Murray Blasts 'Budget Buster' Water Quality Regs
Just weeks into his new job as executive director of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, former Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray is calling out the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for mandating costly upgrades to a Millbury treatment plant that cleans and releases Worcester's sewage.
The regulations, Murray argued in an interview Tuesday, are "overly restrictive and burdensome" for businesses, homeowners and the city.
"There are businesses that will make decisions about not hiring because of these costs with no predictability," Murray said.
Murray said the EPA's approach to water quality stands in stark contrast to its approach to cleaning up brownfields, an approach he characterized as flexible and collaborative.
The former Worcester mayor said he plans to speak with the Massachusetts congressional delegation, the Massachusetts Mayors Association and other groups about burden of sewer plant upgrades.
What impact his protest will have is uncertain. It may be too late.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case filed by the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District shortly after stricter EPA requirements on phosphorous and nitrogen discharges to the Blackstone River were upheld in May by the U.S. 1st Circuit of Appeals.
The district disputed the scientific model used by the EPA to set its limits for the two chemicals, which can lead to a chemical process that depletes oxygen in the water.
The defeat of the district's appeal prompted the Worcester City Council to vote May 28 to raise water and sewer rates by 20 cents and 42 cents per 748 gallons, respectively.
Murray's political connections are deep, but what it might take to alter the EPA's course is a revision to the federal Clean Water Act of 1972, which set a course for cleaning up many of the nation's polluted waterways.
Murray said he doesn't necessarily agree that changing the situation would take an act of Congress.
"It's about approaches to enforcement and what drives those," he said.
And it seems likely that the city's water and sewer costs will continue to rise, according to a letter Robert Moylan Jr., Worcester's public works commissioner, wrote to City Manager Michael O'Brien in March about the then upcoming rate increases.
"As was stated in previous rate submissions, ratepayers can expect continuous increases in water and sewer rates as long as the federal (EPA) continues to impose their uncontrolled and unfunded mandates on cities and towns," Moylan wrote.
Since 2004, the city has spent roughly $180 million since EPA-mandated improvements to the Millbury treatment plant, which serves the Upper Blackstone district.
Those improvements have meant increases of more than $13 million per year since, he wrote. And Moylan expects an additional $200 million in costs in the coming years because of the new regulations the court upheld in May.
The district also includes Auburn, the Cherry Valley Sewer District, Holden, Millbury, Rutland and West Boylston. Because it produces most of the sewage, Worcester pays the lion's share of the cost for the Millbury plant.
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