Nuclear Loans Guaranteed

  • If all goes according to plan, the nuclear reactors will go up in six to seven years and cost around 14 billion dollars. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

The Obama Administration
announced that it will back
the cost of constructing two
new nuclear reactors. Mark
Brush reports, if they’re
constructed, they’ll be the
first reactors built in the
country in nearly three decades:

Transcript

The Obama Administration
announced that it will back
the cost of constructing two
new nuclear reactors. Mark
Brush reports, if they’re
constructed, they’ll be the
first reactors built in the
country in nearly three decades:

The Southern Company plans to build the reactors in Georgia. They say, if all goes well, they’ll go up in six to seven years and cost around 14 billion dollars.


Investors have seen nuclear energy as a risky bet. But now that the President says the government will guarantee the loans, Wall Street might be enticed back to nuclear energy.

And then there’s the question of safety. President Obama’s Energy Secretary is Steven Chu. He says these new generation reactors are safe.

“We expect that the newer generation reactors will be ideally completely passively safe. Which means that, uh, you don’t actually need to control the reactor. If you lose control of it, it will not melt down.”

Some environmentalists say nuclear energy is not worth the costs – and there’s still no permanent place to store nuclear waste that’s radioactive for thousands of years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Going Renewable Voluntarily

  • Researchers say some companies bought renewable power because customers pushed them to. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

The market for renewable solar
and wind power is growing quickly.
Most people assume that growth
has been mandated by government.
But Shawn Allee found
a report that challenges that:

Transcript

The market for renewable solar
and wind power is growing quickly.
Most people assume that growth
has been mandated by government.
But Shawn Allee found
a report that challenges that:

The report’s from the Center for Resource Solutions, an advocacy group.

Orrin Cook was a co-author. He totaled up growth in sales of wind, solar and other renewable energy between 2003 and 2008. He compared how much growth came from government mandates and how much was bought voluntarily. Cook says the voluntary market grew a tad faster.

“States requiring renewable energy and federal government requiring renewable energy is really just part of that equation. Another part is businesses and individuals buying renewable energy when they don’t have to.”

Cook says this voluntary renewable energy market grew because some companies have eco-minded managers. But he says companies also bought renewable power because customers pushed them to.

Cook looked at federal figures that came out before the financial crisis.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Interview: Google’s Green Energy Czar

  • Bill Weihl is currently working on clean energy at Google. Before joining Google in early 2006, he was CTO at Akamai Technologies. (Photo courtesy of Google)

Chances are that you’ve visited the
website google.com. Google is
not only a leader in online tech, but
it’s also investing in high-tech
alternative energy, especially different
kinds of solar power. Lester Graham
talked with Google’s Green Energy
Czar – yes, that’s his real title – Bill
Weihl. His job is not only
to make Google more energy efficient,
but to investigate and invest in new,
cleaner energy use and generation:

Transcript

Chances are that you’ve visited the
website google.com. Google is
not only a leader in online tech, but
it’s also investing in high-tech
alternative energy, especially different
kinds of solar power. Lester Graham
talked with Google’s Green Energy
Czar – yes, that’s his real title – Bill
Weihl. His job is not only
to make Google more energy efficient,
but to investigate and invest in new,
cleaner energy use and generation:

Lester Graham: Last year, a report indicated performing two Google searches from a desktop computer could generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea. How true is that?

Bill Weihl: We think, as, in fact, does the scientist who was behind most of the data there, that that report was actually off – that you, in fact, could do several hundred Google searches, if not more, for the emissions that are involved in boiling enough water to make a cup of tea.

Graham: What is Google doing to reduce energy consumption, or, at least, reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

Weihl: We have cut our energy consumption in our data centers – data centers are the, you know, big facilities that contain lots and lots of servers. We have cut the energy usage in those facilities by over 50%.

Graham: Is there anything we can do so that when we do use Google we’re being as energy efficient as possible?

