Below are talking points compliments of CWN Wet Weather Workgroup Co-Chair Katherine Baer from American Rivers. Feel free to use any of the bullets below and tailor them for your own comments.

Topline message – EPA must propose a strong and comprehensive SSO rule that protects public health and clean water, improves public notification and monitoring, makes clear that sanitary sewer overflows are illegal, and ensures that systems are planning for the future by investing in innovative, smart, clean and green sustainable infrastructure.

Sanitary Sewer Overflows – Overview of Problem and Impacts

1. Public Health –
   
   1. Infection, disease, nitrification of drinking water, pathogens other pollutants.  SSOs can cross contaminate drinking water delivery pipes as well as contaminate drinking water sources;
   2. EPA estimates 1.8 to 3.5 million cases of illness annually from swimming in waters contaminated by SSOs;
   3. For more on health effect of sewage see: http://www.americanrivers.org/assets/pdfs/clean-water-/health-effects-of-sewage-fact-1.pdf;
   4. Provide local examples.
2. Environment –
   
   1. Eutrophication, kills fish, shell-fishing, algal blooms, disruption of natural processes, dead zones;
   2. Groundwater contamination;
   3. Provide local examples.
3. Economic– loss of recreation and tourism opportunities, cost of lost-work days, loss of fisheries, raw sewage into basements and parks requiring clean up (provide local examples), roads caving in causing traffic tie ups, injury and death and sink holes causing multiple problems. NOTE: By not knowing the rate of failure for their sewer pipe collection system, communities have not targeted dollars efficiently to repair, replace or augment with green infrastructure their aging, burgeoning pipes. Because of this, municipal sewer rates are skyrocketing and many municipalities have a fix or replacement schedule of 100 years or more.
4. Scope– Scope is unknown but EPA has estimated that there are 23,000-75,000 SSOs a year and this will become worse in some areas that will experience more frequent and intense storms (provide local examples). 
5. Causes– Broken Pipes, mechanical, equipment or power failure, system overload, blockages, failure to maintain infrastructure and failure to manage stormwater from getting into system. Almost exclusive dependence on big pipe systems in the first place without considering distributed or non-structural alternatives.

Sanitary Sewer Overflows – Addressing Issues Set Forth by EPA

1. Permit conditions for SSO reporting, recordkeeping and public right to know
   
   1. Right to know – currently, no consistent regulations for reporting sewer overflows that could affect public health. At a minimum, SSO rule must include notification to public health officials, the local community, and downstream drinking water treatment plants (for more information)
   2. Reporting and Recordkeeping – NPDES permit holders must be required to record SSOs and report them to the state or the EPA as soon as possible and follow-up with a written report explaining the duration and volume of the overflow and steps taken to mitigate the overflow prevent recurrence.
   3. Both these requirements should apply to SSOs that reach waters of the U.S and to SSOs that do not (e.g. sewage backups into basements).
2. Permit conditions for Capacity Management, Operations and Maintenance (CMOM) – CMOM is required under EPA regulations but not well defined. Generally, CMOM includes evaluating and maintaining the sewer system and planning for capacity issues to avoid overflows (for more information).
   
   1. Integrating strong CMOM requirements into permits will ensure that POTWs plan for the future and plan ahead to avoid SSOs. CMOM should require communities plan for stormwater, SSOs and CSOs (where applicable) together and in a more integrated manner. CMOM should also include evaluating water efficiency and green infrastructure approaches to reduce the amount of water coming into the sewer system. A truly integrated water resource management plan that evaluates alternative approaches and innovative technologies should be a requirement before any federal funding is used. Even better would be federal SRF and other funding sources to incentivize innovation.
3. Permits for Municipal satellite collection systems – These must be required. Currently, although there are SSOs from these satellite collection systems there is no permit required.
4. Unauthorized SSOs caused by “exceptional circumstances” – EPA is considering developing a standard permit condition that would provide a framework for evaluating when SSOs would essentially be allowed under either the “upset” provision (40 CFR 122.41(n)) or the “bypass” provision (40 CFR 122.41(m)). No specific talking points here b/c of divergent views – here are a few questions:
   
   1. Should SSOs be allowed under these provisions or are they always illegal.
   2. If they should be allowed under exceptional circumstances, what are the criteria that should apply (e.g. hurricanes, etc.).
5. Peak flow policy – the proposed peak flow policy was negotiated in 2005 by NRDC and NACWA (sewage association) and then proposed by EPA to address “blending.” There was not a CWN position b/c there were divergent views. However, even the groups supporting the policy requested significant improvements. EPA is requesting information on whether the policy should be incorporated as-is as part of the rule, opened up for change, or discarded.
6. Costs and benefits of Capacity Management, Operations and Maintenance (CMOM) and asset management of sanitary sewers – EPA is looking for anything about cost-effectiveness and sustainability.
   
   1. Emphasize the cost-savings achieved by avoiding SSOs and related health and environmental costs;
   2. Urge EPA to look at costs of SSO control and stormwater together – these should be integrated and not additive.
   3. Emphasize the multiple benefits of preventing SSOs to clean water and communities.
   4. Reduce SSO and CMOM costs by demanding a rethinking of our single-minded support for bigger and bigger sewage collection and treatment systems. By getting at the root of the problem and demanding support for decentralized and distributive schemes, we will relieve pressure from the failing centralized systems and begin to shift to neighborhood scale sewage solutions that are much more resilient and efficient. Weight should be given in the SRF point scoring systems so that pilots and demonstration of alternatives can be tried in different geographies.

For more information and background on SSOs:
U.S. EPA - http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=4