EPA’s sewer “pipe dream” could cost big money, say HMB city council members

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has assumed leadership of a new audit of Coastside sewer services. And the new EPA standards could have a significant financial impact on the Coastside, including the city of Half Moon Bay, Granda Sanitary District, and Montara Water and Sanitary District.

HMB Mayor Mike Ferreira and Council member Sid McCausland raised this issue at the November 16th meeting of the Half Moon Bay City Council.

Ferreira expressed his concern that a portion of the EPA mandate could call for major capital improvements to increase the ability of the system to accommodate major storms or to provide drinking-water-quality treatment of the sewer plant effluent.  Given the Coastside’s economic base, he doubted that the Coastside has the financial capacity to undertake some of the major capital improvements that could wind up being proposed by the EPA.

The audit report, which is expected sometime after the first of the year, is likely to recommend that the Coastside sewer agencies get tough with homeowners whose sewer lines from the house to the street are in need of repair.  The audit is also likely to call for actions to strengthen the cooperative management of Coastside sewers, standardize procedures for responding to emergencies and strengthen programs for maintaining the sewers.

But the EPA could also insist on expensive infrastructure improvements.

The biggest shock to homeowners could well be an EPA requirement that Montara Water and Sanitary District, the Granada Sanitary District and Half Moon Bay develop rigid inspection procedures and enforcement programs for those sewer lines from run from caostside homes to the street.  EPA wants to stop rain water and ground water from seeping into the sewer system and to keep flushes from leaking out.  During storms, many Coastside sewer spills are the result of too much storm runoff and ground water infiltrating broken and poorly aligned sewer lines and, thereby, overwhelming the capacity of the collection system.

"That’s a huge source of the inflow we experience," says Scott Boyd, president of the Montara Water and Sanitary District and one of the District’s two representatives to the Sewer Authority Midcoastside.

The biggest shock to the sewer agencies is likely to be EPA’s announcement that they have moved the goal posts.  Under EPA’s new mandate, major fines can be imposed for sewer spills that previously were not even required to be reported.  For decades the Regional Water Quality Control Board set the standard for Coastside sewer discharges and spills.  The current standards require the reporting of all spills that may enter environmentally sensitive areas as well as spills greater than a certain number of gallons.

In general sewer agencies were expected to limit the number of reportable spills to ten per hundred miles of sewer lines per year.  Under the EPA, it appears that the limit will be reduced to four spills of any size.  The EPA’s new standards are expected to essentially make every spill an offense that may trigger a fine.

"What we hope is that the EPA will require us to do what we already know we need to do," said Boyd. "But, with the EPA, it doesn’t really matter what we want."

McCausland noted that the Sewer Authority Midcoast (SAM) and its three member agencies welcome the opportunity to strengthen their management of Coastside sewer system, but that the resources to make improvements are limited.  He noted that under the current governor, all property taxes have been diverted away from the Montara and Granada districts on the assumption that those sewer special districts can replace the lost property tax revenues by raising the fees charged to their users.

"SAM’s directors and our member agencies are looking forward to cooperating with the EPA on improving our management of all of our midcoast sewers," McCausland noted.  "Every one of us and our agencies are dedicated to enhancing the quality of our Coastside environment.  We just have to make certain that everyone understands that the lemon has already been squeezed by many forces that have been in play ever since the passage of Proposition 13.  I simply don’t know where the money would come from to pay EPA’s potential fines or build an EPA mandated pipe dream."