State-wide Phosphorus Removal Program

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State-wide Phosphorus Removal Program

New state phosphorus regulations could cost $7 billion

The price tag of complying with new regulations designed to reduce algae-causing phosphorus in Wisconsin waterways could be more than $7billion over the next 20 years, state officials reported on Tuesday.

Wisconsin officials willuse the estimateswhen they ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to slow implementation of new state phosphorus regulations, arguing the financial burden on industries and cities would be prohibitive.

But environmentalists said the state's figures ignore the costs of pollution on water resources and recreational pursuits such as fishing and swimming.

"We will be looking at this very closely to make sure it doesn't undermine the important work to reduce phosphorus that is already going on in the state," said Amber Meyer Smith, director of programs and government relations forClean Wisconsin.

The GOP-controlled Legislature passed legislation in April 2014 that would extend the timeline for factories and wastewater treatment plants to meet stricter standards that took effect in 2010. Those standards set a first-ever numeric limit on how much phosphorus could legally be released to waterways.

For some parties to get a time extension of up to 20 years, Wisconsin would need to show the EPA that regulations would be an economic hardship on Wisconsin.

The EPA oversees state water regulation authority.

Sewage treatment plants and industry are major sources of phosphorus, but so are fertilizer, cattle manure, grass clippings and debris that washes off streets and parking lots. Along with other nutrients such as nitrogen, they feed algae that foul many Wisconsin lakes.

In Green Bay, nutrient pollution has been the source in recent summers of amassive oxygen-depleting dead zone.

On Tuesday, the state Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Administration released a report on potential costs.

The agencies said nearly 600 business and municipal wastewater treatment plants would need to make massive investments to remove more phosphorus from their effluent.

Using private consultants, they estimated $3.45 billion in capital costs from 2016 to 2035. Factoring in the cost of long-term borrowing, it would raise the price tag to nearly $7billion, according to estimates.

Other expenses for operation and maintenance would increase the costs by hundreds of millions of dollars more, the estimates show.

But Meyer Smith of Clean Wisconsin said that the study failed to take into account the cost of polluted water. She noted that a study by the DNR in August 2012 found$18.8 million in net benefitsfrom Wisconsin's original phosphorus regulations.

Paul Kent, an attorney representing municipal sewage treatment agencies, said the 2014 law doesn't roll back standards in the regulations.

Source: JSOnline


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