Action Alert -- Sewage Blending

RIVERS AT RISK
ACTION ALERT!!!!!!!


Dear New York River Conservation Colleague:

New York Rivers United, a leader in river conservation in New York State, needs your help. We need to alert you to an imminent threat to rivers, streams and public health. We ask for your help in mobilizing the river activists across the State to ACTION.

The Issue: Sewage Dumping
Last fall, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a "sewage blending" policy. This is not a Congressional action. Instead, it is a change in regulation. But this change could more accurately be called a "sewage dumping" policy. This change would allow sewage treatment plants to bypass an important treatment phase when it rains and mix partially treated waste with fully treated waste and dump that mixture into our rivers and streams. This policy poses a serious threat to human health and the environment. For more information on the policy including fact sheets, visit
http://www.americanrivers.org/sewagedumping.html


WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP SEWAGE DUMPING

1. Email or fax a letter to EPA Administrator urging him NOT to finalize EPA's sewage dumping policy. (See sample letter below.) Spread the word to your colleagues, volunteers, and members and ask them to send a letter to Administrator. Fax copies of your letters to your Senators and Congressmen. Or call your Congressional offices asking them to tell EPA to stop this policy. Please email us a copy of your letters. We will use them on our visits to Congressional staff in Washington and help educate them.

2. Contact your local reporters. Writing letters to the editor and contacting local media is a way to inform others of this issue. If you request we can provide sample materials. (bruce_carpenter@newyorkriversunited.org; (315 339-2097).

Citizens' Agenda for Rivers
New York Rivers United is a steering committee member in this effort. The effort to organize Stopping sewage dumping is a key plank in the Citizens' Agenda for Rivers. If you haven't yet endorsed the Citizens' Agenda, please sign-on at www.healthyrivers.org

We will be in touch with updates about this policy in the coming weeks. With your help, the river movement will be heard. Our health our rivers will continue to be protected Thank you.

Bruce Carpenter, Executive director
New York Rivers United
PO box 1460, Market St.
Rome NY 13442-1460


Sample letter to Leavitt
Administrator Leavitt
Environmental Protection Agency
101A
Ariel Rios Building
Mail Zone 101A
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20460
Email: leavitt.michael@epa.gov
Fax: 202-501-1450

Dear Administrator Leavitt,

Please protect human health and the environment by withdrawing the proposed sewage blending policy and take steps to ensure that wastewater treatment plants are adequately treating all sewage.

The proposed blending policy would allow wastewater treatment facilities to bypass biological treatment methods during periods of heavy rain and snowmelt and pour the partially treated water back into America’s rivers and streams. This policy will not solve the current problems caused by sewer overflows. Instead, it will just give treatment plants the permission to continue environmentally detrimental practices.

Blending treated and untreated water dilutes the pollution but fails to remove deadly disease producing pathogens from the water. Bypassing the biological treatment phase allows bacteria, viruses and parasites to slip back into our waterways and cause illnesses such as respiratory infections, hepatitis, and dysentery. The EPA has found that a discharge of inadequately treated sewage spreads disease in U.S. waterways. Experts estimate that there are 7.1 million mild-to-moderate cases and 560,000 moderate-to-severe cases of infectious waterborne disease in the United States annually.

Blending also poses a huge threat to the environment, particularly to the health of rivers and streams. Allowing inadequately treated sewage to flow into our nation’s waters would cause long-term environmental damage; kill fish, close beaches, and destroy shellfish beds.

I urge you to protect human health and the environment by withdrawing the proposed blending policy and take steps to ensure full treatment of wastewater at all times.

Thank you for your consideration.