UAJA puts hold on sewer design approvals

The University Area Joint Authority is putting the brakes on future sewer design approvals pending the completion of a nutrient management policy to meet future state Department of Environmental Protection guidelines.

According to a Thursday memo from the UAJA to the Centre Region Council of Governments, the DEP revealed plans to reboot the Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy in attempts to meet EPA-imposed milestones. If the DEP doesn’t meet these milestones, the EPA has threatened “backstop requirements” primarily targeted at state municipal wastewater treatment plants.

The state tributary strategy was implemented by the DEP in 2004, and seeks to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment discharges into the tributary

All of the treatment plants that discharge into the tributary, including the UAJA, have capacity loads, Executive Director Cory Miller said Friday. These loads, which control the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus discharged by a facility, limit how much a particular plant will ever be allowed to discharge.

“It makes it so that there is theoretically a limit to how much growth can happen as a result of that,” Miller said.

Unlike other concentration-based requirements, he said, which can grow with the capacity of the plant, the UAJA will never be allowed to increase the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus discharged into the tributary.

Currently, the UAJA meets nutrient requirements by adding chemicals or buying nutrient credits, the memo said. This expense can be absorbed without much impact on use rates.

“This changes because of actions taken by DEP to modify the nutrient credit trading program, and will change even more if DEP does not meet milestones,” the memo said. “UAJA is not comfortable gambling that DEP is going to meet the requirements.”

The plant is at its nitrogen removal capacity handling its existing customers, he said. In order to move forward, the plant needs more capacity.

The UAJA is reaching out to the municipalities to help figure out how to add capacity, he said. Since it’s unclear where all the nutrients are coming from, the UAJA board has suspended final sewer design approval until an offset can be found.

Miller said he could envision three possibilities — residents using the UAJA, new and old, could collectively pay a rate increase to obtain the credits needed to meet the plant’s needs; developers could be required to bring the credits themselves with their designs and shoulder the burden; or the cost could be split between the two.

“This is really up to the entire community,” he said. “All the municipalities of the Centre Region need to figure out how they want to balance this out for the community.”

Suspension of sewer design approval will affect three plans in the region, he said. Not all design plans would be postponed, however — if a developer is able to provide nutrient credits or offsets, approval could be granted.

Miller will address COG regarding the nutrient management plan Monday during the monthly meeting of the General Forum.

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 5:04 PM with the headline "UAJA puts hold on sewer design approvals."