Portland Tribune: Stink still rises in city sewer deal: Political skirmish at state level may have brought on EPA heat
Sam Adams
Stink still rises in city sewer deal: Political skirmish at state level may have brought on EPA heat
By NICK BUDNICK Issue date: Fri, Dec 9, 2005
The Tribune
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Even as Portlanders are spending more than $6,000 per household to fix the city’s antiquated sewage system, the federal government is preparing to file suit over the $1.4 billion fix — demanding tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in additional spending.
And now, with both sides entering the endgame in negotiations that could avoid a grueling federal court battle, city leaders are unveiling evidence that characterizes the pending enforcement action as “a partisan political witch hunt,”as city Commissioner Sam Adams puts it.
“We are on the verge of ratepayer revolt. We are not a cash cow for them. We are trying to maintain jobs and businesses in the city of Portland,” said Adams, who is in charge of the Bureau of Environmental Services.
The evidence includes a March 29, 2001, fax from the office of Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village, to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urging enforcement action be taken against Portland. An aide to Minnis denies the fax played a major role in the EPA’s decision, however.
At issue: the city’s long-standing sewer problem that results in spills of untreated sewage into the Willamette River, especially when it rains. The problem stems from the city’s aging sewer system, which uses a single buried pipe to handle both sanitary sewage and storm-water runoff, rather than separating the flows.
Since 1991, the city has been trying to halt the spills with its Combined Sewer Overflow Project. Under a legal agreement with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the city has been building what amounts to a huge enclosed concrete bathtub under Portland. Known colloquially as “the Big Pipe,” the project is supposed to contain and channel all sewage and storm water up to the treatment plant on North Columbia Boulevard, where it is cleaned and dumped into the Columbia River.
Since the EPA had not questioned the plan for a decade, city officials felt they were on the right track — until 2001, when the EPA sent a letter warning of an impending enforcement action, citing ongoing violations and saying the city’s efforts were flawed.
Ever since, city and state officials have had one question: Why?
“We’ve asked EPA that question 8,000 times,” said Stephanie Hallock, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality. “We’ve been asking that question ad nauseam: Why are you singling out Portland, and why are you doing this?”
Failed resolution got results
Adams now thinks he has found the genesis of Portland’s problems in federal documents that were gathered by the city with the help of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The EPA has long denied any political influence on their enforcement action. But the documents show the EPA’s decision to start an enforcement action was at the very least aided, if not sparked, by a push by rural Republicans in the state Legislature to punish Portland for its sewage spills.
The paper trail goes like this:
In early 2000, EPA headquarters asked its regions to crack down on sewage spills, and report back on progress in targeting the worst municipal violators. In September, the Seattle-based Region 10 enforcers targeted Portland for a “file review and possible inspection,” according to documents that make no mention of the city’s state-sanctioned agreement to get a handle on the problem.
“We were supposed to prioritize the biggest (sewage-spill) violators,” said Phil Wong of the EPA’s Region 10 headquarters in Seattle. “Clearly, Portland was one of those.”
In a Feb. 21, 2001, e-mail, EPA enforcement official Kristine Karlson asked her colleagues to forward all evidence they had of any water-related pollution issues concerning Portland saying her office “would like to include as many water related issues as possible” in its enforcement review.
But what caused the review to suddenly flower into an enforcement action appears to have been a partisan battle playing out in Salem — which was tracked closely by the EPA, documents show.
During the 2001 session of the Oregon Legislature, rural Republicans and agricultural interests, citing news reports of farmers getting fined for letting a relatively small amount of cow feces to reach rivers, started complaining that Portland was getting fined less for doing a lot worse. House Speaker Minnis sponsored a resolution that asked President Bush and Congress to fine Portland for its sewage overflows. The measure — House Joint Memorial 13 — passed the House in a fiercely partisan vote, over Democrats’ objections. According to documents obtained by Wyden, a Minnis aide faxed a copy of the draft resolution to the EPA on March 29, 2001.