Weihl: If you’re buying a new computer, look for one that’s energy efficient. And in the US that means look for one, at a minimum, that’s Energy Star compliant. Laptops also tend to be more energy efficient than desktops, in part because just to make the battery last long enough to be useful, they have to work really hard in designing them to make them energy efficient. The second thing you can do is when you’re not using your system, when it’s sitting there idle, you can set it so that it will go to sleep automatically, or manually, if for some reason it doesn’t go to sleep automatically, you can very easily tell it to go to sleep. That’s much more convenient, obviously, that shutting it down, having to reboot, and restart everything. And it uses about the same energy in stand-by mode as it does when it’s off – which is, in the order of 1 to 5 watts, far less than it uses when it’s just sitting there idle with the screen on and doing nothing.

Graham: Let’s look beyond the world of computers. Google has invested in research for energy efficiency in cars and electric generation. You have a program that’s called ‘R.E. is less than C’ or ‘renewable energy for less than the cost of coal.’ That’s ambitious. Is it realistic?

Weihl: First of all, it’s hugely ambitious. Secondly, I believe it is realistic. And third, I think it’s absolutely necessary. Today, coal is, by far, the cheapest form of energy, or electrical energy, that we consume, except perhaps for hydroelectric power, which is comparable in cost. But at least in this country, and most of the developed world, we’re not going to be building large amounts of new hydroelectric generating capacity. We’ve already dammed most of the rivers that are worth damming. We are, however, still building new coal plants. And coal is not only very cheap, but also it is, by far, the dirtiest, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, of any of the sources of energy that we use. So I think it is necessary, in terms of dealing with the climate crisis that we are facing, to find a way to, over time, replace coal with cleaner sources of energy. And the only way, as a society, I think that we’re going to do that is if it makes economic sense. So that’s why we really started to focus on this initiative we call ‘R.E. less than C’ – to really try to drive innovation as rapidly as possible on the technology for generating renewable power to try to drive its cost down very quickly.

Graham: Bill Weihl is the Green Energy Czar for Google. Thanks very much for your time, I appreciate it.

Weihl: My pleasure. Thank you.

Related Links

Behind Big Oil’s Green Motivations

  • The Maryland Science Center is running a pilot project, renting out a handful of bright green battery powered cars to Baltimore residents and tourists. The cars use a battery that employs a special polymer film developed by Exxon Chemical. (Photo courtesy of the Maryland Science Center)

Some well known oil companies
are very publicly getting behind
alternative energy initiatives.
But are these serious efforts
or just a case of green-washing?
Tamara Keith tries
to get some answers:

Transcript

Some well known oil companies
are very publicly getting behind
alternative energy initiatives.
But are these serious efforts
or just a case of green-washing?
Tamara Keith tries
to get some answers:

The first thing oil giants like Exxon Mobil, BP and Chevron would
like us to know is that they’re not oil companies. They are energy
companies. So, they say, investing in biofuels, solar panels and
geothermal power really isn’t out of character… even if those things
only make up a fraction of their total business.

And I guess that’s how you end up with an electric car that says
“powered by Exxon Mobil” on its bumper.

Reiner: “So, you want to go take a look?”

Keith: “Yeah, sure.”

Vann Reiner is the CEO of the Maryland Science Center.
The center is running a pilot project, renting out a handful of
bright green battery powered cars to Baltimore residents and tourists.

Reiner: “Here’s the gas cap.”

Keith: “It’s an outlet.”
Reiner: “It’s an outlet, that’s right. And you see it’s 110 volt
15 amp – so household current.”

The cars use a battery that employs a special polymer film developed
by Exxon Chemical.

“So, you turn the key the way you normally would.”

(sound of car)

Exxon Mobil said it couldn’t make anyone available to be
interviewed for this story.

Reiner: “Nice job on acceleration.”

Keith: “Thank you.”

So I asked the science center’s Reiner what I wanted to ask
the folks at Exxon Mobil. Why in the world is an oil company
promoting an electric car? Isn’t that like working to put themselves
out of business?

“I see it as a technology company who has made a lot of money
in oil, no getting around that. But what else can you do? And
this is a way to insure their future, in my opinion. But I’m just
delighted that they chose us.”

Exxon Mobil also recently announced a 600-million dollar investment
in algae as a future biofuel – and the company is making sure we all
know about it with with newspaper and television ads.

“And they absorb CO2. So they help solve the greenhouse problem as well.
We’re making a big commitment to finding out just how much algae can help
to meet the fuel demands of the world.”

