New rules may slam LWSC customers

LYNN – New federal pollution regulations on sewage-sludge incinerators could cost Lynn’s incinerator plant millions of dollars to comply, inevitably pushing the cost onto the rate payer, according to officials at the Lynn Water & Sewer Commission.In March 2011, the national Environmental Protection Agency issued new limits on emissions of harsh chemical byproducts from burning sewage, such as dioxins and mercury. It gave incinerators five years to comply.Lynn has two incinerators run by the city’s water and sewer commission that burn up to 22 million gallons of sewage daily from Saugus, Swampscott, Nahant and Lynn.Despite having bought a new $6 million incinerator in 2001 that Lynn wastewater officials say has some of the most advanced air pollution controls of any incinerator in the world, the commission is now looking into shutting it down and hauling its sewage off site to be processed.”I’m still paying debt on a 2001 incinerator, and now the regulations have changed,” said Dan O’Neill, the head of the Lynn Water & Sewer Commission.Another option is to install a costly modification to the current incinerators, said Bob Tina, the director of operations at the Lynn Wastewater Treatment Plant, which runs the incinerators.Either way, Tina estimates it could cost upward of $10 million to comply with the regulations.”It’s going to be expensive,” he said.But the new regulations don’t do enough to limit air pollution from incinerators like Lynn’s, according to Jonathan Wiener, an associate attorney for Earth Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental nonprofit that filed a lawsuit against the EPA in late July demanding more stringent pollution limits.”What they proposed will reduce (mercury) emitting from sewage-sludge incinerators by 2 percent,” Wiener said. “It’s nothing.”Wiener said that according to EPA’s own numbers, 75 percent of the nation’s roughly 200 sewage-sludge incinerators won’t have to add any new technology or equipment to comply with EPA’s regulations.Earth Justice staff attorney Jim Pew said that even a tiny dose of mercury spewing from Lynn’s plant can taint nearby water and the fish that swim in it.”One of the things about mercury is it doesn’t go away,” he said.Lynn resident Rob Lang filed a declaration last month for the lawsuit arguing Lynn’s incinerator affects his daily life.”I sometimes smell an unpleasant burning odor from my apartment or when I am out in the neighborhood. This smell reduces my enjoyment of the time I spend riding my bicycle, walking my dogs and gardening,” a draft of the declaration reads.In an interview with The Daily Item, Lang said he wouldn’t mind paying more in his rates to ensure pollution is limited from the incinerator.”It’s like the precautionary principle: It shouldn’t be proven that something is harmful before you regulate it,” he said. “Any amount of pollution is not good.”But a counter lawsuit filed by the trade association for incinerators is suing the EPA, claiming the regulations are too harsh and aiming to throw them out all together.Decisions for either lawsuit aren’t expected until next spring at the earliest, Wiener said.In the meantime, Lynn’s water and sewer commission has hired a consulting firm to investigate the least costly way to comply with the regulations.The commission will apply for low-interest state loans to pay for a percentage of the upgrades and keep an eye out for federal grants, but that won’t cover the entire cost, said David Travers, the commission’s treasurer.”The rate payers at the end of the day would have to foot the bill for us,” he said, though Travers said he couldn’t yet estimate by how much until the commission finishes its study about how to best comply with regulations.Travers said the commission has a mandate to keep rates as low as possible but that’s tough to do with the new regulation and all the impending lawsuits against the EPA.”We’ve got it on our radar screen,” he said. “You hope for the best but you’re thinking the worst.”