Home arrow Clean Water Advocacy arrow NACWA Priority Issues - Wet Weather Programs - Combined Sewer Overflow
NACWA Priority Issues - Wet Weather Programs - Combined Sewer Overflow Print E-mail

Combined sewer overflow (CSO) communities have made significant progress in reducing the frequency and size of overflows but more work remains to be done. EPA estimates that the annual CSO volume is approximately 850 billion gallons, down from over 1 trillion gallons prior to issuance of the 1994 CSO Control Policy and that $50.6 billion is still needed over the next 20 years to meet the goals of the policy. A major problem with the policy is that while it refers to compliance with water quality standards, existing standards are not based on the actual uses of CSO-impacted waterbodies. To address this problem EPA and states must be authorized to provide CSO communities with site-specific criteria that will be used to evaluate their long-term control plans (LTCPs). The criteria must be based on appropriate uses for receiving water and must contain achievable goals based on the CSO Policy. In the absence of this approach, uneven application of standards, expensive and unnecessary construction and resource wasting enforcement actions will dominate the CSO landscape. To remedy these problems NACWA proposes that:

  • States should provide CSO communities with guidelines on what their LTCPs should contain and what criteria the state authority will use to evaluate the plans for approval.
  • The LTCP, in order to be successful, must be developed with appropriate and achievable goals in mind.
  • EPA, water quality standards authorities and CSO communities should work together to ensure that standards are reviewed and revised as appropriate to reflect the actual uses of CSO-impacted waterbodies.
  • Congress should provide grant funding for CSOs and other wet weather projects.

Write your member of Congress and EPA on this issue.