Still, Exxon Mobil is planning for oil, gas and coal to continue dominating
the world’s energy supply for at least the next 30 years.

Alex Yelland is with Chevron, and he says that’s what his company is projecting, too.

“Renewables is currently around 10 percent of the energy mix, and, in the
coming decades, that’s not expected to change a huge amount but from its
current state it’s relative state, it will grow significantly.”

Over the next 2 years, Yelland says Chevron plans to spend 2-point-7
billion dollars on renewable energy and energy efficiency. But Yelland
insists that kind of investment in energy sources other than oil isn’t
counterintuitive.

“For us, it’s about building a sound business for the future and
understanding where global demand is going and how we can meet that.”

“I think it definitely is smart PR.”

Edward Wu is with Cora Capital Advisors in New York. His firm specializes
in alternative energy investing. He says these companies are worth hundreds
of billions of dollars and, by comparison, their green investments are fairly small.

“They’re not going to replace oil, but I think they’re hoping that
they’ll be somewhat economically viable and at the same time definitely
serve a PR purpose right now.”

But Wu says the sprinkling of investments isn’t just about having something
to talk about in their ads.

“They want to have some biofuels in the mix. They want to have some battery
companies in the mix. They’re essentially dipping their toe in the water to
essentially hedge their bets.”

Because no one will want to be an oil company if, or perhaps we should say when,
oil stops dominating the energy landscape.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Going ‘All-In’ on Goat Farming

  • Anderson and Abbe Turner are in the midst of adding a creamery to their goat farm so they can make cheeses. (Photo courtesy of Lucky Penny Farms)

A lot of companies have been slowing
down and cutting back because of the
economy. But tough times aren’t
stopping some new businesses in the
midst of the ‘local food movement’
from moving forward. More than a
year ago, Julie Grant spoke with the
owners of a goat cheese farm. She
visited them again this year. Now,
they’re opening a new creamery, despite
lots of economic obstacles:

Transcript

A lot of companies have been slowing
down and cutting back because of the
economy. But tough times aren’t
stopping some new businesses in the
midst of the ‘local food movement’
from moving forward. More than a
year ago, Julie Grant spoke with the
owners of a goat cheese farm. She
visited them again this year. Now,
they’re opening a new creamery, despite
lots of economic obstacles:

Abbe Turner just quit her day job. She’s had a good-paying
university job – with benefits – for many years. But today
she’s waiting for the delivery of a $5,000 dollar pasteurizer.

“There we go. There’s my pasteurizer.” (cheering)

The truck arrives with a six foot round stainless steel tank.

“I never thought I’d be so excited by a 3,000 pound hunk of
metal in my entire life. But…” (laughter)

Abbe and her husband, Anderson Turner, started dreaming
of goat cheeses three years ago. This big hunk of steel will
help them finally to get their creamery off the ground.

“The pasteurizer will allow us to make cheese in small
batches, artisan cheeses. We’ll do some cheves in the
pasteurizer, some tommes and probably a goat gouda.”

The Turner’s dream started after they bought a few goats for
their hobby farm. They made a little cheese for the family.
And they liked it. So they kept getting more and more goats.

Now they have more than 160 Nubians, La Manchas, and
Alpines. Abbe and Anderson had been getting up before
dawn every morning to milk them. By hand. Then they
would get their 3 kids ready for school and head off to their
full-time day jobs.

The Turners wanted to automate milking, to make things
easier and faster. They even had a group of 23 investors
chipping in to renovate their barn into a milking parlor. But
that was last fall.

“Unfortunately, with the stock market crash, the calls kept
coming in. ‘Hi. We really believe in what you’re doing.
Unfortunately, I’m watching my investments tank and a goat
cheese operation is not something I can write a check for
right now.’”

Some people thought it would be smart to forget about
starting a new creamery in the midst of a recession. Matt
Ord used to sell the Turners feed for their goats. But he had
to shut down his family business when the economy
crashed. Now he’s working with Abbe to build her goat farm
and creamery – even though he’s not convinced it’s the right
time for this kind of venture.

“She’s nuts. But I hope everything goes good for her, I really
do. She’s got a lot of patience and a lot of nerve starting this
business right now. It’s a very scary time. And I know
things are very tough for everybody.”

