On September 23, 2016, Waterkeepers of the Great Lakes Region, including Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Swim Guide, signed onto comments for the “Public Notification for Combined Sewer Overflows in the Great Lakes."

1. September 23, 2016
VIA EMAIL TO: sawyers.andrew@epa.gov
Director Andrew D. Sawyers
Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Wastewater Management (4201M)
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460
Cc: VIA EMAIL TO: biddle.lisa@epa.gov
Lisa Biddle
Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Water (4203M)
Water Permits Division
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20460
Re: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2016-0378, Public Notification for Combined Sewer
Overflows in the Great Lakes; Public Listening Session; Request for Stakeholder
Input.
Dear Director Sawyers:
On behalf of the multiple undersigned Great Lakes Waterkeepers, we appreciate USEPA’s
efforts to engage the public early on in this rulemaking process to elicit input on public
notification of combined sewer overflows (“CSOs”). It is clear that public notification varies
greatly from State to State, and having more defined rules for public notification will help
Great Lakes Waterkeepers and EPA to achieve our collective mission of cleaner water and
healthier communities. Currently, there are combined sewer systems serving 184
communities in the Great Lakes Basin, and many of our programs are advocating for
protection of waterways that are impacted by these CSOs. While CSOs are a national
problem, there is added concern with CSOs into the Great Lakes, as this untreated sewage
threatens the drinking water for approximately 40 million people, and makes it more
difficult to achieve the Clean Water Act’s goals of fishable, swimmable, and drinkable
waters.
In addition to threatening our drinking water, CSOs threaten our ability to safely swim in
rivers or at beaches along our Great Lakes. According to EPA estimates, approximately 3.5

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million people per year get sick after coming into contact with water containing harmful
bacteria. Without good, reliable water quality data, people are more vulnerable to illness. In
addition, when people get sick from water that isn’t safe, people withdraw from it and as
their connection to the water fades, so does their sense of stewardship. Better public
notification of CSOs can help to prevent illness by giving people information that they need
to make more informed choices about their use of local waters.
Several of our groups have signed onto formal comments submitted by Alliance for the
Great Lakes and American Rivers on this request for stakeholder input (“Alliance
Comments”). By way of this letter, we submit supplemental comments responsive to each
of the questions that EPA identified in the announcement for the public listening session in
Chicago, and in some cases, provide more specific examples or highlight issues that affect
one or more of our cities or waterways. We hope this information will be helpful as you
move forward in this process to provide consistent guidelines to protect the public.
1. What means of receiving immediate notice of CSO discharge events is most helpful
to the public?
We agree with the Alliance Comments that public notification should include multiple ways
of getting out information about CSOs, including website/electronic media, traditional mass
media (newspapers and radio), and on-site notification methods. This notification should
happen as quickly as possible after CSOs are initiated or within two hours at the latest. For
example, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) does a good job of posting
information on their website during any wet weather rain events that summarizes the
storage available as part of conveyance, storage, and treatment facilities; amount of
wastewater being treated by their 2 plants; rain totals; etc. However, residents must take
the initiative to go to the website to find out this “real time” information, and many
recreational users likely do not take that step. Often, locations, duration, and volume of
CSO’s are not provided on the website. We recommend that this information be posted in
real time, and ideally on a map, to show locations of CSOs. Websites should be updated
frequently to include information on duration and volume of CSOs as that information
becomes available. Generally, locations, duration, and volume are required to be submitted
to our Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) within 5 days of an event, but
that information rarely appears anywhere online at the MMSD website. In Michigan,
information on CSOs has become difficult to track due to funding cuts, and residents have
to hunt for information on the Department of Environmental Quality website, often
receiving information several weeks after CSO events occur. This lack of specific “real time”
information makes it difficult to warn the public not to use certain areas to minimize public
health risk after CSOs.
We recommend a rule requiring that all permitted entities should have some form of
website/social media page/smartphone app that displays real-time information on CSOs,
as it becomes available. Smart phones have “apps” that can quickly deliver information on
water or beach health. In 2011, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper developed the Swim Guide web
service and smartphone app to help inform people about the quality of the water so they
can make better choices about when and where to swim, and now it is being used by over