Because the measure was never approved by the state Senate, it had no more legal significance than a used tissue. Legally speaking, “it had no impact,” says lobbyist John DiLorenzo, who conducted research for backers of the resolution. “It was never adopted.”
This distinction appears to have been lost on staff at the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice. Even though it failed in the state Senate, Ciannat Howett, a senior enforcement attorney at Regional 10, sent an e-mail to her colleagues on March 26, 2001, that said the resolution “provides a window of strong support by the Oregon Legislature for EPA action against Portland for its CSO violations.”
Howett’s e-mail also said, “We are sending out a (warning letter to Portland) tomorrow, and we plan to have a (prosecution) referral to DOJ within the next month.”
Howett now is with an environmental group in Atlanta. Contacted by the Portland Tribune, Howett said she did not feel politically pressured. But Adams said the fax and e-mail show the EPA enforcement action started with Minnis’ “effort to curry favor with rural Republicans.”
Minnis spokesman Chuck Deister responded, “That’s very desperate of the commissioner to try and pin the city’s environmental problems on the speaker of the House. It’s unfortunate he’s not more responsible.”
EPA said to feel the pressure
Another suggestion of politics reportedly surfaced in a September 2002 meeting between EPA regional administrator John Iani, Mayor Vera Katz, city Commissioner Dan Saltzman, Saltzman aide Brendan Finn and BES head Dean Marriott.
Katz said through an intermediary that she was fuzzy on the details of the conversation. But the three other city officials present have an identical account: They say Katz asked Iani why the EPA was coming after Portland, and he responded that the agency was under a lot of pressure by rural lawmakers who felt the agency was giving Portland a pass.
“That’s not accurate,” says Iani, now a lawyer in private practice.
Iani’s version is that when Katz complained of unfair enforcement, he responded that he hears such complaints all the time — including from Eastern Oregon farm interests who think Portland is getting a free pass.
“That was only an example,” he says. “It certainly had nothing to do with why that enforcement action was taken.”
Later, when they obtained the internal EPA e-mails, “it pretty much corroborated what Iani had indicated and what we had suspected all along,” Saltzman said. “It was a largely politically motivated investigation of a city that’s way out in front of a lot of other cities in addressing CSO issues. We’re way ahead of the game.”
Steps taken forward, back
DiLorenzo agreed the complaints from rural lawmakers did help push the EPA, but he thinks the agency felt the most pressure from comments made by Eastern Oregon Republican Congressman Greg Walden, on the floor of the House of Representatives in July 2002, echoing the Minnis resolution.
In any case, DiLorenzo thinks the federal attention was justified, saying Portland’s status as a “powerful city” had shielded it from consequences in the past.
The newly released documents provide new insight into the EPA’s environmental concerns. For instance, the agency observes that not only were spills continuing, but the city’s agreement with the state allows overflows even after the Big Pipe is completed.
But the documents also show why city officials feel they’re caught in a Kafkaesque Catch-22. Portland’s efforts to deal with the problem, rather than getting kudos, have met with punishment or threatened enforcement in at least three instances:
• For years, to build the Big Pipe mandated by DEQ, the city shifted money away from maintenance. Lack of maintenance caused many of the clean-water violations that led DEQ to propose fining the city almost $500,000 last month.
• To cut back on the flows into the Willamette pursuant to its agreement with the state, the city built 5,000 sumps to divert storm-water runoff at a cost of $28 million. The EPA now is citing the sumps in its pending enforcement action, saying they were installed without the proper permits and some may affect underground drinking-water reserves.
• Finally, also as part of the effort to halt flows to the Willamette, the city has been shipping sewage to its Columbia Boulevard facility for treatment before releasing it into the Columbia River. But now to deal with a small percentage of flow that does not get fully treated during storms, the federal government is demanding that the city expand its treatment plant there at an estimated cost of $50 million — but which city officials say actually may cost much more.
Trip exceeeded expectations
Portland’s full-court press seems to be having an impact, however. Adams and Commissioner Randy Leonard traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to meet with the Oregon delegation, to present their evidence of partisan politics, and to plead for economic mercy. With the highest sewer rates in the country, “our businesses can’t afford it,” Leonard said. “Our homeowners can’t afford it.”
