EPA drops proposed CSO enforcement action against Portland

After eight years of investigating the City of Portland’s program to control combined sewer overfows (CSOs), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to drop its probe and not pursue enforcement against the city. The investigation begin in July 2001 when the EPA referred a possible enforcement case to the U.S. Department of Justice claiming the city’s CSO control efforts violated the Clean Water and the Safe Drinking Water acts.

Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services took the lead in responding to the claims, defending the city’s record including its progress in cleaning up the Columbia Slough, the Willamette River and urban watersheds.

The EPA informed Mayor Sam Adams of the decision. “This is truly good news, and shows that our vigorous defense of our position was the right approach,” said Adams, who was the City Commissioner in charge of Environmental Services for last three and a half years and participated in several meetings with EPA and Justice Department offcials. Mayor Adams also thanked Senator Ron Wyden for helping Portland receive fair treatment. “Senator Wyden made sure the EPA was accountable for what they were asking of us, and we appreciate his efforts on behalf of our ratepayers,” Adams said.

“The EPA’s decision to drop its eight-year battle with the City of Portland’s sewage cleanup project brings an end to a long, sad chapter that underscores the old adage, ‘No good deed goes unpunished,’” Senator Wyden said. “Over the years, the EPA’s response to the good-faith efforts of the city and its ratepayers to spend $1.4 billion to solve the runoff problems and to control sewage overfows was to threaten lawsuits and refuse to meet with city offcials. While I’m glad the EPA has seen the error of its ways, this is a battle between federal and local government that should have never been waged,” Wyden said.

“We fnally convinced the Justice Department to assign two lawyers who took the time to review the EPA claims by digging into the details,” said Environmental Services Director Dean Marriott. “Our work is a great example of how a major city restores watersheds and water quality and we feel vindicated with the decision to drop any possibility of a legal case against Portland,” Marriott said.

City Commissioner Dan Saltzman was assigned Environmental Services from 1999 through 2004, and also participated in numerous meetings with federal offcials. “The people of Portland should be proud of the job the city is doing to restore our environment, and we are pleased the EPA recognizes that those efforts deserve support and not litigation,” said Saltzman.

When Portland began its CSO control program, the city estimated CSO volume to the Columbia Slough and Willamette River at six billion gallons a year. The city’s work has steadily reduced that volume. CSO volume will be 96% less than it was in 1991 when the program ends in 2011.

• The city diverted millions of gallons of stormwater from the combined sewer system by disconnecting residential and commercial downspouts, installing stormwater sumps and sedimentation manholes, removing underground streams from combined sewers, and building separate storm sewers in some neighborhoods.
• In 2000, the city completed the Columbia Slough CSO Projects, which reduced CSOs to the slough by more than 99%.
• In 2006, the city completed construction of the West Side Big Pipe and the Swan Island Pump Station and controlled all CSO outfalls on the west side of the Willamette River.
• Construction began on the East Side Big Pipe in 2006 to control CSO outfalls on the east side of the Willamette. The East Side Big Pipe will be complete in 2011.

Since the program began in 1991, Environmental Services has met every required CSO milestone and fnished every project on or ahead of schedule and on or under budget. The 20-year CSO control program will have cost Portland sewer ratepayers an estimated $1.4 billion dollars when construction ends in 2011.

The Bureau of Environmental Services provides city residents with Clean River programs including, water quality protection, wastewater collection and treatment, and sewer installation.