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FOX RIVER ADVOCATES SEEK BETTER POLLUTION CONTROLS FOR TWO ELGIN SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS
At an Illinois EPA hearing Tuesday night in Elgin, Fox River advocates will be seeking answers to serious questions about the impact of two Elgin sewage treatment plants that dump nearly 30 million gallons of treated wastewater each day into the River. Under IEPA's proposed permits, neither plant will be required to install controls for phosphorous and other nutrients, which are the major pollution problem in the Fox River. "The biggest threat to the Fox River is the huge amount of phosphorous and other nutrients that create deadly conditions for fish and other aquatic life during the summer, " said Jack Darin, Director of the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter. "Unless Illinois EPA begins requiring controls on these pollutants, the Fox River will lose much of the progress we have made in recent decades." The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is holding a public hearing tonight at 6:30 at the Elgin City Hall on proposed water pollution permits for two sewage treatment plants operated by the Fox River Water Reclamation District (FRWRD). The FRWRD West Plant is seeking permission to expand its discharge from its current average of 1.5 million gallons per day to 5 million gallons per day. The proposed permit for the FRWRD South Plant will remove all restrictions on the amount of mercury and cadmium it can release and, will allow an exemption from thorough treatment requirements in some situations. "Communities in the Fox River Valley are growing at a tremendous rate and water pollution is increasing right along with it," stated Robert Moore, Executive Director of Prairie Rivers Network, a statewide river conservation group. "Illinois EPA is supposed to protect our waters from this type of threat, but in this case they're allowing increased water pollution." The West Plant is seeking to expand its allowable discharge to accommodate wastewater from new development west of Elgin. The increased amount of wastewater generated by new homes and businesses is expected to be a major threat to the Fox River, as the State projects that the Fox will be receiving 57% more wastewater in 2010 than it did in 1990. "The Fox River is the ultimate recipient of increases in polluted wastewater as more and more houses replace farmland in the Fox River Valley," said Cindy Skrukrud, President of Friends of the Fox River. "That why every sewage plant on the river needs to better treat its waste if we are to keep the Fox River clean in coming years." The South Plant, which is permitted to dump an average of 25 million
gallons per day into the Fox, is apparently not large enough to treat
properly the volume of sewage it is expected to handle. But, instead
of requiring that more capacity be built, the draft permit allows the plant
to bypass proper treatment whenever it is overloaded. "The bypass
Fox River advocates are pleased that Illinois is taking the Fox's problems more seriously, and moving to address the threats to water quality posed by suburban sprawl. Since 1999, Illinois EPA has agreed to prepare a cleanup plan for polluted segments of the Fox River, rejected proposals to weaken ammonia limits for sewage plants, and reversed plans to abolish the Facility Planning Area process, which requires a permit for the extension of new sewer lines into undeveloped areas. Environmentalists are hoping that IEPA will also upgrade its regulation of sewage plants on the Fox. "Unless sewage treatment plants along the Fox River are held to a higher standard, we will lose much of the progress we have made toward a cleaner river," said Jack Darin, Director of the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter. "The incredible growth in the Fox River Valley is sending more and more sewage into the river, and major upgrades in sewage treatment are needed to handle it." | |