But he said officials at the EPA were “beyond conciliatory,” and said they would consider extending the deadline for Portland to finish its sewer fix from 2011 to 2020.
“Our side was flabbergasted by that,” he said. “Our side left feeling better than we came.”
If Portland’s five-year standoff is indeed coming to an end, it will come none too soon for Hallock, the DEQ director.
“This has just been a really bizarre situation,” she said. A former EPA official, Hallock tracks federal environmental enforcement as president of the Environmental Council of the States, an organization of states’ environmental agencies. She said she’s never seen anything like the Portland situation, calling it “unique.”
“Portland has spent a hell of a lot of money and they are on track and they’re in compliance. We’re on a path to get the (sewage-overflow) problem solved and the river cleaned up — and that just gets lost in this ridiculous debate.”
Posted by Sam Adams on December 11, 2005
(15) Comments | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Filed Under Environmental Services, Front Page, Livability & Environment
Comments by site visitors
It looks like the Feds are treating the COP just like the COP treats its residents. Time and time again Portland has forced residents to fix sewers that aren't broken and sidewalks that aren't a hazard. Portland's merely getting a taste of its own medicine.
BTW Mark, why should Portland get a pass on spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of sewage into the Willamette? I'm sure you'd have a conniption of you caught you're neighbor pouring used motor oil down a storm drain. You can't blame rural residents for desiring a level playing field.
But, don't bother answering... it's obvious you're solely convinced that everything Democrats do is good and everything Republicans do is bad.
Posted by: Chris McMullen | Dec 13, 2005 5:26:49 PM
The city has knowingly made choices over several decades to neglect the aged sewer system and use available resources on fun stuff instead.
Now among other problems there are miles of sewer lines crumbling under stream beds throghout the west side.
It's a massive backlog problem now on top of the increased pace of breaks and spills.
All of which have nothing to do with the big dig, the overflow problem, Minnis, Bush or the GOP.
The only way to fix this problem in our lifetime is to halt all unnessesary expenditures, including bike paths, and concentrate on fixing this and other core governmental functions.
If Metro wants to run a $220 million bond measure it should be for fixing
some of these sever problems region wide.
Posted by: Steve Schopp | Dec 13, 2005 11:20:23 PM
Steve,
Tell me more about the "fun stuff" on which you believe the City has wasted sewer fee funds. Obviously, I am very keen on cutting out any waste in the sewer system.
Remember, the City's sewer system is funded by sewers fees (not the general fund or gas tax revenues) and sewer fees can only be spent for sewer-related expenditures.
As a rule, sewer fees cannot be used for bike paths.
I look forward to your input.
Yours,
Sam
Posted by: Sam Adams | Dec 14, 2005 8:31:44 AM
There is great irony in the COP asking for an exception to cryptosporidium filtration mandates. It reminds me of the old instant coffee commercial...(paraphrasing here) "Jim never has a second cup of cryptosporidium at home."
Do you remember the hue and cry when the Bush Administration put a 90 day hold on Clinton's arsenic reduction plan, and all the lefties howled "Bush is trying to poison our drinking water!" No he wasn't, he was simply trying to give smaller water districts time to comply with the new law. To suggest otherwise is demogogic and mean.
So the City of Portland is trying to poison me with cryptosporidium, eh?
I do believe the Feds are giving as good as they got, and the JTTF certainly comes to mind.
Posted by: Shades of Gray H2O | Dec 14, 2005 3:09:44 PM
Sam,
I never suggested the city wasted "sewer fees" on the "fun stuff".
However, as you know very well the city has passed ample opportunities to spend other monies to expedite the correction of this and other severe problems. The city could have budgeted more money for this problem any time.
Of course Urban Renewal has been used all over the city for all sorts of fun stuff.
"Blight" has been thoroughly redefined as anything dreamed up.
The districts were shaped to accommodate the dreamed up fun stuff but not the true blight such as the crumbling sewer system.
Portland environmental services and office of sustainable development have spent all sorts of money on lesser important things.