Abbe likes to think of her family as bold, rather than nuts.
And most of her investors have come back on board since
last year.

Her husband Anderson Turner is glad she’s starting full-time
to get the creamery off the ground instead of waiting for the
economy to turn around.

“I can’t think negatively about opportunity. My time is now.
My opportunities are now, my life is now. So, this is the
cards I’m dealt with. I’ve got to deal. So, let’s go.”

The Turners believe that the local food trend is just getting
off the ground, and that support for local foods will more than
compensate for the tanked economy. They say restaurants
have already put in orders to buy their cheeses.

Now all they have to do is start making it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Are Green Jobs Good Jobs?

  • Members of the US Chamber of Commerce are debating whether green investments will create as many jobs as supporters claim. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

One of the big buzzwords surrounding the 870-billion dollar stimulus package signed by President Obama is green jobs. Tamara Keith found now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is interested in green investments — sort of:

Transcript

One of the big buzzwords surrounding the 870-billion dollar stimulus package signed by President Obama is green jobs. Tamara Keith found now the US Chamber of Commerce is interested in green investments — sort of:

In the past, the Chamber has ridiculed all things environmental. But, its members want to catch this green wave. A recent panel discussion revealed some of the business leaders are optimistic about the stimulus package’s green investments. Mark Santacrose is CEO of TectaAmerica Corp. It installs environmentally friendly roofing.

“We’ve lost over 900,000 jobs in the broader construction industry in the last year. Investment in green will have a big impact.”

The energy industry wants in on stimulus funds too. Mary Miller is a vice president at the Edison Electric Institute:

“The more efficient use of energy has invaluable benefits to consumers, the economy and our country.”

But, an economist on the panel was not as thrilled. He told Chamber of Commerce members that spending on green jobs will mean fewer jobs would be created overall.

For the Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Investors Wary of Diesel From Coal

  • (Photo courtesy of the US Geological Survey)

The price of gasoline and diesel fuel from
foreign oil is making people think about other ways
to fill up. Lester Graham reports the coal industry
is pushing the idea of making diesel out of coal
from the US:

Transcript

The price of gasoline and diesel fuel from
foreign oil is making people think about other ways
to fill up. Lester Graham reports the coal industry
is pushing the idea of making diesel out of coal
from the US:

The technology to make diesel fuel out of coal has been around for a while. Germany
used it in World War II.

Recently, researchers at Rutgers and the University of North Carolina developed a
more efficient way to convert coal to diesel.

So, what’s stopping coal-to-diesel? Money and risk.

Coal to diesel is feasible – if the price of oil is above $50 a barrel. Oil is around $143 a
barrel right now. So, the money is good.

Phil Gonet is president of the Illinois Coal Association. He says now investors want
some government assistance.

“That guarantees that investors will at least get their money back if OPEC starts to play
around with the world price of oil.”

And make diesel from foreign oil cheaper than diesel from domestic coal.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Founding Family Scolds Exxon

  • An Exxon-Mobil worker on the job (Photo courtesy of the US Dept of Labor)

The family that founded Exxon-Mobil wants the
oil company to invest more in alternative energy.
Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The family that founded Exxon-Mobil wants the
oil company to invest more in alternative energy.
Lester Graham reports:

John D. Rockefeller was one of the first oil barons in the U.S. His family still owns a
good chunk of Exxon-Mobil. But the family thinks the senior managers of Exxon-Mobil
are banking on fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, too much.

During a news conference Neva Rockefeller Goodwin said the majority of the family is
concerned that Shell, Chevron, BP and others are investing in alternative energy, while
Exxon-Mobil is behind the curve.

“In important areas like renewable energy strategies, bringing a variety of technologies to
scale and preparing for policies stemming from global climate risk, Exxon’s competitors
are far out in front.”

