Talks under way on EPA permit

SANDPOINT — The updated terms of a renewed Environmental Protection Agency permit could end up escalating costs to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

Discussions between the Sandpoint Public Works Department and the federal regulatory agency are under way over the city’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, which the wastewater treatment plant utilizes to discharge into the Pend Oreille River. While the terms have yet to be finalized, Public Works Director Kody Van Dyk said the proposed permit would have far-reaching impacts on wastewater treatment.

“For sure, it will change the way we do business,” Van Dyk said at a recent council meeting.

According to Van Dyk, the city originally applied for a permit renewal in 2006. For eight years, the EPA renewed the permit administratively, meaning the city operated on an expired permit for that time. In late October, however, the city received its permit renewal with updated standards that could add serious costs to wastewater treatment operations.

For one thing, the permit is issued for a 3.6 million gallons-per-day plant rather than 5 million gallons per day, Van Dyk said the plant can turn out.

The difference of 1.4 million gallons has a significant impact because EPA regulations require that plants begin considerations for expansion once they reach 85-percent capacity. That means that almost immediately, the city will have to commission an engineering study for a plant expansion. That could ultimately mean upgrading equipment or moving the facility at some point in the future, Van Dyk said.

“It could mean very big deals for the rate-bearers,” he added.

Another additional cost is the introduction of a monitoring program that will provide the EPA with data to gauge the health of the river, Van Dyk said. This program would center on river water upstream from where the wastewater plant discharges into the river. The cost of setting up such a program could fall into the $100,000 range, Van Dyk said.

The terms of the permit also add several contaminants the city will have to monitor and greatly increases the requirement for measurement precision. According to Van Dyk, the previous measurement standard was milligrams per liter of water, but new standards could increase precision to micrograms or even picograms — one million times the level of measurements.

According to Van Dyk, the city should have until January to continue discussions with the EPA over the permitting process. Some of the factors should be negotiable, he added. For the present, he said council members should keep the issue in mind for potential action some time down the road.