastewater personnel and expect them to be more successful. The results
- as I have observed in Norwich, Willimantic, Waterbury, Cranston,
R.I., Newport, R.I., and elsewhere - will be dramatic.
The people who operate and maintain wastewater treatment equipment convert
sewage into clean water. Most are proud of their work.
The machinery that Clean Water Funds provide merely processes waste.
One of The Day articles used the Mystic wastewater treatment plant as
an example. For years, the facility was not adequately serving the
needs of Mystic. Six years of recently concluded planning shows that a
$15 million Clean Water Fund expenditure is needed for the Mystic sewage
treatment plant "to improve water quality."
While the experts were doing their planning, the treatment plant staff
took it upon themselves to make the facility work better. Today, with
little to no investment in new equipment, the Mystic wastewater
treatment plant is doing a very good job protecting the environment.
This summer's nitrogen discharge is just one-third of last year's.
Using the equipment on hand, an educated,
dedicated wastewater treatment plant work force made changes.
How? Why? Because they stubbornly believed they could.
The Mystic story has been repeated elsewhere. Six years ago, a minor
investment in the Willimantic wastewater treatment plant provided the
equipment for that facility's staff to bring the nitrogen discharge
under state requirements. No Clean Water Funds were used.
Michael Gerardi, Penn State University professor and author of
"Nitrification and Denitrification in the Activated Sludge Process," is
working with the Farmington wastewater-treatment-plant staff to reduce
the release of nitrogen at little to no capital expense. His work is
not
complete, but the early efforts are encouraging. Because he has been
successful at dozens of treatment plants around the country, I am
confident that he and the Farmington treatment plant staff will, before
the end of summer, reduce the nitrogen to state guidelines.
Contributors to the "Breathing Life Into The Sound" articles bemoaned
the infusion of "only" $100 million into the Clean Water Fund this
coming fiscal year. The concerns are misplaced. Indeed, municipal
wastewater treatment plants require ongoing capital investment. But,
instead of using state taxes to care for their facilities, Connecticut
municipalities need to establish sewer rates that include the
depreciation cost of their equipment. If they were to do so, there
would be very little need for any Clean Water Funds anywhere, ever.
And, Long Island Sound would be healthier, sooner.
Grant Weaver is president of The Water Planet Co., a New London-based
water/wastewater operations and consulting business.