PEDA Fighting New EPA Requirements
 The Pittsfield Economic Development Agency is preparing to fight new requirements the federal EPA seeks to impose on the property's stormwater runoff. |
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a draft permit that calls for significant more water monitoring and efforts to improve the stormwater quality, which officials say could both hamper development of the property and cost the organization more money.
"They are substantially higher quality requirements now and they could cost the city and taxpayers thousands or millions of dollars and potentially stymie economic development growth at the park," said Pittsfield Economic Development Agency Executive Director Corydon Thurston.
"I have a real challenge with this requirement in that, the standards are so much greater than EPA had previously required the property to be remediated to. We've been meeting those standards since the remediation efforts took place and the property was transferred to PEDA. Now it is our hands and they are changing the rules in the middle of the game."
General Electric had polluted the park and later cleaned the land up to standards first established in a 1992 permit and provided, through negotiations, money for the PEDA to redevelop the former manufacturing property. In 2005, the land reached those requirements and the EPA signed off on transferring the property from G.E. to PEDA to redevelop.
"They required GE to clean the property to X and now they want Y. We can't go back and clean the property, we don't have the funds to do it. We took it only after EPA had essentially declared it as meeting the standards," Thurston said.
On April 8, the EPA issued the new permit that will require the park to be in line with the federal and state Clean Water Acts. The new National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit supersedes the previous permits and not only has lower thresholds for pollution but also requires more testing.
That draft is now out for public comment and PEDA's attorneys and environmental team are preparing to fight the requirements. The organization has until June 6 to file all of its objections.
"The draft permit has been issued, which started the clock on our response," Thurston said. "We will object to most of the provisions."
Currently, some 90 acres of city land also drains through the park's runoff system, according to Thurston, and the water is tested monthly. Should the new permit be approved as is, the city may be required to disconnect from PEDA's stormwater system and reconnect elsewhere so the stormwater stays on the park. Another option is to reduce the area for development to increase the amount of natural absorption.
"We're looking at various scenarios and different solutions. We'll make our comments and, hopefully, we have a settlement that works for everybody," Thurston said.
The testing for PCBs, oil and grease, and suspended solids are currently done monthly costing PEDA some $15,000 a year. The new permit would quadruple the amount of testing, bumping those tests up to weekly and adding more chemicals and bacteria to be monitored.
"Now they want the tests weekly instead of monthly and they added 10 more tests that they want to see done, I believe, of a variety of other chemicals," Thurston said. "It is over four times the current cost just for the monitoring and test reporting requirements."
The monitoring, testing, and reporting could jump to more than $50,000 per year, the executive director said.
Tags: EPA, PEDA, stormwater, water runoff,
