A regional water fight 

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The Cincinnati Water Works and the Northern Kentucky Sanitation
District No. 1 are devoted, each in their own way, to the unglamorous
business of water quality. 

Though often unheralded, these are two of the most ably managed utilities
in the region. That's why it's doubly unfortunate to find them embroiled in
what could become a nasty fight over a proposed sanitation discharge line
into the Ohio River. This is a dispute that could and should be settled
before a long legal war breaks out. 

Here's the background: 

The sanitation district, which in the mid-1990s assumed control of most
municipal treatment operations in Northern Kentucky, wants to build a $75
million regional treatment plant to serve southern Campbell County. It has
purchased a site next to an existing treatment plant in Alexandria. 

The new plant is sorely needed. The small treatment operations in the
region, which discharge into both the Licking River and, through
Twelvemile Creek, into the Ohio River, are routinely overwhelmed during
heavy rains, and septic systems in the unsewered areas of southern
Campbell County routinely fail. It's so bad that state regulators in 1996
imposed a ban on new construction in that area -- one that builders are
chafing to develop. 

The proposed plant would provide primary and secondary treatment (this
has long been the standard for most such facilities in urban areas), plus
an additional stage using ultraviolet light designed to kill a particularly
dangerous parasite, cryptosporidium. (That parasite in 1993 killed about
50 people in Milwaukee and sickened more than 400,000 when it got into
the municipal water supply from a nearby wastewater plant.) 

Sanitation district officials say the Alexandria plant would initially
discharge about 1.4 million gallons of treated wastewater a day, and reach
4 million gallons a day by 2014. The district wants to pipe the wastes,
through a pipe sized to carry up to 30 million gallons a day, into the Ohio
River near its intersection with Twelvemile Creek (across the river, in rough
terms, from New Richmond, Ohio.) 

It's that location which is causing the conflict. 

The discharge pipe would be about 11.2 miles upstream of the intakes, all
on the Kentucky side of the river, used by Cincinnati and two Kentucky
drinking water plants. That, Cincinnati officials say, is too close for
comfort. Any such wastewater discharge of that volume and with such
potential to increase, they argue, should either be below the waterworks
intakes or at least 25 miles upstream. 

But sanitation officials say the science just doesn't support this
conclusion. They argue that the water it would be sending into the
river would be far cleaner than the wastes going into it now, that the
UV treatment will take care of cryptosporidium, that the Ohio River's flow
is go vast and so slow that the contribution from the Alexandria plant will
be no worse than that from any of the hundreds of other wastewater treatment
plants upstream. 

Still, the waterworks, backed by a panel of technical experts, makes a 
convincing argument that a plant so large, and with the potential to 
expand so much, poses a significant potential threat to the water supply. 
And faced with a legitimate dispute over the science, our inclination is 
to opt for maximum safety. 

Which brings us to brass tacks. The sanitation district says it would cost 
between $42 million and $50 million to move the discharge line. That's a lot 
of money. Where's the potential for compromise? 

Cincinnati Water Works officials say their concerns would be eased significantly
if tertiary treatment -- essentially, a filtration system -- were added
to the Alexandria plant. The cost would depend upon the amount of extra
treatment involved, but sanitation officials say a filtration system would cost
about $15 million -- and add to operating expenses. 

• The Cincinnati Water Works, dubious about the effectiveness of the UV system
at the Alexandria plant because the light can't penetrate suspended solids
could install a UV system of its own to deal with the cryptosporidium threat. 

• With tertiary treatment, discharge from the Alexandria plant could be safely
pumped into the Licking River, rather than the Ohio River. This would bring its
own set of complications and extra costs. But it would put the discharge
downstream of the water intakes. 

If the sanitation district hangs tough with the plan on the table it will
likely wind up in court. And Cincinnati isn't the only interested party. The
anti-sprawl Sierra Club, for example, has already expressed concern about the
sanitation district's plans. If the sanitation district could work out a solution
acceptable to the major players, particularly Cincinnati Water Works, it would go
a long way toward heading off or winning any challenges by other interveners.
Hence, from our perspective, incorporating tertiary treatment into the Alexandria
plant seems a sound investment. Most of the cost could be recovered from
developers once the construction ban is lifted. The result would be cleaner water
in the Ohio River and greater protection for a drinking water supply that nearly
all of Hamilton County and part of Northern Kentucky.

Publication Date: 12-11-2003