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By BETH HOPP

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ON THE BANKS of the Rock River, just upstream from Rockford, sits a 50-year-old house. It's a well-constructed older home — almost a mansion in its day — but its plumbing system still empties raw sewage into the river. Environmental experts used to believe the key to curbing urban water pollution lay in correcting such situations, that most pollution could be traced to what they called "point sources" because pollution usually "had an address." With this in mind. Congress in 1972 decided it should end water pollution by decree and passed several amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act mandating that America's lakes, rivers and streams be "swimmable and fishable wherever possible" by 1983.

But as the 1983 deadline approaches, environmental control experts are discovering that it takes more to rid the nation of dirty water than merely putting stoppers on every toilet and drainage pipe that empties into a river or stream. Municipal sewage plants and industries are no longer the only causes of urban water pollution. In fact, pollution from both these sources has become less of a problem thanks to anti-pollution publicity campaigns and more stringent regulations enacted during the last decade. Researchers have been finding what Pogo always knew — the enemy is us. Our automobiles, our lifestyles, the way our cities are built and managed are just as harmful to water quality as industry used to be. And the harm is being done in a way that is difficult to pinpoint or deal with.

$4 million program

With the help of state funds and a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) is nearing completion of a $4 million program for a comprehensive statewide clean water plan begun in 1976. In order to comply with the federal mandate, close to 400 researchers and advisors have diagnosed Illinois' water pollution problems and suggested solutions. (For plans to control water pollution from agricultural sources, see the June Illinois Issues.) IEPA's clean water plan — covering runoff from urban areas and farmlands as well as recommendations for water standards and projected needs for industrial and municipal waste treatment — will be submitted to Gov. James R. Thompson in April 1979 and to the USEPA in May 1979. And the Illinois legislature, which has financed one-fourth of the planning program, may eventually be asked to appropriate more funds for the water pollution control measures recommended by the plan.

Of the $4 million total budget; $800,000 was delegated to the study of urban stormwater in eight designated cities: Bloomington-Normal, Champaign-Urbana, Decatur, Kankakee, Peoria, the Quad Cities, Rockford and Springfield. Independent studies in Chicago, East St. Louis and southeastern Illinois were begun before 1976 and are being funded separately. Tim Bachman, IEPA coordinator of the Urban Stormwater Task Force, says that about 200 persons throughout the state studied the effects of urban stormwater. (For details of task force structure, see box on p. 20.)

Urban stormwater research has centered around nonpoint sources of pollution, described by the IEPA as any

BETH HOPP
A reporter for the Rockford Morning Star, she is a recent Journalism graduate from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and covered environmental issues for the Daily Illini.

October 1978/Illinois Issues/17


source "which does not have a name, address or telephone number." Nonpoint pollution is "inconspicuous, diffuse and nondiscrete." The worst — but not the only — pollutants from Illinois cities are sediments and heavy metals.

Urban stormwater

"Virtually every contaminant in the soil or air can find its way into the water," says Mike Bender of the Illinois State Water Survey in Champaign. "The trash in our streets ends up in our streams." Rainwater flowing across urban areas picks up debris and becomes an exotic brew of byproducts and discards from city living. According to an IEPA handbook, urban stormwater may include: "concentrations of chemicals and fertilizers that have accumulated on the earth's surface during dry weather; leaves, twigs and other organic matter; grease and spilled gasoline from roads, parking lots and gas stations; animal droppings — and during winter thaws, salt used to melt ice on streets and sidewalks." The extent of urban nonpoint pollution can be blamed on the concentration of humans living in the same area and on the fact that cities contain "large areas of impervious surfaces which increase runoff water and do not allow contaminants to be absorbed into the soil where they can be filtered," the handbook continues.

Runoff water finds its way to rivers and streams, carrying chemicals which may make water unfit for swimming and decomposing organic matter which depletes the water's oxygen supply — cutting down on the fish population. Sediment — often contaminated with heavy metals — makes streams and lakes less attractive and less viable for aquatic life.

Bender says the industries of Peoria and Rockford may have contributed inadequately treated industrial effluent to their rivers in years past, but a community like Champaign-Urbana that has never had much industry also has polluted waters and must contend with nebulous nonpoint sources.

