Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

In the next several postings I will print two letters I have sent to the Ohio EPA opposing the expansion of the Pickerington Sewer plant. The first one I posted back in July, requesting the public hearing which was held on August 29th. The second letter I sent to the division of Surface Water this week including copies of articles from the local newspapers outlining the situation and lack of any valid regionalization plan to prevent the duplication of services to our community. This duplication if allowed will cost EVERYONE in this community millions of dollars in fee increases and possibly tax increases to support the excess capacity that is planned for our region.

I was appalled in the Pickerington Times Sun article this week, that the city manager, Joyce Bushman, publicly lied about the Sanitary Sewer Overflow problems the city experiences with the current system. She stated that there was ''no problem.'' The Ohio EPA's own records show otherwise, in addition to the dumping of partially treated or untreated sewage into Sycamore Creek at least 80 times in the past three years, the city has backed up sewage into residental basements in some areas of the city during this period also.

I firmly believe the public and system users have a right to expect the plant to operate within the parameters or the Clean Water Act of the US and that the EPA must enforce this act. Although the EPA cannot direct the city in how it spends its resources, I believe the EPA should deny the expansion permit until these current problems are corrected. The city is currently spending sewer resources to expand the system and seek new customers, not fix the problems.

I also believe they should not give the permit if the city does not define the service areas for the new capacity and also enter into a regional agreement with Fairfield County and Canal Winchester so that duplication of service and capacity is stopped.

We are all going to pay for this, including the aggressive giveaway programs and fee abatements the city gives developers as an enticement to annex. Yes, Santa CLAUSE does live at city hall, ask any homebuilder.(there must not be any other good reason to annex, the city needs to buy their loyalty) Fairfield County is attempting to negotiate a service area agreement with Pickerington, including agreeing to provide the reduction in tap fees that the city promised the developers in pre-annexation agreements! Those tap fees normally collected,pay to maintain the County system and allow it to remain solvent. These incentives will be paid for by county utility customers and we did not even have a say in the vote to give the incentives! The county believes that if they do not deal....the loss of revenue would be greater if Pickerington runs lines right next to county lines and begins to service development in the defined county service area.

The thing that angers me the most is the fact that these giveaways are to residential homebuilder developers. The last thing this community needs is for its government leadership to give financial incentives to build more homes!

When the mayor goes into his next song and dance about how much he cares for this community..... please laugh... long and loud. He sings his I care song and then spearheads the annexation of all land in Violet Township and gives incentives to homebuilders to carpet the entire school district with homes, all in an effort to get to SR 33 and build the industrial park in the Canal Winchester School District, as stated in the Comprehensive land use plan for the city of Pickerington.

First EPA letter

7-14-2002
May 9, 2002


Hearing Clerk, Ohio EPA
PO Box 1049
Columbus, OH 43216-1049

Subject: Application # 4PB00017*JD

To whom it may concern:

This letter is to request a public hearing on the renewal application by the City of Pickerington for their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, (NPDES) permit. Accompanying this request is a copy of a letter Mr. Gregory Sanders prepared addressing questions forwarded to the Division of Surface Water regarding the permit renewal. The responses in this letter have brought to light new questions, which need to be addressed before this application should proceed and the renewal permit is issued. Please prepare the EPA representatives who will attend the Public Hearing, to address these questions and others which the public has forwarded to your office regarding whether this applicant?’s policies and procedures are in compliance with Ohio EPA regulations and adherence to the Clean Water Act of the United States.

1. Does the current process of combining the renewal and expansion permits meet the standards of the Clean Water Act? I believe these should be considered and treated separately.

2. Pickerington is in violation of the regionalization requirements in its current NPDES permit requiring it to submit an annual report on regionalization activities. What action has been taken to correct this problem before the EPA approves a renewal of said permit. Pickerington had a regional sewer and water agreement with the Village of Canal Winchester. The City of Pickerington canceled this agreement on October 22, 2001. This regional agreement was used to secure low interest loans from the Ohio EPA for the expansion of the water plant on Diley Road. What is the status of these loans since the agreement showing regionalization activites is now null and void?

3. The city of Pickerington has embarked on an aggressive program of reducing or abating sewer and water tap fees to developers who agree to annex to the City. These sewer and water tap fees are supposed to go into a fund to maintain the sewer and water systems. The underfunding of this maintenance fund may prevent the city from future ability to repair and maintain the systems they seek to expand.

