[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 59 (Thursday, March 30, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E745-E746]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


               STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE ROMERO-BARCELO

                                 ______


                     HON. CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO

                             of puerto rico

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 30, 1995
  Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO. Mr. Speaker, reducing costly and unnecessary 
regulatory burdens has become a leading theme in the 104th Congress. 
Today, I am introducing legislation that promotes this goal. The 
Environmental Protection Agency has demanded that Puerto Rico institute 
costly secondary treatment at one of the island's wastewater treatment 
facilities despite any showing that it will improve the environment and 
without considering whether less costly alternatives would be equally 
or even more effective. This legislation, first, provides for an 
independent study of the relative costs, benefits, and feasibility of 
alternatives to secondary treatment for wastewater discharged through a 
deep ocean outfall from the Mayaguez wastewater treatment plant, and 
second, permits Puerto Rico to apply for, and EPA to consider, a waiver 
of secondary treatment requirements under the Clean Water Act if such a 
waiver is appropriate.
   Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a reasonable, cost-effective 
solution to what has become an interminable, intractable series of 
negotiations and court battles between Puerto Rico and the EPA over 
abstruse points of administrative law--at considerable expense to the 
American taxpayers. Section 301(h) of the Clean Water Act provides that 
EPA may waive secondary treatment standards for publicly owned 
treatment works [POTW's] that meet certain effluent standards. But the 
EPA contends it is time-barred from considering a waiver application 
for the Mayaguez POTW.
  [[Page E746]] Under the 1977 Clean Water Act Amendments, coastal 
communities--mainland and island--were permitted a time-limited 
opportunity to apply for exemptions from secondary treatment 
requirements if they met very stringent environmental standards for 
ocean discharges. Overall, EPA has granted 39 waivers. All applications 
were required to be submitted to EPA by December 29, 1982. The Puerto 
Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority [PRASA] submitted 12 waiver 
applications, and 6 have been tentatively approved. Only two 
applications--including one for the Mayaguez treatment facility--were 
denied, in December 1993. The EPA insists that the Mayaguez POTW 
construct secondary treatment facilities costing approximately $100 
million, despite significant evidence that other, far less-costly 
alternatives would be equally, or even more, effective in protecting 
the surrounding marine environment.
   Puerto Rico has proposed construction of a deep water outfall 
situated more than 300 feet deep and several miles from shore as an 
alternative to secondary treatment at the Mayaguez POTW. This would 
save the Commonwealth about $65 million. Substantial scientific 
evidence gathered from similarly situated POTW's with deep ocean 
outfalls indicates that such methods can achieve the equivalent of 
secondary treatment standards or better.
  The evidence was so compelling in the instance of San Diego, CA, that 
Congress last year enacted, and the President signed into law, 
legislation permitting EPA to consider a section 301(h) waiver 
application proposing a similar alternative to secondary treatment--
notwithstanding that such a waiver otherwise would be time-barred under 
the Clean Water Act. Puerto Rico deserves the same opportunity to 
implement cost-effective alternatives and seek a section 301(h) waiver.
  This is not simply an issue of fairness or cost-effectiveness; it is 
also an issue of science.
 The Clean Water Act was intended to improve the marine environment. 
There is significant scientific evidence that suggesting that a new 
deep ocean outfall at the Mayaguez POTW would best protect the 
surrounding marine environment. Furthermore, this legislation would 
require a scientific study of the issue by the U.S. Geological Survey, 
an impartial agency with no interest in the outcome. Puerto Rico is 
willing to share 50 percent of the financing necessary for the study.

  There are numerous precedents of such limited exceptions to the 
requirements of section 301. The municipal wastewater treatment 
construction grant amendments of 1981 included a provision that 
extended the date under which section 301(h) waivers could be requested 
and specifically permitted the city of Avalon, CA, to receive such a 
waiver. The Water Quality Act of 1987 included a specific exception for 
the Irvine Ranch Water District that permitted it also to file for a 
waiver after the deadline.
  The 1981 provision specifically reexamined section 301(h) and 
concluded: ``failure to broaden eligibility * * * risks requiring 
treatment for treatment's sake, involving the expenditure of funds 
which could be better used to achieve additional water quality benefits 
elsewhere.'' This provision does not grant variances. It simply allows 
variances to be sought with the burden on the applicant to make its 
case on environmental grounds.\1\ Such logic applies fully to this 
legislation.
     \1\H. Rep. No. 97-270, 97th Cong. 1st Sess. at p. 17.
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  I urge our colleagues on the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee and on the Resources Committee to consider this bill and its 
common sense approach to the regulatory burden confronting Puerto Rico. 
I understand that the EPA is receptive to this change in the law, which 
can only improve the marine environment off the west coast of Puerto 
Rico, and which will apply these regulatory requirements with cost 
effectiveness and flexibility, rather than rigidly and without regard 
to their consequences.


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