Since November 1976, Bender and the other state water survey researchers have been monitoring Champaign-Urbana's drainage system: man-made Boneyard Creek and the Saline branch of the Vermilion River into which the Boneyard empties. Bender says traces of lead, iron, copper and fecal bacteria have shown up in both bodies of water, and levels of the pollutants — though not "dangerously high" — do exceed current IEPA standards. Similar elements, plus ammonia, phosphorus and sometimes zinc and mercury, have been found in all the other test cities, where researchers have set up portable monitoring stations to sample water both during the normal stream flow and the flow following a rainstorm in order to assess the pollution problem.

Researchers are finding what Pogo always knew — the enemy is us. Cars, urban lifestyle, even a city's design are as harmful to water quality as industrial pollution

Violations for state water quality standards for copper, iron, lead and mercury can be expected 20 to 30 times a year in Champaign-Urbana, Bender says. Streams around Rock Island and the other Quad Cities will also carry too many heavy metal particles to the Mississippi 20 to 30 times a year. Researchers report copper, iron and lead problems in all eight test cities, with violations expected to occur anywhere from 20 to 30 times each year — usually following a heavy local rainfall.

High levels of phosphorus pollute Lake Decatur where the city's storm sewers discharge directly into the lake. Zinc and ammonia are problems in Rockford, where the Rock River and its tributaries receive the pollutants. Urban runoff from Bloomington-Normal and Springfield finds its way into the Sangamon River while Peoria and Kankakee runoff flows into the Illinois. Ultimately, it all ends up in the Mississippi River.

Traced pollutants

Where do the pollutants come from? Researchers took vacuumed samples from city streets in order to trace pollutants to their sources. The car, long-time villain in the eyes of environmentalists, may be responsible for iron and lead traces in streams around the state. A 1975 report by the University of Illinois' Institute for Environmental Studies explained that exhaust from leaded gasoline is washed off Champaign-Urbana street surfaces and into the Boneyard. Iron crumbles off rusted auto bodies in Rock Island and is carried into the city's storm sewer system. This is a likely cause for iron traces discharged into the Mississippi, Bender says. Copper may come from older buildings with copper rain gutters, according to Bender. Other pollutants associated with transportation are spilled oil and gasoline and the sand and salt used to melt ice on winter roads. In Kankakee, cinders are sometimes used instead of salt.

Ammonia has been traced to lawn fertilizers, decaying vegetation and animal waste. Washing your car in the driveway or spraying your backyard fruit trees may contribute small amounts of phosphorus and pesticides to local streams, researchers contend.

High levels of fecal bacteria often indicate sewage contamination because the coliform species cannot survive 24 hours "outside the gut of a warm-blooded animal," Bender says. These bacteria which are abundant inside the human intestine are not dangerous in themselves, but for years have been thought to indicate the presence of disease-carrying organisms.

For this reason, Illinois — and most other states — have water quality standards limiting the amount of fecal coliform bacteria considered safe. However, Bachman says that both the IEPA and the Illinois Department of Public Health have come to the conclusion that "fecal coliform is not a reliable indicator of pollution." In May 1977 the IEPA proposed that the standard be eliminated except for point sources upstream from public beaches or food processing plants. This proposal is now under consideration by the Pollution Control Board (PCB). According to a PCB spokesperson, it may be a year before the board makes a ruling (which could include amending the IEPA's proposal).

Controversy over the proposal is typical of the new questions being raised by researchers discovering what's in our water and what it will — or will not — do to us. Both the IEPA and the U.S. General Accounting Office believe that modern sewage treatment methods are adequate protection against disease-carrying bacteria. They feel that the practice of adding chlorine to discharges

18/October 1978/Illinois Issues


from sewage plants to make them conform to the fecal coliform standard is not necessary. The USEPA, on the other hand, would like to see the coliform standard maintained.

The only pollutant researchers haven't been able to trace is the mercury found in Champaign-Urbana waters. Bender says only Champaign-Urbana exhibits substantial quantities of the element, but so far "its source remains a mystery. Mercury is usually associated with industrial discharge or with atmospheric fallout, but there's little industry in the community and fallout couldn't account for any significant level."

Researchers say most violations of contaminant levels in Illinois streams just outside urban areas do not last long. After a storm, levels rise and fall quickly as the streams flush into larger tributaries or rivers. Investigating these wet weather episodes, researchers have determined what goes into the water, how much and when. But no one is quite sure what it means. "What is the significance," Bachman asks, "of 25 lead violations per year of two to four hours each in which the amount of lead found in the water is 10 to 20 times the present standard?" The answer, he says, is that we don't know.