Fixing the sewer system is directly associated with blight, sustainability, the environment and livability.
Yet, despite the current big dig, that task has clearly been treated as the step child problem by everyone who touts these community traits.
SoWa alone is budgeted to spend $288 million
in projects and another $160 million in debt service over the next 20 years.
All of which will be paid by property taxes.
Roughly $450 million and none of it will be used to fix collapsing sewers in the immediate area adjacent to SoWa.
5 acre city owned park land, Macadam Bay Club's sewer line serving that city owned moorage leaks regularly.
Among many others a Tryon Creek tributary had two sewer spills this past year.
Stevens Creek sewer line has had 9 breaks in 200 feet of length.
The line from OHSU that comes down the hill has broken recently resulting in a massive leak. There are temporary noisy pumps running there right now.
Many of these pipe are old brick pipes.
Don't you think the UR district could have been shaped to pick up some of these desperately needed repairs?
It may be possible take the Tram money and fix the OHSU sewer.
It may be inside the UR now.
Bottom line is the crumbling sewer system is an emergency.
The Tram is not. The Burnside couplet is not.
None of the pork, "fun stuff" is.
Posted by: Steve Schopp | Dec 14, 2005 7:17:53 PM
Further to Steve's comments:
Sam recently voted in favor of allocating $2.7 million per election cycle for subsidized political campaigns, or $2 million in utility acquisition costs. In the past, additional millions were spent on monuments like the SW Community Center, the Chinese Classical Garden, The Armory, PGE Park) and Swedish parking meters. How about the county's "Percent for Art" boondoggle or the many tax incentives offered to luxury housing development or county retirees (exempted from the I-Tax).
Let's pretend that sewer upgrades and road resurfacing are second only to public safety and health in the new hierarchy of municipal needs. Let's pretend that we can't afford to subsidize any more condos or mass transit infrastructure. How many miles of road could be resurfaced for the city's share of the Tram budget? How many miles of sewer pipe could be upgraded if we eliminated all non essential travel (air and vehicular), and sold off most of the city's fleet of automobiles? Dare I say "salary freeze" or "employee share" of health care cost escalation. Sacre bleu!
Posted by: W. Bruce Anderholt II | Dec 14, 2005 11:16:18 PM
I initially thought this was just a partisan attack, but hearing that the complaint started with farmers and their fines made me pause. A city body of water shouldn't carry more value than a rural body of water. And a citizen in the country shouldn't be fined on a per capita basis more than a citizen in the city. No doubt that part of this is driven by partisan sentiments, but the real issue for me is that people, no matter where they live, are polluting rivers. Rivers go between cities and farms. Rivers help feed us. The guiding principle for Portland as well as rural Oregon should be to just take water out of the river when you need it and don't put anything back in.
Posted by: Progressive in Hillsboro | Dec 15, 2005 10:44:19 AM
A further possible factor in the EPA's enthusiastic enforcement of environmental laws my be Portland Mayor Tom Potter's stiff arming of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its pursuit of terrorists. It is a major, permanent, blunder for a city mayor to engage in a power contest with a large and powerful federal agency. While no one could predict the exact form of retaliation by the federal government, no one should be surprised that retaliation is happening.
Don't expect to find any neatly connected dots between Potter's fit of pique and the EPA action. Despite its many mistakes, the federal government is fully capable of subtlety and indirection when it seeks revenge. Expect more in the future.
Posted by: Marvinlee | Dec 18, 2005 11:45:52 AM
STEVE: I never suggested the city wasted "sewer fees" on the "fun stuff". However, as you know very well the city has passed ample opportunities to spend other monies to expedite the correction of this and other severe problems. The city could have budgeted more money for this problem any time.
ME: The City has never spent General Fund money on sewers. It has spent sewer System Development Charges. It has spent very limited amounts of Tax Increment Funds (TIF) on sewers, if any.
STEVE: Portland environmental services and office of sustainable development have spent all sorts of money on lesser important things.
ME: You said in your earlier statement that you, “never suggested the city wasted "sewer fees" on the "fun stuff" but now you write that the Bureau of Environmental Services has “spent all kinds of money on lesser important things.”
