Leaders of two Northwest Arkansas wastewater systems with expired discharge permits hope to finally renew them now that an agreement has been reached between Arkansas and Oklahoma on water standards in the Illinois River.
The agreement doesn’t immediately change any requirements for existing wastewater treatment plants that want to keep operating as they are. It ends a period of uncertainty for Arkansas and the wastewater plants as to whether Oklahoma would agree to retain current limitations or its own water-quality standard for the river.
Environmental groups in Oklahoma opposed the agreement, arguing that it did not set strict enough limits for the wastewater plants and should have tightened water quality standards to levels recommended by a study committee.
“It’s going to be a lot tougher for new dischargers, of course,” said Tim Nyander, Fayetteville utilities director.
But Fayetteville won’t see a difference, he said.
“We’re doing a really good job at the West Side plant,” he said.
Four wastewater permits in Arkansas are under administrative holds placed on them by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality because of concerns about nutrients — algae-causing phosphorus — in the Illinois River. That means their permits are expired, but the wastewater treatment plants can continue to operate under the expired permits and old conditions.
Such permits, known as National Permit Discharge Elimination System permits, expire every five years.
The permits are on hold in Fayetteville (the west treatment plant), Siloam Springs, Bentonville (Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority) and Rogers.
Each wastewater treatment plant discharges into tributaries of the Illinois River, which Oklahoma considers to be polluted coming out of Arkansas.
Last week, Arkansas and Oklahoma leaders signed an agreement that stipulated that Oklahoma will continue to use its current standard for phosphorous concentrations in the river (0.037 milligrams per liter), instead of the lower standards (0.035 milligrams per liter) suggested by a study committee.
Arkansas and Oklahoma will lower the standard for “major” wastewater discharge permits from 1 milligram of phosphorus per liter to 0.5 milligram per liter for existing permits that are being modified and 0.2 milligrams per liter for new permits.
Permittees merely seeking permit renewals without substantive changes can continue to use the 1 milligram per liter standard in their discharges. “Major” dischargers are those designed to handle more than 1 million gallons of wastewater per day.
That means the utilities won’t have to change what they do right now, wastewater officials said.
“Probably now the permits that are on administrative hold will get renewed,” Nyander said.
Fayetteville has one plant that discharges into the Illinois River, and it regularly discharges at below 0.5 milligrams per liter, Nyander said.
The Department of Environmental Quality placed a hold on the permit until issues over phosphorus limits were resolved. The permit expired in 2010. The study that recommended the stricter phosphorous level in Oklahoma took two years to develop, and the states spent the past two years deciding whether to adopt it and other study committee recommendations.
In Siloam Springs, wastewater Superintendent Thomas Myers expects a permit renewal within a year’s time.
Back in 2009, the utility spent $24 million to meet the 1-milligram-per-liter standard that Myers believes is working pretty well.
He doesn’t need to amend the permit and doesn’t think the agreement will prompt the utility to need to change.
“This will not affect us at this time,” he said. “Maybe in the future.”
According to the Arkansas-Oklahoma agreement, however, the amount of phosphorus the utilities discharge into the water can’t increase under future renewals. So the utilities must find a way to maintain the same amount of phosphorus even as the populations they serve increase.
The utilities must also analyze ways of further reducing phosphorous concentrations, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality officials said in an email to this newspaper.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality did not make anyone available for an interview last week.
Officials in Rogers and at the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority could not be reached last week.
Ed Brocksmith, a founder of Save the Illinois River in Tahlequah, Okla., said after the agreement was reached that the limits should be stricter for permit renewals to make further progress in the river.
Brocksmith said at the time that the agreement “proposes absolutely no provisions that will result in substantial water quality improvements.”
His group has argued for robust studies to determine permit limits that would help clean up the water, called total maximum daily load studies, but those have not been done.
Earlier this year, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality removed some segments of the Illinois River and its tributaries from a list of impaired water bodies that need such a study. It moved them to a list of impaired water bodies that did not need a study because regulatory action was already taking place to remedy them.
Neither list included Sager Creek or Osage Creek, which were once listed as impaired, nor divulge why they were not on the list. Save the Illinois River has challenged these de-listings and requested information justifying the decisions.
Siloam Springs discharges into Sager Creek, and Rogers and the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority discharge into Osage Creek.
A new treatment process has reduced Rogers’ phosphorus to less than 0.1 milligrams per liter, the utility told the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
last year.
Monthly discharge reports from the other utilities show varying levels of phosphorus in their wastewater.
The newspaper reviewed the past three months of reports, August through October, for each of the other three utilities. The utilities report test results on the last day of each month, which include an average for that week and an average for the whole month.
Siloam Springs’ phosphorous concentration was 1.38 milligrams per liter for the week of Aug. 31 and averaged 0.81 milligrams per liter for the month. On September 30, those figures were 1.46 milligrams per liter and 1 milligram per liter. The utility has not reported phosphorous concentrations for October.
The Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority, which is subject to a stricter-than-average phosphorous limit of 0.1 milligrams per liter in its discharge, reported from two discharge points.
The August weekly averages were 0.06 and 0.1 milligrams per liter, and the monthly averages were 0.04 and 0.09 milligrams per liter. In September, the weekly averages were 0.08 and 0.11 milligrams per liter, and the monthly averages were 0.06 and 0.1 milligrams per liter.
The October weekly averages were 0.05 and 0.14 milligrams per liter and monthly averages were 0.04 and 0.12 milligrams per liter.
Fayetteville did not report precise discharge concentrations but discharged below 1 milligram per liter on all but one occasion, when it had an average of 1 milligram per liter as the weekly average at the end of September. October averages were below 0.1 milligrams per liter.
According to the Arkansas-Oklahoma agreement, however, the amount of phosphorus the utilities discharge into the water can’t increase under future renewals. So the utilities must find a way to maintain the same amount of phosphorus even as the populations they serve increase.