In the first place, our present water standards, the best yardstick we have for measuring harmful concentrations of pollutants, are based on incomplete information about the effects of pollutants on human and aquatic life. Former PCB chairman David P. Currie, discussing this problem in a University of Chicago Law Review article in 1975, noted that the standards provide an essential margin of safety against both "known damage" and "unforeseen harm," but he emphasized that the margin is "soberingly subjective."

One problem is that present water standards do not always reflect the actual conditions under which pollution occurs. For instance, the standards are based primarily on the effects of dissolved concentrations of the pollutants in water over a long period of time. But according to Bachman, many pollutants carried in urban runoff during storm episodes are attached to sediments and solids suspended in the water. Lead, for instance, will sooner or later settle with the sediments that carry it to the bottom of some stream or lake. There is little research on how lead-bearing sediments will affect bottom-feeding fish or other aquatic life or whether the lead, which is a cumulative poison, can get into the food chain. "We don't know whether we are overstating or understating the problem," says Bachman. For this reason, he adds, there will not be a multitude of new rules and regulations coming out of the first phase of urban stormwater planning. "The technical base just isn't there to justify those things," he says. Instead, there will be a heavy emphasis on things that are already being done, and there will be monitoring of control measures to see if what is being done is effective. In a report written for the task force, he notes that the work of researchers and steering committees in Illinois may be of use nationwide in assessing urban stormwater runoff.

Management question

Another question is who will deal with these pollutants? At this point, planners say state and local governments will have the most control over water quality by legislating regulations and building or upgrading treatment facilities. County governments are especially important in establishing land use criteria.

IEPA official William Frerichs says planners currently "are looking at two types of management: regulatory measures concentrated at the local level and statewide coordination of monitoring." Previous to the urban stormwater study, there had been very little water monitoring in any of the test areas. But IEPA officials say permanent monitoring stations might be set up around the state after the clean water plan is enacted. Frerichs, a regional coordinator for the clean water study, says water standards still will be set by the IEPA so there won't be incentives for businesses to move to different parts of the state.

"There are different ways to reach the same goals — and particularly for nonpoint sources; there are many different ways to tackle pollution," Frerichs says, explaining that each community should determine the most practical way to combat its dirty water. One of the goals of the state clean water planners is to get rid of pollutants with the least possible social impact and economic burden. Observers note the USEPA has become more realistic in its approach: 100 per cent compliance with standards is now recognized as impossible. A major aspect of the clean water planning is the involvement of private citizens in the hopes that new regulations will be more readily accepted by the public.

Cheapest alternative

Solutions to Illinois' urban water pollution problem fall into three categories. Frerichs says, "The most expensive solutions are structural — building physical plants to treat stormwater with chemicals. Management practices, such as better maintenance of storm sewers and control of construction sites are less costly." He also explains that many cities need to clean out existing storm sewers or convert to a new system. Separate sewer systems bring plumbing sewage to wastewater treatment plants and discharge stormwater without cleaning it, while the newer, combined sewer systems carry both household water waste and stormwater to treatment plants.

"But the cheapest alternative by far is conservation," Frerichs continues. "If people cut down on their individual usage, there would be less polluted water to deal with. If they maintained their own cars and never threw trash down a storm sewer, urban stormwater would be less of a problem." Though conservation may be the cheapest way to clean up the water, it is not practical to patrol every pedestrian with a candy wrapper or to limit the amount of water each household can use. Improved city management practices become a more plausible solution, according to Frerichs and other planners.

A systematic approach to street sweeping would help most of the test cities. This could include purchasing vacuum-type cleaners which are more efficient than the brush sweepers now in use. Or it could be a change as simple as having street cleaning machines move more slowly.

State or local legislation is also under consideration by planners. An "on-site retention ordinance" would require subdivisions to build a pond near their centers so much of the area's pollutants could wash into the pool and settle at the bottom. The pond would be periodically drained and cleaned. Large parking lots also could hold rainwater in sunken sections around their perimeters, Frerichs says. Cook and Kane counties now enforce such ordinances. City governments

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Task force and its committees

• Urban stormwater task force: 35 members (two to five representatives from each of the eight steering committees and representatives from sanitary districts and regional planning commissions) distributed information and recruited members for local steering committees. As research got underway, the steering committees took over the job of assessing problems and solutions for their respective cities. When the committees have finished their work, the task force will look at the possibilities for a statewide urban runoff strategy.

