Village Prepares For Tougher EPA Water Standards

With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pressuring states such as Illinois to adopt tougher, more specific wastewater nutrient standards, the Village of Libertyville is doing its best to prepare for when its five-year permit comes up for renewal.

The village's federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit is expected to expire within the next 12 months, according to Public Works Director John Heinz.

"Our federal permit is coming up for renewal, and as we've seen recently in Mundelein, the U.S. EPA is passing its standards on down to the state," Heinz said during a recent Water and Sewer Committee meeting. "It looks like the Illinois EPA is going to have to knuckle down, too."

Heinz has advised staff to prepare a wastewater quality standard plan, to limit the amount of phosphorous and total nitrogen that can be discharged from local wastewater treatment plants.

The U.S. EPA has become tougher on its guidelines for wastewater, and anyone who discharges water into rivers, lakes or elsewhere. On Jan. 21, 2011, the federal government sent a letter to the Illinois EPA stating that Illinois had failed to address, in its permit renewals, whether existing water dischargers were causing violations to occur. This, according to the federal government, is a violation of Illinois regulation.

The Illinois EPA agreed to adopt nutrient water quality standards, first by 2008, and again by December 2010, according to an environmental consulting newsletter Heinz provided at the meeting. However, Illinois, and many other states, missed the deadline because it was hard creating technology that would conform to these new federal regulations.

Furthermore, the U.S. EPA also asked Illinois to outline what procedures they will use to address nutrient discharge in its communities' wastewater by April 15, 2011. The federal government have also stated they expect Illinois to have a specific procedure in place to ensure towns are reducing nutrient discharge by no later than July 1, 2011.

The federal government has not issued a specific requirement for what these wastewater nutrient levels should be.