The Payment Question

AuthorMichael Curley
Pages11-25
11
Chapter 2—The
Payment Question
When u rban sewage was the number one source of water pollu-
tion, the payment question was easy. e state would issue each
sewer authority a national pollutant discharge elimination sys-
tem (NPDES) permit, which would specify exactly how much of each ty pe
of pollutant they were allowed to discharge into their receiving water body. If
the agency needed to install new equipment to meet these requirements, then
they would simply buy what they needed. From 1972 to 1987, they could get
a construction grant f rom EPA to pay for a majority of the cost. After 1987,
they could borrow money inexpensively from the CWSRF.
During the construction gra nt period, who paid t he local share of the
cost? e ratepayers did.
Since 1987, who repays the loan that the authority borrows from the
CWSRF? e ratepayers do.
Why? Well, every time someone went to a lavatory and ushed a toilet in
the authority’s service area, it was they who were the source of the sewage
that the authority was treating. So, the authority’s ratepayers were paying for
their own pollution.
Agricultural runo is pollution caused by farms. It comes from untreated
animal waste and it also comes from chemicals, mostly fertilizers, which are
added to the soil to make crops grow better. e farms and the fa rmers are
the source of this pollution. So, what is the dierence between the pollution
caused by the fa rmer and the pollution caused by the sewer authority’s rate-
payers? Qualitatively, there is not much dierence. Quantitatively, there is all
the dierence in the world. On the pollution side, we humans don’t produce
that much waste. Farms, especially large farms, produce prodigious amounts
of pollutants, which are also ca lled nutrients.
e same is true on the money side. e a nnual pay ment on a low cost
CWSRF loan to upgrade a treatment plant may cost many thousands of dol-
lars. But the authority probably has tens of thousands—if not hundreds of
thousands—of ratepayers. So, dividing up the annual payment and spread-
ing it over a huge base of ratepayers does not amount to much of an increase

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