A state environmental board has for the first time revoked the
permit of an operating sewage treatment plant, but will allow the
plant to continue discharging into Lake Norman for at least a year
while its owners seek a new permit.
The Environmental Management Commission faulted the N.C. Division
of Water Quality for failing to thoroughly assess the plant's impact
or consider alternatives before issuing the permit three years ago.
The plant serves an apartment complex, but sits near a subdivision
on N.C. 150 west of Mooresville.
The revocation will be on hold for a year or more while
Greensboro-based Hydraulics Ltd. applies for a new permit. The
company, which bought the plant in 2000 and wasn't accused of
wrongdoing in this week's ruling, also will have to analyze
alternatives to piping its treated wastewater into the lake.
The plant is allowed to release up to 100,000 gallons a day south
of the N.C. 150 bridge on the Iredell-Catawba County line. A boat
landing operates nearby, and homeowners swim off docks on the
shoreline.
South Carolina, in contrast, hasn't allowed new sewage discharges
into lakes since 1991.
"We will look at every alternative out there," said Hydraulics
President Neil Phillips. "We are required to do that, and we will do
that."
Catawba Riverkeeper Donna Lisenby, who, along with 11 lake
residents, challenged the permit, said the ruling raises the bar for
new discharge permits. "It just got a whole lot more difficult to get
a (new) permit to discharge wastewater into the Catawba River," she
said. "We believe pipe discharges into the river and its tributaries
are a thing of the past."
Thirty-four private, municipal and industrial treatment plants
already have permits to discharge up to 3.7 million gallons a day into
Lake Norman and its tributaries, Lisenby said.
If the state demands more extensive water-quality analyses, Lisenby
predicts, owners of new plants may find it cheaper not to discharge
wastewater into rivers, streams or lakes. Options include connecting
to municipal systems or applying wastes to land, an expensive
alternative on Lake Norman because of high land costs.
The N.C. Division of Water Quality won't appeal the ruling, said
spokesman Don Reuter.
"We feel the division permit-review staff does a good with a heavy
workload," Reuter said. "But we recognize mistakes were made."
He said the division expects no major changes in its permitting
procedures but said the EMC's ruling will serve as a "learning
situation."
The EMC is the state's rulemaking board for air, water and
groundwater. Its discharge-permit committee made the ruling.
State officials didn't analyze the flow of water at the discharge
point before issuing the plant's permit, assuming the Catawba River's
flow through the lake would dilute its wastes, said the ruling.
But Charlotte attorney Richard Gaskins, who represented Lisenby and
the lake homeowners for free, showed that such dilution doesn't always
occur. Duke Power's Marshall Steam Station, which draws up to 56
million gallons of cooling water from the lake each day, sometimes
stops the river's flow or even reverses it.
State regulators also made no mention of the "notorious" history of
Mid-South Water Systems, which sought the state permit before selling
the plant to Hydraulics, the ruling said. Mid-South had been cited for
166 violations at its Lake Norman facilities alone, it said.
