| $185 million to clean Tacoma’s clean water |
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thenewstribune.com
Tacoma Public Utilities is poised to spend at least $185 million on a water- treatment system that could raise rates as much as 19 percent to solve a nonexistent problem. The utility’s water supply comes from clean wells and mountain slopes. Cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that causes diarrhea, is almost never detected in the system, and it hasn’t been making anyone sick. The levels of chlorination byproducts are well below federal safety standards. The chances that Tacoma’s water will endanger anyone in the foreseeable future seem slim. But tell that to the Environmental Protection Agency. It has been enforcing tighter and tighter clean water standards over the years, and it has increasingly focused on cryptosporidium and some other potentially problematic phenomena – such as fecal coliform counts. Now the feds are more or less ordering Tacoma Public Utilities and the Tacoma City Council to eliminate any chance of cryptosporidium contamination. The status quo is not an option, and water utilities in other jurisdictions have battled the requirement in court and lost. The city now has two treatment choices: filtration, currently projected to cost between $185 million and $237 million, and ultraviolet radiation, projected to run between $87 million and $114 million. The UV option, though cheaper, has a major drawback: It doesn’t touch the chlorinated compounds, which are potential carcinogens in high enough concentrations. If the federal government further tightens standards on those molecules in future years, Tacoma could wind up having to build the filtration system anyway. Filtration does pull the compounds out, along with sediments that are a nuisance when they build up in water lines and plumbing. That advantage could soften the rate increase a bit. Filtered water is more marketable. A partnership of King County utilities known as the Cascade Water Alliance stands ready to buy large quantities of Tacoma’s water, but the water must be filtered before it is exported, according to TPU officials. The Public Utility Board is expected to opt for filtration when it meets today. The main thing TPU’s water customers would be getting for that $185 million-plus – which could cost households an extra $5 or $6 a month – is regulatory certainty. Given the EPA’s one-size-fits-all approach to regulating water utilities, it’s not an optional purchase. |
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