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935,000 people and contains information about 7,000 beaches in 4 countries—with
coverage of 1,000 beaches in the Great Lakes Watershed. CSO notification would be a
welcome addition to the Swim Guide and a protocol could be developed to easily support
those notifications. In addition, many other smart phone apps could include an “alert” or
notification to the public about CSOs. There are many examples of weather apps that
provide flooding or wet weather notifications, small boat warnings, or riptide warnings, for
example, and adding a CSO warning would also be appropriate. Many phones now have
capability to get “flood alerts” or “amber alerts” sent directly to their phones, and have an
“opt-in” or “opt-out” option. This could be further developed to notify the public of
overflow events in a more timely fashion about CSOs (ideally within 2 hours or less). Many
treatment plants could also make better use of social media in getting the word out about
CSOs. We also recommend an electronic “notification list” where any interested party– such
as municipalities, citizens, recreational users—can sign up to receive email notifications
when CSOs occur. The City of San Francisco and State of Maryland send out such an email
alert to interested parties that can spread the word about CSOs.
Mass media on CSOs is spotty in many markets, but this notification should still be required
because many residents do not own computers or smart phones and are not able to receive
information in this way. Historically, our sewage treatment plants had to post notices of
CSOs (and SSOs) to the largest newspaper of record, as well as local radio and TV stations.
In Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does issue alerts fairly quickly about CSOs in
the newspaper, normally the same day or next day. Generally, volumes and locations are
not provided until MMSD reports that info to the WDNR, which is required within 5 days of
the event. As stated above, that reporting does not give recreational users information in a
timely enough fashion to minimize exposure to risk. In addition, it is much less likely for
radio or TV markets in Milwaukee to cover CSOs in any meaningful way if at all, so only
residents that read the newspaper tend to learn about these events.
We, too, strongly recommend that localized, physical notices be employed, such as flags,
after CSO events, to warn the public especially in areas of high recreational use. While
beaches are often preemptively or predictively closed during big wet weather events or
after CSOs in Milwaukee, it is not normal for rivers or other areas to be flagged for
recreational boaters or fishermen. Boston has successfully implemented a flag system to
notify rowers in the Charles River when overflows have occurred. This model could be
replicated in many cities throughout the Great Lakes Region. Moreover, we have many
rowers and kayakers in Milwaukee, Chicago, and many other Great Lakes cities. Two new
canoe/kayak vendors have started business in Milwaukee within the last two years. As
these types of secondary contact increase, information about CSO’s should be more readily
available to the public and river users to minimize risk exposures and to allow for fully
informed consent about whether to recreate on the water.
2. What should “immediate” mean in this context? How soon after a CSO discharge
event commences should the public and local public health agencies be given notice?
Immediate notification is interpreted differently in each State. Often current permits
require notification of the state agencies or media within 24 hours, which is far too late if

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someone is already in the river kayaking, fishing, or swimming. Given advances in
technology and social media, immediate notification can be accomplished easily and
quickly, as noted above. We agree with the Alliance Comments that immediate notification
should be provided within 2 hours after facilities become aware of CSOS, and that repeated
failure to provide notice in this time frame should constitute a permit violation. New York
requires facilities to provide notice to state agencies and public health officials within 2
hours; and if notice can be made to these public entities, than similarly, it should be
possible to provide notice to the public in 2 hours as well.
3. What type of information would be most appropriate for immediate notices? In
addition to the statutorily required elements of (i) the dates and times of the
applicable discharge; (ii) the volume of the discharge; and (iii) a description of any
public access areas impacted by the discharge; what other pieces of information
would be beneficial for the public, local public health agencies, public drinking water
providers, etc. to receive as part of the public notice?
In addition to info above, permitted entities should also describe locations of discharge,
duration of discharge, the reason for the discharge, and describe what remedies will be put
in place to mitigate the impacts from the event and to ensure discharge will not occur again
if the CSO was caused by equipment failure or other preventable measures. CSO location
should include a description that would make sense to a resident using street or nearby
landmarks, as opposed to “CSO location 124”.
We also recommend that EPA require this level of notification, not only for CSOs, but for
other forms of partial sewage treatment. For example, in Milwaukee, MMSD is allowed by
permit to conduct “sewage blending” or bypass secondary treatment during wet weather.
MMSD can essentially bypass primary AND secondary treatment during wet weather at
their Jones Island Plant and send wastewater directly to disinfection and discharge. These
releases consist of raw sewage, perhaps blended with some treated sewage and disinfected
at the end. These types of events are meant to minimize CSO volumes, but have their own
host of negative impacts that create risk exposure to river and lake users. This information
should also be publicly reported. It generally is reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
but not normally or consistently by other media, and presents a similar public health threat
to the public.
4. What role should local public health agencies have in identifying immediate
notification requirements?
Local public health agencies should have a role in identifying the best public notification
methods to best reach local populations, especially populations that might be missed with
traditional media and new media. In addition, often public health agencies are involved in
other community projects (e.g., beach health, fishermen education related to contaminated
sediments), which would give them insight into which areas of local rivers should receive
on-site notification or education efforts related to CSOs. In addition, in Milwaukee, the
drinking water intake is not far from where our rivers discharge to Lake Michigan or from
where MMSD discharges to the Lake from their Jones Island facility. While flows tend to

