A Backed-Up Boston Globe

I was wondering what was the smell coming from the stacks of newspapers on the desk.

"US cities struggle to control sewer overflows; EPA exploring alternatives on water pollution" by John Flesher  |  Associated Press, December 27, 2011

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Twice in recent summers, visitors to parts of Lake Michigan’s western coast were greeted by mounds of garbage strewn along miles of sandy beach: plastic bottles, eating utensils, food wrappers, even hypodermic syringes.

At least some of the rubbish had drifted across Lake Michigan from Milwaukee, a vivid reminder that many cities still flush nasty stuff into streams and lakes during heavy storms, fouling the waters with bacteria and viruses that can make people seriously ill.

But get all worked up over global warming.

Thousands of overflows from sewage systems that collect storm water and waste water are believed to occur each year. Since the late 1990s the Environmental Protection Agency or state officials have reached legal agreements with more than 40 cities or counties — Atlanta, Los Angeles, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Indianapolis among them — to improve waste-water systems that in some cases are a century old. Costs are reaching hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

But the price of progress is becoming too high for local governments, with the bad economy cutting into tax revenues and residents rebelling against higher water and sewer rates. Responding to pleas for leniency, the Obama administration is promising more flexibility as hard-pressed cities look for cheaper ways to reduce overflows.

“The current economic times make the need for sensible and effective approaches even more pressing,’’ said an October memo to EPA regional offices from Nancy Stoner, who runs the agency’s water policy office, and Cynthia Giles, chief of enforcement. They said EPA staffers would work out details of the new policy....

Related: Boiling Mad at Obama's EPA 

Hey, what's one more backtrack and broken promise, 'eh?

The ultimate goal is zero overflows, but officials don’t expect to get there until about 2035 because it will require being able to handle the kind of flooding that previously happened rarely but is becoming more common.

“It gets a lot more expensive to get that last drop,’’ Shafer said. “The way the economy is today, you have to balance that cost with all the other needs we have. You don’t want to bankrupt a community.’’ 

What's that smell?

One partial solution gaining popularity with cities is “green infrastructure’’ — natural and manmade features that enable more water to soak into the ground instead of washing into storm drains and creeks. Stoner and Giles of EPA instructed staff last year to incorporate green features into storm-water and sewer permits as much as possible.

Examples would include requiring office buildings to cover flat roofs with plants, using permeable pavement on roads and parking lots, and increasing parkland and urban green space.

Milwaukee is encouraging residents to use rain barrels and plant “rain gardens,’’ which have wildflowers and deep-rooted vegetation particularly suited to absorbing excess water.  

Then why is the federal government making them illegal?

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Also see: Cape Cod Stinks