The family says a few billion of the 25-billion dollars a year Exxon-Mobil plans to spend
for oil and gas exploration should be spent exploring alternative energy.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Car Sharing Gets Profitable

  • Through car sharing programs, users rent cars on an hourly basis. (Photo courtesy of Zipcar)

There’s nothing unusual about renting a car by the day.
It’s commonplace at airports nationwide, but for most Americans,
renting a car by the hour is a strange notion. Renting a car by the hour
is often called “car sharing.” Car sharing is good for the environment
because its users only get the car when they need the car. They usually
take buses and bikes to get around. Car sharing has caught on in a few big
cities on the east and west coasts. That’s largely due to the efforts of a pair
of private companies, Zipcar and Flexcar. Now those firms are poised to
expand their operations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby
has this report:

Transcript

There’s nothing unusual about renting a car by the day. It’s
commonplace at airports nationwide, but for most Americans, renting a
car by the hour is a strange notion. Renting a car by the hour is often
called “car sharing.” Car sharing is good for the environment because its
users only get the car when they need the car. They usually take buses
and bikes to get around. Car sharing has caught on in a few big cities on
the east and west coasts. That’s largely due to the efforts of a pair of
private companies, Zipcar and Flexcar. Now, those firms are poised to
expand their operations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd
Melby has this report:


For the past six months, a nonprofit called the Neighborhood Energy
Consortium has had the Minneapolis/St. Paul car sharing market to itself.
The non-profit group has raised about $450,000 to buy 12 cars. Those
energy-efficient hybrids have attracted about 140 people to join the
HourCar program. That’s Hour with an “H.”


(Sound of bus stop and rumble of passing truck)


On this Saturday morning, Mary Solac is shivering at a bus stop, waiting
for a ride to go pick up her HourCar. Despite the obvious inconvenience,
she says it’s worth it.


“You don’t have to worry about insurance. You don’t have to worry
about gas. It’s like okay, I’m paying what I’m paying and I don’t have to
worry about fixing the blasted car either.”


After a short bus ride, Solac does have to worry about more mundane car
concerns… such as scraping the ice and snow off the window.


(Sound of ice/snow scraping on the windshield)


To date, Solac’s only choice for renting a car by the hour has been
HourCar. That’s about to change.


The nation’s largest car sharing company — Zipcar of Boston — is
invading HourCar’s Minneapolis turf. Nearly 50,000 people now take
turns driving about 500 Zipcars, mostly in Boston, New York and
Washington, D.C.


Scott Griffith is the CEO of Zipcar.


“Over the last several years, we’ve really focused on those cities and getting
them past profitability, past the break even point, to prove that at the
metro market level, that we can make money in this business.”


That track record enticed a venture capital firm to invest $10 million in
Zipcar.


Another big new company is also getting an influx of cash. The nation’s
second-largest car sharing company — Flexcar of Seattle — is about half
as big as Zipcar. It too has a new investor: AOL Founder Stephen Case.
He rented a Flexcar, liked it and bought the company.


In Chicago, Flexcar has paired with a local nonprofit to put 47 cars on
the street.


Zipcar, meanwhile, is also trying to get into Chicago. It wants
government agencies in the Windy City to commit to using its cars
before entering the market. The company hopes that happens sometime
this year.


Business professor Alfred Marcus at the University of Minnesota says it’s
not unusual for emerging businesses to seek government help like this.


“To get this sector going, to stimulate it, it makes sense for their to be
some public involvement, but you would hope this could take off on its
own. I think this is transitional – these public and private partnerships,
and that’s very typical when industries start.”


In Minneapolis/St. Paul, the University of Minnesota is guaranteeing
Zipcar a $1,500 per month per vehicle subsidy, but once Zipcar meets the
$1,500 minimum, that subsidy goes away. Zipcar says it expects to do
just that in three months.


At the moment, Zipcar is growing fast. It had revenues of about $15
million in 2005. CEO Griffith says it expects to double that this year, but
Alfred Marcus with the University of Minnesota says over the long-term,
Zipcar faces big hurdles.


Zipcar has only had success in large, densely-populated cities. Its target
market is young people without cars who are highly price sensitive, and
then there’s the question of where to keep the cars. They have to be
conveniently located to the people who might want to use them.


Marcus says that if these start-ups continue to grow, someday they might
be gobbled up by bigger companies.


“The ultimate aim of Flexcars or Zipcars may be to build up a fringe
business, get it going and have a rental car company buy them or have even
have a conventional automobile company by them.”


