Releases 

Picture Diary

On Thursday evening, 4/13/06, a few of us met with Vince Mosca of Hey and Associates to hike the wetland area and begin thinking about how they might be restored. Returning them to their pre-settlement condition is likely impossible and perhaps unacceptable to surrounding development. But returning the water to its floodplain could convert impoverished biological community to a richer ecosystem, stabilize the eroding soils, distribute increasing flows from the STP and reduce water level fluctuations. Click the flower for a dozen pictures telling the story of our outing. Besides the low quality, polluted and channelized Slocum Drainage Ditch, several berms and endless Reed Canary Grass evidenced human intervention. Other inconsistent water levels around the perimeter suggest the work of beavers or other impoundments, or new sources draining into existing ones. 

Semi '05

Wauconda's wastewater treatment plant is not designed to remove toxic chemicals that might be sent to the plant by any of scores of industries it serves. Instead of requiring a pretreatment program, their IEPA permit requires only a list of the industrial sources, and their NPDES and sludge permits only require gross measurement of the sludge volume, and expected fecal coliform bacteria. These semi-annual sludge tests do not reveal whether toxic chemicals have reached the wetlands, or whether the sludge is too contaminated for their chosen disposal method.

May '05

April '05

March '05

Thanks to the LOA (see below) we've received these reports. Our goal was to make the data easily available to the public.

Brief

The local Residents Group is determined to put an end to any STP discharge by the Wauconda STP into the Fiddle Creek wetlands. While we felt effort to negotiate an IGA achieved all that was legally likely, they felt betrayed in their effort, and attempted to realign their lawsuit against us and the villages. Here is the brief submitted in our defense.

IGA

Stipulation

LOA

Press Releases

Realizing that the appeals jeopardized their plans, the Village of Wauconda was willing to pursue an agreement with Lake Barrington to overcome the shortcomings of the flawed permit. Sierra Club was approached to offer guidance. Here are the resulting documents:

• IGA (Inter-Governmental Agreement). Wauconda must include improvements in IEPA permits, we drop our appeals.
• Stipulation. Gives all settling parties the authority to enforce the IGA.
• LOA (Letter of Agreement). Gives us access to data.
• Press Releases. One from us, one from them.

Sierra Club

Slocum Drainage District

Residents'

Given the problems with the permit discussed below, it is not surprising that it drew legal challenges from three groups with similar intent. The cases will be herd by the Illinois Pollution Control Board, which also has the authority and responsibility for writing the rules to enforce the CWA. The first flower link goes directly to the appeal, and the second one goes to the page on the IPCB website that tracks the progress on the case. If any of these cases are successful, the IPCB will instruct the IEPA to revise the permit.

IEPA NPDES Permit

IEPA Cover Letter

Wauconda Industry

On  August 23, 2004, the IEPA unexpectedly issued a revised permit for the Wauconda STP Expansion, giving Wauconda the green light to finish the design and begin construction.. It includes three phases of expansion, but expires November 30, 2005 so that an assessment of the impacts can be reflected in further revisions. Unfortunately, such an impact assessment is required by the CWA before the permit is granted. For Phase I, this permit allows:

• Increase in average flow to 1.9 MGD with a design maximum of 6.0 MGD.
• No disinfection exemption, and a Fecal Coliform limit of 400/L. This implies disinfection of the effluent, but might not be sufficient for human contact.
• Phosphorous (which harms fish and other aquatic animals by eutrophication) limits of 16 lb/day, or a monthly average of 1 mg/L.
• Continued unlimited release of Nitrogen (nitrates and nitrates) which also causes eutrophication. Nitrogen and Phosphorous are two of the primary components of fertilizer.
• Increased release of Ammonia loading from 29 to 40 lb/day through unimproved limits on concentration, and an increase in flow.
• Increased release of Total Suspended Solids (TSS), from 140 to 190 lb/day. That's 34 ton/year, and in addition to it's own mass, it promotes plant growth and fills wetlands and water bodies.
• Unimproved BOD5 concentration restrictions, which contribute to low Dissolved Oxygen (DO) levels in the effluent. Fish and other aquatic animals need DO to breathe.

Instead of requiring the applicant to prove no harm, although other STPs around IL subject to similar restrictions have proved harmful, the IEPA has added some novel "Special Conditions" to this permit:

• Requiring that the effluent not violate 35 Ill. Adm. Code 302. This is ironic, as this is the law that calls for anti-degradation and NPDES. It is the IEPA's job to make Wauconda prove that the proposed activity will not violate these laws. Instead of putting limits in the permit that the applicant has proven will be sufficient, IEPA has abandoned the precautionary principal and adopted a remedial approach: If the effluent causes a violation, Wauconda will be liable, even if it has not violated this permit's limits. While this might be an improvement, it reveals IEPA's tendency to write permits without confidence that the applicant has satisfied the burden of proof required by law. Unfortunately, there will be further damage done during the substantial delays and for monitoring, detection, analysis, revision, design, construction and implementation of the improvements that should have been required to assure no degradation occurs at the outset.
• An option to require an Influx and Infiltration control program in the future. Wauconda's sewers are old and leaky, and when they allow stormwater to enter, the capacity of the STP can be exceeded, and the effectiveness of it's processes reduced. Again, the precautionary principle, and the law, require that these measures be required to provide assurance, not implemented as a remedy for a violation.
• A requirement that Wauconda report their industrial users annually. Without a pre-treatment program, industrial users are likely to put chemicals down the drain that are harmful to the STP and are likely to be released into the environment. Wauconda has listed it's industries on p. 21 on their Village Demographics, and the three chemical facilities and one medical facility, among scores of other facilities in their mature manufacturing base, are worrisome. In addition are two superfund sites that collect leachate and  deliver it to the STP. Again, without pretreatment (which might be stipulated by a different permit) reporting is not precautionary, it's remedial. The permit also requires monitoring and biomonitoring for a host of toxic materials that might evidence a problem in the effluent, but that's insufficient to protect Fiddle Creek from degradation.
• A requirement to monitor and study the DO in Fiddle Creek before and after the expansion, to determine which pollutant levels must be reduced to achieve legal DO levels. Such a study by Wauconda is required before applying for a permit to prove the effluent will not decrease DO. While good, this special condition is remedial, not precautionary.

These special conditions go beyond most STP permits written by the IEPA over the last 30 years, and are an improvement. However, the IEPA should be embarrassed that rather than serving the public by enforcing the legal requirement that the applicant prove that they are or are not needed, they have burdened the public and themselves with potential damage to our waters and additional expenditure to review and revise the permit.

Hearing Responsiveness

Hearing Transcript

Hearing Transcript

 

 

 

 

Plug the Pipe

 On September 9, 2003, IEPA held a hearing on this permit. Hundreds of residents, officials and experts attended and many asked questions and gave testimony. This is the transcript of that hearing. Key sections include:

• p. 61  Mr. Huff (Lake Barrington), stating that Wauconda's STP has since the 1980's severely violated the anti-degradation requirements of the CWA, in effect since 1975, and that the draft permit would allow it to continue to do so. His testimony is damning in many other respects, including a clear indication that Wauconda is violating its present NPDES permit, and that wells in the area are threatened. He calls for limits on TSS, BOD5 and Ammonia; full removal of Phosphorus and Total Nitrogen (nitrates and nitrates); wetland restoration and monitoring for heavy metals likely from industry and superfund inputs, and Radium 226 from deep well water treatment.
• p. 97  Mr. Ettinger (counsel for ELPC, Prairie Rivers & Sierra Club), stating that it is the duty of the applicant (Wauconda) to prove their STP effluent will not cause harm, and the duty of the IEPA to require that Wauconda do so. He clarifies that the limits in the permit must be placed low enough to prevent degradation of the public waters, regardless of common practices or implications for Wauconda. He calls for alternatives consistent with the definition of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System that were lacking in the draft permit.
• The testimony of many others at the hearing are also noteworthy.

The residents in the Fiddle Creek region have formed a large, loose group, and posted and maintained an informative website. They have chosen the name Plug the Pipe, and that website has been the featured Link of the Week on the W&W website for over a year.

IEPA Notice

IEPA Web Permit Guide 

IEPA released a draft permit to allow Wauconda to expand their STP. It would have allowed:

• Increase in flow from 1.4 Million Gallons per Day (MGD) to 1.9 MDG for Phase I, and to 2.4MGD for Phase II, with a maximum of 7.9 MGD.
• Continued release of non-disinfected effluent, potentially containing human pathogens, into the Fiddle Creek wetlands. Disinfection should be required if human contact with the discharge waters is anticipated. Wauconda claims that use of chlorine within the plant to maintain its process have resulted in disinfection. The IEPA has presented misleading data about Fecal Coliform in waters upstream from the discharge likely caused by wildlife. Feces from wildlife do not contain human pathogens unless the wildlife contact human waste. References and comparisons to Fecal Coliform in Fiddle Creek from most local wildlife are irrelevant.
• Continued unlimited release of Phosphorous, which causes eutrophication (decrease in oxygen levels caused by accelerated algae growth) which harms fish and other aquatic animals.
• Continued release of Nitrogen compounds (nitrates and nitrates) which also cause eutrophication.
• Continued release of Ammonia, which also cause eutrophication, and depresses Dissolved Oxygen (DO) levels.
• Continued release of Total Suspended Solids (TSS) which promotes plant growth and fills wetlands and water bodies.
• No limits on Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5) causes low Dissolved Oxygen (DO) levels in the effluent and in the receiving waters. Fish and other aquatic animals need DO to breathe.

IEPA also distributed a supplemental "Fact" sheet bearing the Director's imprimatur that proved very misleading on fecal coliform contributions from the STP.