4. The city currently is experiencing Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSO?’s) including backing up of untreated waste into residential home basements. In the Ohio EPA?’s own records, the city system has had 80 days of SSO?’s in the past three years. The following SSO?’s are some of the highlights of these 80 days.

a. An 8.8 mgd maximum daily flow was recorded on one day in August 2000, this was well over the 1.8 mgd rated capacity of the sewer plant.

b. A 2.3 mgd maximum day flow in September 2000 (2 days over the 1.8 mgd capacity)

c. A 2.8 mgd maximum Daily flow in May 2001 (12 days over 1.9 mgd capacity)

This data indicates that the city is not able to operate the plant at its current capacity under the current permit ensuring the safety of the public and the cleanliness of Sycamore Creek and residential basements in compliance with the Clean Water Act and Ohio EPA regulations. What action has been taken to fix this overflow problem on the part of the City and what action has the Ohio EPA taken to ensure that the problem is addressed? I do not believe a renewal permit should be issued until the SSO problem is fixed. I certainly do not believe any expansion is appropriate when the current system is unable to prevent these SSO?’s. With the city abating sewer and water tap fee monies to developers that would go into the repair fund to possibly address these issues, it is a valid question whether the city can even address these problems with the current funding arrangements.



-By Lisa Ross

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-14-2002
5. In a City of Pickerington service committee meeting in early 2000, a discussion was recorded stating that the Ohio EPA had directed the city to restructure the sewer and water fund allocations. At the time the city was devoting most of the sewer and water fund monies to bond repayment and a very small percentage to plant maintenance and repair needs. The EPA was quoted as directing the city to significantly increase the amount of funds devoted to the plant maintenance and repair needs via a new percentage formula, which significantly reduced the available percentage, devoted to debt repayment. Since the City of Pickerington currently has a huge sewer and water debt, has the EPA followed up on this directive to increase the repair funding percentage? Can the city of Pickerington fund the needed repair of its current system to meet Ohio EPA regulations and the Clean Water Act? I believe consideration of these issues, should be addressed in great detail before any renewal or expansion is granted. A detailed investigation should be given to the funding mechanism even if the projects are not funded directly by the Ohio EPA. Ohio EPA should not give approval to projects which possibly cannot be maintained in a lawful manner because the city may face financial difficulty from the unrestrained growth of the area. Additionally, the use of incentives and giveaways to developers of the very water and sewer funds that are normally slated to maintain the system deserve attention and questions of where this repair money will come from should be addressed.

6. Citizens of this community have a right to expect the operators of the utilities to comply with the law and address any problems in a prompt manner. The Ohio EPA has a mission to ?“protect the environment for the welfare of the states citizens.?” Several times in Mr. Sanders letter, which is attached, he states:

?“Ohio EPA wants to ensure primarily that loans are repaid; we do not feel that we can or should determine how these projects proceed if local funds are being used.?”

He further states that the planning documents for the area the 201/208 plans are out of date and do not address the explosive growth of the area. Due to this fact, the EPA is handling requests on a first come first served basis for these projects. One of his final statements is that ?“All permits issued should be consistent with 201/208 plans.?” In the current 208 plan, Pickerington is not even a Designated Management Agency (DMA ) for this area! It appears that if the EPA has outdated ridiculous planning documents that do not even address the reality of the community, the EPA just issues permits to whoever knocks at the door first!

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7-14-2002
I believe the citizens of this community have a right to clean air and clean water. I also believe that funds to create the utilities to ensure this right should be spent in an efficient manner whether they be Ohio EPA funds or local funds. Duplication of services at great expense to the community and the citizens of Ohio are occurring in the Pickerington Community. The Ohio EPA has not ensured that the DMA?’s or others who operate these facilities have completed a realistic 208 plan addressing these regionalization issues. The city is ignoring the capacity of the ?“official?” DMA?’s of the area and refuses to utilize this capability to serve its citizens and instead requests to increase the pollution and flow of a small stream by nearly doubling their current capacity. The applicant has not even met the conditions for its current NPDES permit.

The City of Pickerington is wrongly requesting an expansion of their facility via a permit renewal process in my view.

What we appear to have here is an attempt by the city to substantially increase the amount of effluent into a small stream, Sycamore Creek, because the Ohio EPA does not have the planning documents pointing out that this expansion is unneeded because capacity exists in the region to serve its needs. Usage of the condition for the de minimus exclusion under the Antidegradation Rule will allow this municipality to pollute and increase the flow this small stream in an unacceptable manner in my view.

I request that this renewal not be granted until these and other issues of concern to citizens are addressed. I also request that the expansion of the plant be handled under separate permitting procedures.

Sincerely,


Lisa Ross