But the car-sharing company owners say they have other plans. Zipcar
boss Scott Griffith says he’s working on a 10-year plan to make Zipcar an
international company. Flexcar owner Stephen Case says he bought that
firm “to build it” and not to “flip it.”


For the GLRC, I’m Todd Melby.

Related Links

Sewage Blending Stirs Up Debate

  • Many environmentalists fear the practice of sewage blending would become more routine if a new EPA policy is enacted. (Photo by M. Vasquez)

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:

Transcript

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:


(sound of water in sewer)


Some sanitary sewers are tied in with storm sewers. So when there’s a big rainstorm, or when there’s a fast snowmelt, all that water can inundate some sewage treatment plants. To tackle this problem, some treatment plants have adopted a practice known as “blending.” The excess sewage is re-routed around the slower parts of the treatment plant. The dirty water is then mixed with the water that’s been cleaned. It’s sometimes given a shot of chlorine, and then released into creeks, rivers, and lakes.


Kurt Heise oversees the operation of a sewage treatment plant on the Detroit River. He says the practice of blending is necessary in order to keep the plant from being overwhelmed.


“When you have a wet weather event, an extreme wet weather event, if we were to allow all of that combined water in through the normal process the treatment process would be ruined.”


Sewage blending has been around for a long time. To plant operators, it’s a necessary step in handling large amounts of dirty water. But to some people, blending is not seen as a good option. They want the practice to stop.


Instead, they say, cities should invest in their systems to make sure they can fully treat all the water that comes to the plant. Kurt Heise says, if his plant were required to do this, it wouldn’t make sense economically.


“It would almost result in doubling the size of our plant and spending just untold amounts of dollars for an event only happens a few times a year.”


Sewage treatment plant operators say you have to weigh the costs and the benefits before spending hundreds of millions of dollars on expanding the treatment plants. The decision of whether or not to allow blending has been left up to state and local regulators. But recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has weighed in on the subject. And ever since they suggested new guidelines for allowing blending, environmentalists have been critical of their plan. Mike Shriberg is the Great Lakes advocate for the Public Interest Research Group. It’s an environmental consumer activist organization.


Shriberg says the draft blending policy, the way it’s written now, is too broad. And will allow the practice of blending to become routine.


“Our fear is that when you’ve got a treatment plant that uses blending, they’re never going to upgrade to full treatment sewage. And so if a treatment plant is allowed to blend they’re not going to go up to full treatment capacity they have no incentive to do that anymore. It’s sort of the cheap way out.”


Sewage treatment operators say blending is better than seeing the raw sewage overflow into waterways. And they say it’s better than spending large sums of money to fix a problem that only occurs a few times a year. But critics say the EPA doesn’t have a good handle on how often blending is used, and what kind of health risks are associated with the practice.


Some initial studies have been done on blended sewage and how it might affect public health. Joan Rose is a water microbiologist at Michigan State University. She’s written a report on the health risks associated with blended sewage.


“So what I found was that if people were actually swimming in the water and there was a discharge of a blended sewage upstream, that their risk of getting sick, actually getting sick with a virus or a parasite was about a hundred times greater – when there was a blended discharge as opposed to if the water was fully treated.”


Rose says some of these viruses, such as Hepatitis-A, are highly contagious. At this point, there are no good estimates on how many people get sick from blended sewage each year. It’s never been studied, so the impact of blending on public health is unclear. Ben Grumbles is the Assistant Administrator for water at the EPA. He says the EPA is considering the billions of dollars at stake in expanding the nation’s sewer treatment plants versus the risk to public health.


“What we’re trying to do is to clarify what’s legal and what isn’t legal and to recognize the economic realities that sewage teatment plants face across the country in terms of their infrastructure needs, but foremost and above all what leaves the facility has to meet Clean Water Act permit limits.”


But the Clean Water Act permit limits don’t measure all the viruses, bacteria, and parasites found in blended sewage. And so some environmentalists and scientists say meeting the limits doesn’t necessarily mean protecting public health. Grumbles says officials are still reviewing the tens of thousands of comments they received after releasing the draft blending policy.


He says he doesn’t know what the final rule will look like, or if they’ll issue a rule at all. One thing is likely, if the policy is finalized the way it’s written now, it’s expected that environmental groups will take the EPA to court.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links