The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority has admitted to multiple shortcomings in the mapping, inspection, monitoring and operation of the city’s storm sewer system but says it’s working to correct those alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act.
In a six-page letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency dated June 5, the PWSA also acknowledges that sharing administrative responsibility for the storm sewer system with the city Public Works Department hasn’t worked, and it has made plans to establish a new environmental compliance officer position in September to provide more centralized and accountable oversight.
The PWSA letter was in response to alleged violations found during a two-day EPA inspection of the PWSA municipal separate storm sewer system program — the MP4 program — in December. An inspection report issued in January lists nine problem areas, including PWSA’s failure to identify and locate all of its separate sewer outfall pipes into rivers and streams, identify illegal sewage sewer connections, and conduct annual sewer facility inspections and maintenance.
Addressing the EPA finding that it hasn’t accurately identified and documented all of the MS4 outfall locations, the authority said in its letter that it doesn’t know where all the outfall pipes are but has contracted with a private firm to supply that information by September, when it must submit a renewal application for its federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.
In response to the finding that it has failed to conduct required pollution tests in priority areas of the system that have previously exhibited problems, the authority wrote that “while current PWSA staff has not yet located its records confirming a list of formally identified Priority Areas,” it has identified the Saw Mill Run watershed as a priority area and “is currently preparing an illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination Plan” to be submitted to the EPA in September with the NPDES permit application.
The PWSA also promised to upgrade its sampling and laboratory analysis of sewer system discharges to add required testing for copper, total phenols, surfactants and detergents.
Robert Weimar, PWSA interim executive director, acknowledged Friday that the authority has had problems complying with federal environmental regulations but was already making changes before the EPA issued its inspection findings and notice of violations.
“PWSA in the past has not had a compliance section that was well-organized, so we started a year ago to correct that,” said Mr. Weimar, whose signature is on the PWSA letter to the EPA. “We knew in January that we needed a substantial overhaul in the way the MP4 program was run.”
He said the PWSA, which is also facing problems on the water supply side of its operations, has a meeting scheduled next week with city officials to discuss how best to meet the EPA’s compliance requirements.
“We don’t need a consent order from the EPA to proceed. We have new people in charge of compliance and they are more than adequately trained to do the job,” Mr. Weimar said. “We also have committed resources, in terms of personnel and funding, to make it work.”
David Sternberg, an EPA spokesman, could not address questions about the next steps in the process.
“We just received the PWSA’s response this week,” he wrote Friday in an email. “We are currently reviewing it, so it would be premature to talk about next steps at this time.”
PWSA’s original federal discharge permit was issued in September 2004.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1983, or on Twitter @donhopey
First Published: June 10, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
