[StBernard] Sewage may be coast's savior

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Mon Oct 16 20:55:34 EDT 2006


Sewage may be coast's savior
N.O., St. Bernard are pursuing project
Monday, October 16, 2006
By Matthew Brown West Bank bureau

Tens of millions of gallons of treated sewage from New Orleans and St.
Bernard Parish would be pumped into severely eroded coastal marshes to the
east of the city under a plan to revitalize 10,000 of acres of wetlands by
giving them a nutrient-rich jolt of wastewater.

The $40 million project would create the largest "wetlands treatment" system
of its kind in the world, according to New Orleans and St. Bernard officials
and state scientists familiar with the plan. It is being pursued by the New
Orleans Sewerage & Water Board in conjunction with St. Bernard.

The project, which is still being refined, calls for diverting sewage plant
discharge that now ends up in the Mississippi River and instead pumping it
into wetlands in the vicinity of Bayou Bienvenue. That area once was a dense
cypress forest that served as a buffer against Gulf of Mexico hurricanes.
But in recent decades, lethal doses of salt water intruded into the wetlands
and levees cut off nutrients from the Mississippi. The 30,000-acre area has
degenerated into scrub marsh broken up by large swaths of open water.

Backers of the plan compare piping in treated wastewater to delivering a
steady stream of liquid fertilizer. They say it would accelerate plant
growth and, eventually, reverse decades of erosion.

Despite the image of environmental disaster evoked by up to 100 million
gallons of treated sewage daily flowing into wetlands, water board officials
insist it would be safe for humans and wildlife. Sarah Mack, the S&WB
environmental scientist developing the project, said "there are no public
health hazards associated" with the proposed system.

"It's not raw sewage; it's treated, it's disinfected and it's checked for
toxins," said John Day, a Louisiana State University ecologist acting as an
adviser on the project for St. Bernard and the S&WB. "We could rebuild those
wetlands and enhance that natural system. . . . There were once thousands of
acres of cypress forest out there. Had those been in place during Hurricane
Katrina, the amount of flooding would have been much less."

Similar projects have been cropping up across south Louisiana in recent
years as municipalities try to reconcile increasing sewage-treatment costs
with the dire need to restore the coast's wetlands. Yet none of the other
wetlands treatment systems -- including facilities in Thibodaux and Breaux
Bridge and pending projects in Mandeville, Hammond and St. Charles Parish --
comes close to the size of the New Orleans-St. Bernard proposal.

Chris Piehler, a senior environmental scientist with the Department of
Environmental Quality, said his agency would require close monitoring of the
project, but added that the existing systems suggest it would work as
promoted.

"DEQ first issued a permit for this type of approach in 1991, for the city
of Thibodaux, and Breaux Bridge has been using this for over 50 years,"
Piehler said. "In none of these cases have we seen the activity detrimental
to a wetlands area."


Federal aid sought


St. Bernard and the S&WB are seeking the $40 million needed to build the
project through a federal program intended to offset impacts of offshore oil
and gas exploration, the Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP). Water
board Executive Director Marcia St. Martin said the cost of building the
system would not be passed to customers.

Most of the money likely would go toward construction of a distribution
system for the wastewater, including pumping stations to get it out of the
plant, Mack said. She added that a precise breakdown has not yet been
developed and that details of the project still are being worked out.

As the S&WB rebuilds sewer and water lines heavily damaged by Katrina,
environmental affairs chief Gordon Austin said, the wetlands project offers
"an opportunity to do the right thing." S&WB officials said the plan could
eventually save the financially strapped agency $2 million a year in
treatment costs and restore at least 10,000 acres of marsh.

The system would tap into the S&WB's East Bank Sewage Treatment Plant in the
Lower 9th Ward, and at least one treatment plant in St. Bernard. Wastewater
discharge, or effluent, containing high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus
would be piped into the marshes at multiple locations along the 40 Arpent
Canal.

"This is a viable resource that should be utilized. To put it in the river
is a miscarriage if the marsh could benefit," Austin said.

St. Bernard fisher George Barisich, president of the United Commercial
Fishermen's Association, said the project sounded promising -- as long as
there was no risk of contamination to seafood harvested from local
waterways. Just as important, he said, is for the S&WB and St. Bernard
officials to make sure that message gets to the public.

"Perception becomes reality," he said. "It's treated material, but once the
media get ahold of it, and once it's labeled, like the 'toxic soup' after
the storm, we'll have to spend millions of dollars to fix something that
shouldn't have started."


Backed by Sierra Club


Before the treated sewage is piped out to the marshes, Austin said, it would
go through the same two-stage treatment process as currently used: a
mechanical treatment to remove most solids, followed by a biological
treatment to kill off potentially harmful bacteria.

The flow of treated wastewater also would augment efforts to push back
saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico that reached Bayou Bienvenue via the
Mississippi River Gulf Outlet shipping channel. High salinity levels brought
on by the shipping channel are blamed for killing off almost 30,000 acres of
wetlands in the area over the past 40 years.

Scientists contend wetlands blunt the destructive power of major storms by
acting as a source of friction to decrease storm surge and absorb high
winds. That was seen during Katrina when levees fronting the Mississippi
River Gulf Outlet held fast along some sections that were behind wetlands.
Multiple breaches in the levee occurred along exposed sections.

LSU's Day predicted that if widespread tree planting accompanies the
wetlands treatment plan, stands of 30-foot-high cypress could be restored to
the area within a decade. "Relatively quickly, you can have a nice forest
there that assumes the role of reducing storm surge," he said.

The project has been embraced by the local chapter of the Sierra Club,
according to group spokesman Darryl Malek-Wiley, who called it "good for
everybody" because it saves money for the S&WB while restoring a vital
section of coast.

CIAP, the program eyed as a financing source for the project, is expected to
allocate $523 million over the next four years. That's versus more than $3.7
billion requested for 300 projects in Louisiana.

Despite the steep competition, the wetlands treatment plan has a "good
chance" of getting at least some of the $40 million, said DNR's Greg Grandy,
who is coordinating the selection process. At the request of DNR, organizers
of the wetlands treatment project have submitted slimmed-down alternatives
costing either $10 million or $20 million.

"It's really a great project that they put together," Grandy said. "It has
very good potential. Obviously, you get more acreage over time" from a
larger project.

Grandy said he was told $10 million would be enough to build a system that
would restore an estimated 2,300 acres, and the $20 million option could
restore an estimated 4,500 acres.

. . . . . . .

Matthew Brown can be reached at mbrown at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3784.







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