Date: 2008-06-23
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Madam Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker. H.R. 2452. the Sewage Overflow Community RightToKnow Act. offered by my colleague on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Mr. BISHOP. is an important commonsense proposal to enhance the monitoring and public notification of sewage spills. I applaud Mr. BISHOPs work to raise the publics awareness of sewage spills and for his tenacity in bringing together relevant stakehdlders on this issue to work through potential differences and produce the fine product under consideration today. I also applaud the work of our colleague. Mr. LoBIONDO. for his efforts in supporting and advocating for H.R. 2452. Public notification of sewage overflows is an important topic that has not received the attention it rightly deserves. During committee hearings on this legislation last summer. the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment received testimony on the overwhelming extent of the problem of sewage overflows. According to the Environmental Protection Agencys own numbers. the -frequency and volume of annual sewage overflows Is staggering. For combined sewage systems. EPA estimates that 850 billion gallons of raw or partially treated sewage is discharged annually into local waters. For separate sanitary sewer systems. EPA estimates that 23- to 75.000 of these sanitary sewage system overflows occur each year in the United States. discharging a total volume of between 3 and 10 billion gallons annually. Worse still is the fact that these sewage overflows can be laden with potentially harmful chemicals. pathogens. viruses. and bacteria and often wind up in local rivers and streams. city streets. parks. or. in unfortunate cases. directly into peoples homes. These statistics further emphasize the- importance of investment in our Nations waterrelated infrastructure. For too long our communities and citizens have been waiting for us to renew our commitment to meeting the waterrelated infrastructure needs of this country. While the House of Representatives strongly approved legislation to reinvest and rebuild and replace our failing and outdated wastewater treatment infrastructure and sewers. we have faced continued opposition from this administration investing in our Nations infrastructure. I remain hopeful that we will be able to send legislation to the President this year that will meet the waterre-. "lated needs that we all know exist and are necessary to ensure the economic and environmental health of our Nation. However. in the interim. we need to make sure that the public is aware of sewage levels to give the individuals the opportunity to stay out of harms way. It makes no sense for sewage agencies to know where and when overflows are occurring but to avoid making this information readily available to the public. This type of practice defies common sense. Equally troublesome are agencies that lack sufficient monitoring technologies or programs to alert themto the presence of sewage overflows. The legislation under consideration here today is an essential step in protecting the publics health and environment from the dangers of sewage overflows. H.R. 2452. the Sewage Community RighttoKnow Act. is a commonsense approach to enhance the monitoring and notification of sewage overflows to protect human health and the environment. It is also an approach that can be achieved without significant burden to States and local governments. Monitoring and providing public notification on sewage overflows provides the greatest. opportunity to avoid direct contact and potentially harmful pollutants as well. Facilities rapid responses to overflows in order to minimize the potential harm to the environment. this legislation amends the Clean Water Act to ensure that all publicly owned treatment works incorporate enhanced monitoring notification and reporting requirements into the existing permits for those systems under their operational control. Under this Act. the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is given 1 year to issue regulations to define the parameters for monitoring and notification to be carried out by the publicly owned treatment works. Following completion of this rulemaking. all publicly owned treatment works are required within a defined time period to incorporate .the monitoring and notification criteria from the rulemaking into the existing clean water permits. However. to help minimize potential paperwork concerns. this legislation allows owners and operators to incorporate the enhanced monitoring provisions in their existing permits as such permits come up for periodic renewal modification. To enhance the availability of public information on sewer overflows. H.R. 2452 requires the enhanced notification requirements to take effect 30 days after completion .of the rulemaking. The legislation under consideration today is slightly modified from the version that was reported favorably from the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on May 15 to address a few technical and transitional concerns that were unresolved before the committee markup. In addition. the bill under consideration today provides a mechanism for States with active notification programs to petition EPA for the ability to carry out the existing notification programs provided that these programs are determined to be functionally equivalent to the national standard for State notification programs called for in this legislation. I corpmend the ranking member of the subcommittee. Mr. BOOZMAN. and the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.