Again, I am very keen on cutting out any waste in the sewer system. Tell me what you know…
STEVE: Yet, despite the current big dig, that [sewer maintenance backlog] task has clearly been treated as the step child problem by everyone who touts these community traits.
ME: I agree, that is why I publicly raised the issue of the sewer maintenance backlog.
STEVE: SoWa alone is budgeted to spend $288 million in projects and another $160 million in debt service over the next 20 years… none of it will be used to fix collapsing sewers in the immediate area adjacent to SoWa… Macadam Bay Club's sewer line serving that city owned moorage leaks regularly. Among many others a Tryon Creek tributary had two sewer spills this past year. Stevens Creek sewer line has had 9 breaks in 200 feet of length. The line from OHSU that comes down the hill has broken recently resulting in a massive leak. There are temporary noisy pumps running there right now.
Many of these pipe are old brick pipes.
ME: Do you know something I don’t: Our understanding is that state law does not allow me to spend TIF resources outside of the Urban Renewal Area.
STEVE: It may be possible take the Tram money and fix the OHSU sewer. It may be inside the UR now.
ME: It is not.
STEVE: Bottom line is the crumbling sewer system is an emergency.
ME: Again, I agree.
STEVE: The Tram is not. The Burnside couplet is not. None of the pork, "fun stuff" is.
ME: Of the $45.6 million estimated tram price tag, $7 million is slated to come from TIF resources. The rest of the tram is paid for by the local property owners and OHSU. The Burnside Couplet plan has $10 million in TIF resources, the remainder from local property owners and federal funds. I could seek support for using the $17 million TIF dollars on sewers in their respective districts but I believe TIF dollars should be used to help business success and job creation.
Posted by: Sam Adams | Dec 18, 2005 5:20:34 PM
"""""ME: Do you know something I don’t: Our understanding is that state law does not allow me to spend TIF resources outside of the Urban Renewal Area.""""
Yes, I know. So adjust the district to pick up some of the sewer fixes.
Just as you adjust the districts all the time to pick up fun stuff.
Just as you adjusted the UR district to pick up the Red Lion for PSU.
And only part of the SoWa end of the Tram is in an UR District.
The funding is mingled and TIF money is being spent on the whole tram length.
The fact that the city has never spent any other money (besides fees) on the sewers is precisely the problem.
If the sewers had ever been raised to the level of light rail or street cars money would have been magically present as needed.
TIF property tax money is going to the Airport Max and Interstate Max.
They're swell fun stuff. Right?
Sam"""""""""but I believe TIF dollars should be used to help business success and job creation""""""""""""""
Is that what the Holman Building deal was all about?
Editorial
Problems of Abundance
http://www.brainstormnw.com/ideas.html
Posted by: Steve Schopp | Dec 18, 2005 8:26:33 PM
I'm still curious on what this "fun stuff" Steve is referring to is? Seriously, what is it?
Also, the "big dig" was in Boston, not Portland. The "Big Pipe" projects (aka the Willamette River CSO Tunnel projects), are in Portland.
Posted by: screaminghouse | Dec 19, 2005 10:49:44 AM
Sam and ScreamingHouse: I found some more "fun stuff" on PortlandOnline.com
$450,000 Available From City's Green Investment Fund -December 19, 2005
CITY OF PORTLAND OFFICE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SEEKS APPLICANTS FOR GREEN INVESTMENT FUND PROJECTS
Even better (they just extended the pork barrel deadline!):
"$200,000 Grant opportunity available through the Community Vision Project"
The grants program is an invitation for community based organizations to submit proposals to engage their constituencies. The program will provide funding to support bringing people together with the ultimate goal of asking a series of questions regarding Portland’s future. Creativity is encouraged! Grant awards will range from $1,000--$15,000.
I'm wondering if the "Green Investment Fund" or the "Community Vision Project" might include preventing raw sewage from leaking into our neighborhoods? Here's my vision statement (free of charge): let's priortize the primary functions of City Government, and make sure they are properly funded before handing out "vision" grants.
