The
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection thinks wastewater
treament plants are over-designed. So they have written new rules for
the Capacity Assurance Program (CAP)
and Water Quality Management Planning (WQMP).
Flow,
In the CAP Rule
They
are going to allow treatment plants to reach 100% of their permitted
flow - their capacity - before they have to submit a plan to reduce
the flow or ban new sewer connections (p 27, CAP).
That's
6 months for just submitting a capacity analysis plan. The time it
will take to review, approve, and implement that plan comes later.
The
current rule is less daring. It requires treatment plants to submit
this plan when they reach 80% of their permitted flow (p 24-26, CAP).
The current rule calls this a Capacity Assurance plan; the proposed
rule calls it a Capacity Analysis plan.
Assurance
is out. Nevertheless, the DEP explains that even when a treatment
plant is operating at 100% of its permitted flow, the plant “can”
operate without violating effluent limits because plants are “often”
designed to handle flows of up to two and one half times their
average permitted flows (p 24, WQMP), as per NJAC
7:14A-23.13(o).
Their
optimism is predicated on their unpublished study of treatment plants
that found only a “weak correlation” between the percentage of
flow and violations in water quality. They have concluded that
“seasonal fluctuations and/or wet weather events … can typically
be accommodated through hydraulic flexibility within the treatment
plant” (pps 12-15, CAP).
That
hydraulic flexibility is going to let more wastewater plants treat
more sewage from new connections in new construction currently
prohibited by existing regulations. It will open
up more land for development.
There
should be sufficient time to review this study, which has still
not been released to the public,
and not just a few weeks before the comment period ends, on December
18th.
Not after.
Flow,
In Words and Pictures
The
existing regulations require municipalities and sewer authorities to
submit a capacity plan when the “committed” flow in a treatment
plants reaches 80% of the “permitted” flow. The committed flow is
the average flow for 3 consecutive months, plus the anticipated flows
from approved but non operational connections. The permitted flow is
the maximum design flow in the water quality (NJPDES)
permit for the treatment plant – 100% of its capacity (pps 3-4,
CAP).
The
proposed regulations will require just the treatment plant, after
“coordinating” with municipalities and sewer authorities, to
submit a capacity plan – but only after 100% of the permitted flow
is reached.
Flow
is now redefined as the average for 12, not 3, consecutive months
(pps 12-15, CAP).
Look
at this old
report by Clean Ocean Action
to see the difference between a 3-month and a 12-month flow average.
Scroll down to the graph in Figure 1 on page 44: this was the monthly
flow average, in Millions of Gallons per Day, for the South Monmouth
Regional Sewerage Authority in 1998.
(SMRSA
has expanded the facility since then. In 2014, it was recognized
by the DEP for its innovation at reducing peak flows
caused by Infiltration/Inflow
from groundwater and storms. So the data in this 17 year old report
no longer represents conditions at this facility. What it does show,
visually, is what happens with flow averaging.)
Figure
1 shows that in 1998, SMRSA exceeded 80% of its capacity from
February through May, and in May it exceeded 100%.
Look
at the bars for the whole year in this graph. A 3-month average would
catch these peak-flow exceedences and trigger a capacity analysis.
Clearly a 12-month average would not. It smooths those peak months
out.
Nevertheless,
this is what the DEP is proposing in the new CAP regulations. This is
what their unpublished study found no problem with, and this is the
result:
“The
Department determined that 68 percent of the facilities (129 of 189
facilities) would have triggered the CAP rule requirements at the
existing threshold of 80 percent committed flow to permitted flow
over a three-month period … [but only] 18 percent (34 facilities)
would trigger the requirements if the average reported flow over 12
consecutive months exceeded the permitted flow.” (p 13, CAP).
Fifty
percent more of the treatment plants they studied will no longer have
flows that trigger a capacity analysis or sewer ban.
Flow
in the WQMP Rule
The
proposed WQMP rule has somewhat different requirements regarding
capacity. When a treatment plant reaches 80% of its flow capacity,
the county or other Water Management Planning agency must
“coordinate” with the DEP and the treatment plant to determine if
there will be a capacity deficiency (p 23, WQMP).
Coordination
is not a capacity plan. That isn't required until the treatment plant
reaches 100% of capacity – the same as the CAP rule (p 23, WQMP).
In
the current WQMP regulations, flow is defined as a monthly average of
the 12 most recent months, “or the peak month is there is
significant seasonal variability” (page 19, WQMP).
In
the proposed regulations, flow is redefined as the “peak 12-month
rolling average over the most recent five years”. There is no more
peak month, just “consideration of alternate methodologies to
calculate existing flow” to “accommodate … significant
variability of flows due to seasonal populations or the effects of
wet weather in combined sewer systems” (pps 19-20, WQMP).
With
Decentralization Comes Liability
All
this proposed, pivotal change rests on the conclusions and the
assumptions in the DEP's flow study. Because “most” treatment
plants are over-designed, they have “hydraulic flexibility” for
meeting water quality standards.
And
if the DEP is wrong? That will be the problem for the “the
permittee, municipality, sewage authority, and/or the owner or
operator of the conveyance system [who] must certify in every
[Treatment Works Application], in accordance with N.J.A.C.
7:14A-22.8(a)3, that there is adequate conveyance and treatment
capacity for the projected flow” (page 14, CAP).
The
legislature shouldn't allow the comment period for the new sewer
rules to begin until the day the DEP releases their flow study to the
public. Reset the clock.
Shouldn't
such an original and consequential report be vetted at least as much
as the regulations it is enabling?
The
present comment period that started October 19th
ends December 18th.
The remaining hearing
dates for the WQMP
rule are November 17th
in Clayton and November 30th
in Trenton (DEP Docket Number 10-15-09). The one
hearing date for the CAP
rule is December 3rd
in Trenton (DEP Docket No. 08-15-09).
The DEP's new web page for these rules is here.
