Source: Miami Herald, February 10, 2014
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
A federal judge in Miami will consider Monday whether to sign off on a legal settlement that would require county government to spend $1.6 billion over the next 15 years to fix its dilapidated sewer system.
Miami-Dade County has been negotiating the consent decree with federal and state agencies for the past year and a half, since the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Florida Department of Environmental Protection sued the county over violations to the federal Clean Water Act.
An environmental group, Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper, has challenged the proposed agreement before U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno, saying the court should not accept the decree because the county won’t be required to take into account the effects of climate change and sea-level rise in its sewer repairs. The court will have to oversee the decree’s implementation.
The feds and the county have said the decree is intended to clear specific pollution problems, not impose broader improvements related to climate change. The environmental activists say the issues go hand in hand.
Upgrading the entire deteriorated water-and-sewer system — and not just the violations identified in the federal lawsuit — would cost Miami-Dade about $12 billion.
Of particular concern to the activists are the three wastewater treatment plants in Goulds, North Miami and Virginia Key that need the bulk of the upgrades — more than $1 billion. Maps drawn up by experts on the group’s behalf show the plants could become islands, with surrounding streets flooded by rising seas, unless the county takes preventive measures.
Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department administrators say they plan to take sea-level rise into account in the design and engineering of the repairs, and in other system upgrades. But there would be nothing in the decree itself requiring them to do so, and the Waterkeeper group has said in court filings that it is skeptical the county would set aside enough money for the additional improvements.
Without measures such as surge walls around the treatment plants, the activists contend the county will waste taxpayer dollars on short-lived renovations that would only be damaged by the effects of climate change.
The county has already made some repairs and begun soliciting bids and ranking firms to start complying with the consent decree.
Last May, county commissioners authorized issuing $4.25 billion in bonds to pay for the fixes. In June, they approved the first of several expected user-fee hikes — rates went up 8 percent, with more increases to come — to pay for the bonds. For years, Miami-Dade had kept some of the lowest rates in the country.
Several commissioners have also said they want the county in general to consider rising seas in its policies. But to the Waterkeeper group, that is far from a guarantee that there will be action.
In legal motion urging Judge Moreno not to sign the agreement as written, the group noted Miami-Dade entered into two previous consent decrees with federal authorities in 1994 and 1995 over clean-water violations. The feds have praised the county for sticking to those settlements, but the activists argue enforcement was lax — or else a third decree wouldn’t be under consideration.