For more information on IKE's efforts to reduce sewage in our streams

With the support of Sierra Club, Save the Dunes Council, Hoosier Environmental Council and the Izaak Walton League, IKE coordinated a citizen’s petition for rulemaking. A rarely used provision in state law allows 200 citizens who sign a petition to demand a hearing on a rulemaking proposal.

As of July 31, more than 200 signatures had been collected. The proposal would revise the sewer construction permitting rules to prohibit new connections that would increase the frequency or severity of combined sewer overflows. Despite the threat of billions of dollars in sewer improvements hanging over their heads, cities across the state authorize new sewage flows that make the problem worse. And IDEM approves it. IDEM only restricts overflows and bypasses that occur more than three days after it rains. Even then, IDEM is not consistently applying this grossly inadequate limit. The rulemaking would stop this practice.

The proposal will complement Indiana’s broader effort to reduce combined sewer overflows in the coming decade. In an effort to scare the Water Pollution Control Board and other policymakers, developers and others have characterized the proposal as a sewer ban. It isn’t! It simply says that developers need to make accommodations to ensure there is no net increase. They can do this through on-site storage, local offsets or other methods that achieve this performance standard. They also claim that the storage tanks require aeration despite the lack of aeration on similar storage tanks in place or planned for CSO communities in urban areas.

Most cities have allowed new developments to use capacity in sewers that was reserved for storm water flow. According to IKE’s advisors, combined sewer systems were designed in the first half of the century to have fewer than 12 overflows a year. Cities such as Fort Wayne and Indianapolis have set a goal that meets this original design but no more. Achieving this goal would cost more than $1 billion in Indy alone. Yet, it would only offset development that has occurred since the 1950s. This is hardly a strong public health goal for the 21st Century.

We expect a formal hearing on the rulemaking proposal by the Water Pollution Control Board in October.