All these nickel and dime pork barrel projects add up over time. I believe that maintaining our sewer pipes is AT LEAST as important as community visioning and green construction. Possibly even more important than the Chinese Classical Garden or making sure the windy city is 100% "Sustainable Energy" politically correct.
Posted by: W. Bruce Anderholt II | Dec 19, 2005 8:17:32 PM
December 22nd 10:00 a.m. Traffic alert: Crews have closed one WB lane of West Burnside Street, between NW 19th and NW 20th, for sewer repairs. A sewer backup caused a flood at NW Trinity Place. Crews were unsure how long it would take to complete repairs.
Can you kids say C-R-U-M-B-L-I-N-G infrastructure?
Posted by: Open your eyes | Dec 22, 2005 10:11:11 AM
Sam, I think you get the point that several are making: Why isn't TIF money used on sewer improvements of existing lines like the Burnside break that is inside an Urban Renewal area? State Statutes defining Urban Renewal includes "sewers" as possible "blight".Why are all the new sewers being built in North Macadam UR area with TIF money but TIF money shouldn't be used to repair existing sewers in an urban renewal area? I believe you are partially mistaken that the recent sewer break near I-5 near the west end of Ross Island Bridge is not in the NM urban renewal area. The 1000 ft. of new sewer line needed to replace the failed 100+ year old brick sewer line is partly in the NM UR boundary. Now compare this break with the Tram. The tram is over 2/3 outside the NM UR boundary, and 3/4 of the cost of the Tram is outside of the boundary(the west terminal at OHSU is far exceeding the cost of the east terminal). But TIF money is being used to build the Tram and its not entirely in an Urban Renewal area.Why can't Tram scenario be applied to the sewer situation. Besides, the sewer break line serves mostly OHSU with all their bio/feces,grey water, storm sewer water, etc. that goes right down to North Macadam proper. Plus, as noted, UR boundaries can be altered and added to by law. PDC and Council did such with the Red Lion Hotel site being added to NM UR. It is over one mile from the main body of NM; but it was added, even though it is hard to call the Red Lion on Lincoln St. a "blighted area" that generates over $1M in taxes for the city. The city did this under the "10% can be added to an UR area without Council approval". CTLH opposed the use of this State Statute because we thought it could be used in the future for unforeseen situations like: the pedestrian bridge over I-5, the Ross Island west end-Southwest Circulation Study proposals, future traffic solutions, or things just like this massive sewer break that will be distrupting our neighborhood for over two years. Sam, UR boundaries can be changed/added; and like the Tram, it seems TIF money can be manipulated (nice word for it) to fund things outside of UR boundaries. AS you know, several light rail lines, trolly lines outside of an UR area has been funded with TIF money. Which is illegal. And members of the PDC staff have admitted this, like with the North Portland line. To the point that only sewer money can be used for sewers, that argument is somewhat bogus. First, the Council makes the budget, it can be altered. Secondly, several times I have experienced working with the City where if a bureau wants to accomplish something, but the "funds" are not there, but staff likes the proposal, and "pressure" is properly applied, it is amazing how somewhere else in the city's budget capacity, the project can go forward. I think you know what I mean because you probably have been a part of this scenario. Back to the subject: our infrastructures are not in good shape, I've experienced sewer breaks and it isn't pretty. Basic services need to be addressed before the frills. I think some of the bloggers have pointed out the"frills", and you know what they are talking about, even the ones they don't list. Thanks, Sam.
Posted by: Lee | Dec 23, 2005 10:44:18 PM
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gotta love Karen Minnis. I'm not sure who's interests she has in mind other than the GOPs, but she could have at the very least sat down with Portland to understand what was being done before shooting off her little letter with the failed resolution.
I guess she can't figure out that if Portland and its citizens suffer, the economic engine of Oregon and more importantly the Portland Metro, her little town of Wood Village will certainly suffer too.
I guess this is just more material to present to her district's voters in 06.
Posted by: MarkDaMan | Dec 13, 2005 11:28:06 AM