Underground Infrastructure - June 2023 - 8

NEWSLINE LATEST INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS
Arkansas Valley Clean
Water Pipeline Project Starts
Construction After 60-Year Wait
A project promised by former President
John F. Kennedy to provide clean water to
communities in Colorado's Lower Arkansas
Valley is now offi cially underway, despite a
need for millions of dollars in funding.
According to statistics gathered by the
Environmental Working Group, the Arkansas
Valley Conduit project, which is expected to
cost $600-$700 million, will supply clean
water to areas with some of the highest
amounts of radium-contaminated drinking
water in the country. Over a long period of
time, naturally occurring radium increases
health risks like cancer.
The 130-mile pipeline, which is presently
intended to extend from Pueblo to Lamar, was fi rst
announced by Kennedy in 1962 as a component
of the broader Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, a
system that carries water from the Western Slope
to supply Colorado Springs and other areas.
However, fi nancial issues delayed the project.
Employees of the water system noted that
while bigger cities along the Arkansas, including
La Junta, established reverse osmosis systems to
fi lter the water in the intervening decades, rural
inhabitants installed their own fi ltration systems
in their houses, bought bottled water, or just
utilized the water as is.
According to OutThere Colorado, which
originally reported the story, the project has
already secured around $151 million in federal
money, of which $60 million is from the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, according to the
authorities. Long said the project needs an
additional $500 million in government funding.
Despite the need for funding, Hickenlooper
gave an optimistic fi ve-year time frame.
However, concerns among residents regarding
the infrastructure needed to carry the water
into the systems of the largely small rural water
systems still persist.
DOJ Probe Finds Alabama
Ignored Sewer Issues in
Impoverished Communities
The U.S. Department of Justice said its
environmental justice probe found Alabama
engaged in a pattern of inaction and neglect
regarding the risks of raw sewage for residents in
an impoverished Alabama county and announced
a settlement agreement with the state.
8 JUNE 2023 | UndergroundInfrastructure.com
The federal departments of Justice and
Health and Human Services announced the
results of the environmental justice probe and a
settlement agreement with state health offi cials
to address longstanding wastewater sanitation
problems in Lowndes County, a high-poverty
county between Selma and Montgomery.
The agreement is the result of the
department's fi rst environmental justice
investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. Assistant Attorney General Kristen
Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division said it will not be the last, because
the " fi ght for environmental justice is an
urgent one " and the eff ects of climate crisis
have exacerbated the health risks faced by
marginalized communities.
" For generations, Black rural residents of
Lowndes County have lacked access to basic
sanitation services. And as a result, these
residents have been exposed to raw sewage
in their neighborhoods, their yards, their
playgrounds, schools and even inside their own
homes, " Clarke said.
The Department of Justice did not accuse
the state of violating federal civil rights law, but it
said it found two areas of concern: The potential
use of fi nes to punish people with inadequate
home systems and what it called inadequate
action to assess and address the potential health
risks from raw sewage.
The Alabama Department of Public Health
agreed to a number of changes, including
the creation of a comprehensive plan for
the region, and a moratorium on fi nes. The
federal department agreed to suspend their
investigation as long as the state complies with
the settlement terms.
Pittsburgh Water Rates
Could Increase Nearly 60%
over Next 3 Years
The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority
(PWSA) has asked Pennsylvania's Public Utilities
Commission for a staged rate increase of nearly
60% by 2026, but that watchdog agency has
been known to approve smaller rate increases
than requested.
Under PWSA's proposal, a typical monthly
residential payment would increase by about
20% (from $86.43 to $103.41) in 2024, roughly
20% to $123.55 in 2025, and by 18% in 2026 to
$146.12. Finding out what the real rate rise will
be will probably take more than a year.
Such fi les are normally suspended by the
Pennsylvania PUC, which opens an inquiry and
gathers input from customers and others before
deciding and sometimes approving rates lower
than requested, according to the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette.
The most recent rate increase for PWSA was
33% less than what the fi rm had fi rst planned
and took eff ect in January 2022 with a further
rise in 2023. The PWSA in 2022 implemented a
new stormwater tax that is calculated depending
on the area of paved surfaces on a property.
In the current request, PWSA also suggested
giving homeowners who have rain barrels a $40
one-time credit.
Federally Appointed
Water Manager to Take Over
Jackson's Sewer System
The federal appointee now managing the water
system in Mississippi's capital city appears set to
take over the city's sewer system, too.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate
said at a May hearing that he planned to place
Jackson's sewer system under the authority of
Ted Henifi n, who was appointed in November
to address the city's water troubles. The water
system partially failed in August, and for days
people had to wait in line for water to drink,
bathe, cook and fl ush toilets.
The sewer system has also been beset
by problems for years. The city agreed to
enter a consent decree in 2012 with the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to prevent the
overfl ow of raw sewage and bring the city into
compliance with the Clean Water Act. Reports
required by the consent decree showed that 4.7
billion gallons of untreated or partially treated
wastewater were dumped into the Pearl River
between March 2020 and February 2022.
" Every day that goes by, we run the risk of
escalating our problem, " Wingate said at the
hearing.
The federal judge ordered attorneys to write
an order that would combine the city's sewer
consent decree with its federal order that
resulted in Henifi n's appointment, WLBT-TV
reported.
Henifi n said if he were to manage the sewer
system, he would contract out most of the repair
work, just as he does with the water system.
" I don't have time to train staff , buy
equipment, " Henifi n said. " This is the best we can
do to make this happen fast. "
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Underground Infrastructure - June 2023

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