• Local steering committees: 15 to 20 members of municipal and county governments, as well as local citizens composed the steering committees (one for each test city). Each committee evaluated proposed solutions to its city's stormwater problem and will submit a pollution control plan to theIEPA in October.

• Researchers: six technical experts from the Illinois State Water Survey monitored urban stormwater and diagnosed the pollution problems for the eight designated cities.

• Technical advisory committee: 28 scientists and engineers presented feedback from the steering committees on the feasibility of their chosen solutions.

• Policy advisory committee: 39 individuals from state agencies and interest groups are overseeing the planning process and offering suggestions. This includes reviewing final recommendations of the steering committees to see if any proposals should be applied to the state as a whole.

could also require erosion controls on sites to keep excess soil, sand and other building materials from being dumped in the street and washed down the storm sewers.

Most cities now have some ordinances that help keep water clean but none have all that they need. Bloomington-Normal, for example, has leash laws and manure control ordinances but does not require annual auto inspections. Rock Island has strong litter laws, but does not have an effective street sweeping procedure. Fertilizer and irrigation controls exist for the areas of Springfield near its lake, but the city has ignored leaf collecting for the past couple of years.

Costly solutions

Financing some of the management practices may be difficult for certain municipalities, Bachman says. "At present, there is no indication that federal or state money will be available for the implementation programs each city is designing," he said.

The money problem came to a head in May when CH2M Hill, a California consulting firm hired by the IEPA to calculate the costs of different control programs, turned in its first report. The report gave Champaign-Urbana the choice of three different approaches to stormwater control — achieving 100 per cent, 80 per cent or 50 per cent compliance with water standards. All of them cost too much. A big factor in the high cost was the purchase of land for basins to collect and treat stormwater before it is discharged into local urban streams. The plan for 100 per cent compliance with water standards (required by law though neither the steering committees nor the IEPA have to recommend it) would cost Champaign-Urbana $1.8 million per year — about 10 per cent of the two cities' combined budgets. This includes the cost of retention/detention basins and a street-sweeping program that would require, among other things, sweeping industrial and commercial areas every two days.

Back at the drawing borad, the firm completed a cheaper set of estimates for each city; these are now being considered by the steering committees. The new plans will improve water quality but will not necessarily produce 100 per cent compliance, and they are based on different combinations for street sweeping rather than percentage figures for compliance with water standards. There is little chance, however, that these new plans will be fully implemented. The price tags on possible street-sweeping programs for Champaign-Urbana tell the story. The two less expensive options would cost $338,000 and $226,000 a year. This includes the purchase of vacuum-type street cleaners. In the other cities the range is between $100,000 and $500,000 per year, Bachman says. He believes this is too much money to pay for benefits which have not yet been fully defined. The state and federal governments are not funding these programs, so we're backing off too, he explained.

How far are clean water planners backing off? "It appears that our stance in three main things is feasible," Bachman says. In lieu of additional funding, cities can keep their present street cleaning equipment, but the state would use water quality benefits as one of the criteria in designing street sweeping programs. Retention/detention ordinances and erosion control on construction sites are also feasible.

Other possibilities in a list of 15 or 20 include centers where used car oil can be recycled, use of unleaded gasoline and construction of cheap but effective storm sewers in new subdivisions. Bachman doesn't know if these measures will be mandatory. That is up to the IEPA to decide once the plans are in.

He emphasizes that clean water planning is a continuing process. A report on the USEPA's urban stormwater program is due in the 1980's. This may tell more about costs and benefits. As more data becomes available, measures that can't be justified now may prove to be necessary. Meaningful standards for stormwater must also be developed. And crucial to long-range plans for implementation of water pollution control measures is a revised set of water quality standards based on stream use. Recommendations for the new standards are being developed by the IEPA.

"The cost associated with cleaning up present urban runoff problems can't yet be justified," Bachman says, "but we can do something within existing budgets to keep them from getting worse."

That's a much more limited goal than "fishable and swimmable waters by 1983."

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