City Council members from Columbus last week traveled to Washington, D.C., to seek federal assistance on the city’s $2.5 billion, 40-year plan to update its sewer system to meet environmental mandates.
The triple-A rated city in January issued $440 million of revenue bonds that marked the first financing of the compliance plan. The sewer system improvements are based on consent decrees that the city signed with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2004. In meeting with federal legislators, City Council members said that the consent decrees amounted to an “unfunded mandate” for Columbus.
“We traveled to Washington to emphasize the importance of gaining federal support as the city of Columbus continues to work with the EPA to provide safe drinking water and clean waterways for our residents,” council president Michael C. Mentel said in a release. The group met with several U.S. representatives as well as staff from the offices of Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich.
City officials have warned that the plan could require tripling sewer rates. The Columbus sewer system provides services for more than one million people, serving the city as well as 23 suburbs.
Most municipalities with combined sewer systems are expected to develop long-term overflow control plans to comply with a 1994 federal Environmental Protection Agency order.