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move south in Lake Michigan or downstream from the water intake at the Linwood
Drinking Water facility, our concerns become heightened when untreated sewage of any
kind is discharged into our water supply. Milwaukee is especially sensitive to this concern,
given the 1993 Cryptosporidium outbreak that killed 100 residents and sickened tens of
thousands of others, which occurred after a severe wet weather event that spurred CSOs
and widespread flooding. Public health agencies and water utilities are responsible for
tracking trends in emerging illness, and as such, they should both be consulted in helping to
identify immediate notification requirements.
5. How should annual notices be made available to the public?
In our experience, if these notices are submitted to regulators, they are generally not
shared with the public. Sometimes, this information is reported as part of budgeting or
other performance reports, but information on past CSOs is not readily or easily available.
It would be useful if past events were included on treatment facility websites and
catalogued on a “storm update” page or on a CSO “tab” so a resident can go back and look at
this information, along with CSO duration, volume, location, etc. Residents have a right to
know where CSOs are occurring due to public health concerns, and to know what is being
done to minimize those CSOs—understanding that some solutions are more expensive and
long-term while other reoccurring CSOs can be caused by equipment failure, maintenance
issues, etc. Some of this information can be found in PowerPoint presentations or packets
of information that is provided to Sewer Commissions, but it is not easily found or
compiled. Annual reports should be available online and should be easily found from the
website homepage or menu.
Sewage treatment plants and cities in Wisconsin are required to submit digital reports to
our WDNR as part of their “Compliance Maintenance Annual Report” or CMAR, which is a
form of an annual report. This CMAR report is required for each private or public
wastewater treatment operator or collector, and details progress meeting CMOM
requirements, number of CSOs, SSOs, number of miles of sewer inspected/repaired, etc.
Despite the fact that these reports are submitted to WDNR digitally, the reports have never
been made publicly available in an easily accessible way. Taxpayers should have a right to
see these reports without having to make a public information request. In short, Wisconsin
and other States should provide a way of warehousing these annual reports and making
them available to citizens—for both CSOs and SSOs. Often CSOs occur to minimize the more
harmful SSOs, thus, information on collection systems is also important.
6. What information should be included in annual notices and who should prepare
the annual notices?
Annual notices should include similar information that is being required as part of
immediate notification as detailed above, but should also provide updates as to causes of
CSOs and actions that have been taken to address those CSOs. Often, volume estimates are
also updated or changed based on new models or information. In those instances,
information should be updated and highlighted if necessary. In addition, annual reports
should also include other information on sewage blending events, bypasses, or any

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incomplete sewage treatment (e.g. MMSD’s “wet weather” treatment where they bypass
both primary and secondary treatment). Treatment plants often state this treatment is
necessary to avoid or minimize CSOs, but it still poses a health risk, and as such, should be
publicly noticed and reported on similar to CSOs.
7. Do EPA's requirements to notify NPDES permitting authorities under 40 CFR
122.41(l)(4),(6) and (7) have a role in the new public notice requirements?
USEPA should set stricter standards than those required by 40 CFR 122.41(4), (6) and (7).
As previously stated, the current notification requirement of 24 hours after an overflow is
not timely enough to enable recreational users to make knowledgeable decisions about
their use of local waterways.
8. What regulatory framework is most appropriate for immediate notification
requirements? For annual notices?
EPA should develop clear rules relating to public notification of CSOs and then incorporate
those notification requirements into the NPDES framework for both immediate and annual
notices. These rules should detail time limits for reporting CSOs, information required to be
reported (as detailed in the above questions), and penalties for failure to provide adequate
public notification.
Guidance vis a vis rules tends to be ignored and will lead Great Lakes states to continue to
have their own systems of notification, leading to inconsistencies and an “apples” to
“oranges” comparison among the states. The EPA should also clarify that other forms of
bypasses should be treated similarly relating to public notification. It would also be helpful
for EPA to clarify how a CSO should be measured, again, to allow for better comparisons.
Each state counts CSOs differently, using different models and terminology. For example,
an entity in Wisconsin that is discharging from 50 pipes for 3 days would be considered to
have had 1 CSO event. In other states, CSOs are counted per outfall and/or per day. That is
important if you are trying to set up a common reporting system for the Great Lakes to be
able to collate information of all CSOs discharged into the Great Lakes. This kind of
consistency and uniformity would be helpful in better assessing impacts of CSOs to water
quality, and public health. It would also better track progress in meeting the Great Lakes
Water Quality Agreement and other Great Lakes plans and strategies.
In closing, thank you for your efforts to create requirements for public notification of CSOs
to protect public health while we all work together on longer term efforts to reduce and
eliminate CSOs in the future. It is not acceptable to discharge untreated sewage to the
drinking water supply of over 40 million people and especially if public notification thereof
is lacking. Better public notification and education relating to CSOs can only help generate
public support for the tough and expensive work that we face in fixing our failing sewage
and stormwater infrastructure in the Great Lakes Region and in our nation.

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Thank you for your consideration of these comments. If you have any questions relating to
these comments, please direct them to Cheryl Nenn at (414) 287-0207 ext. 2 or
cheryl_nenn@milwaukeeriverkeeper.org
Sincerely,
Cheryl Nenn
Riverkeeper
Milwaukee Riverkeeper
Lee Willbanks
Upper St. Lawrence Riverkeeper and Executive Director
Save the River
Mark Mattson
President
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
Bob Burns
Detroit Riverkeeper
Friends of the Detroit River
Jill Jedlicka
Executive Director and Riverkeeper
Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper
Heather Smith
Grand Traverse Baykeeper
The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay
Sandy Bihn
Executive Director
Lake Erie Waterkeeper Inc.
Doug Martz
Channelkeeper
St. Clair Channelkeeper
Chauncey Moran
Yellow Dog Riverkeeper
Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve
Gabrielle Parent-Doliner
Program Manager
Swim Guide