PAUL STEINBRECHER, director of environmental permitting for the JEA in Jacksonville, is president of the Florida Water Environment Association Utility Council (FWEAUC), which serves as an advocate for utilities on legislative and regulatory matters.

How did you get involved with FWEAUC?
Paul Steinbrecher: My employer, JEA, has always been very supportive of FWEA and has been a leader in the Utility Council since its inception. JEA believes that wastewater utilities are more efficient and effective on regional and national issues when working jointly with other utilities rather than on their own.

Name: Paul Steinbrecher Title: President of the Florida Water Environment Association Utility Council (FWEAUC) and Director of Environmental Services for JEA in Jacksonville. Background: Paul has been with JEA since 2001. Prior to that, he was a process engineer and project manager for CH2M HILL. He has a bachelor's of science in civil engineering from Valparaiso University and earned his master's in civil engineering at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. About JEA: The JEA electric system serves more than 417,000 electric customers in Jacksonville and parts of three adjacent counties. JEA's water system serves more than 305,000 water customers and 230,000 sewer customers in Northeast Florida. Approximately 42 percent of JEA’s electric revenues come from 368,000 residential customers, 45 percent from 46,000 commercial and industrial customers and 3 percent from one wholesale customer. The commercial and industrial market segment also accounts for about one-third of the water and wastewater revenue.

What is the mission of the FWEAUC?
Steinbrecher: The mission of the FWEAUC is to assist its members to achieve sound public health and environmental goals for the millions of users they serve in an efficient and cost-effective manner and to establish a collaboration that will unite public wastewater utility interests for the purpose of defining and pursuing common objectives. Over recent years, the council has had many working groups, such as Water Quality; Sanitary Sewer Overflow; Deep Well Injection; Reuse; Biosolids; Infrastructure; and last but definitely not least, Numeric Nutrient Criteria. These working groups are typically active in monitoring and participating in policy developments concerning various facets of wastewater collection, treatment, reclamation and disposal.

Where do the proposed Numeric Nutrient Criteria fit into your agenda and priorities?
Steinbrecher: The Utility Council has made numeric nutrient criteria its No. 1 priority and we are dedicating by far the greatest share of our resources to that endeavor.

How do you see the Numeric Nutrient Criteria affecting Florida wastewater and reclaimed water utilities if it goes through?
Steinbrecher: We see it as a huge step in the wrong direction. The EPA’s decision to impose federal numeric nutrient criteria on Florida is an unfortunate setback to the environmental progress that is being made in Florida, because Florida already has a very effective and aggressive nutrient control program that is being implemented across several state water policy programs, including the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program, state estuary programs, the statewide stormwater rule, and policies promoting the reuse of reclaimed water.

I am one of the many Floridians proud of the state’s progressive nutrient TMDL program.  Florida has promulgated — and the EPA has approved — 79 nutrient TMDLs for Florida water bodies. The TMDL process entails a lot of work and may seem slow to some, but it does provide a case-by-case approach tailored to specific water bodies that is based on science. It is a rigorous site specific process that already results in "numeric criteria" being established as allocations, not just for permitted stakeholders, but for non-point sources as well through Basin Management Action Plans.

The EPA's approach in contrast is crude and arbitrary. It uses methodologies that, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, would result in more than one-third of the state’s most pristine water bodies being listed as “impaired.” This simply does not make sense. The EPA’s simplistic “broad brush” approach is overly stringent for most of our water bodies, and in some cases it is under protective because the standards are not based on cause and effect relationships between nutrients and the health of water bodies. It is too much of a “one size fits all” that will be very costly and won't provide value commensurate with its cost. The NNC rule will undermine the TMDL process and impair the progress that is being made.

What will JEA do to implement the new rules?
Steinbrecher: Let me give you some background as I address this. JEA has been implementing a $400 million initiative over about a 10-year period now that will result in compliance with the TMDL that has been established for the lower St. Johns River. Unfortunately the generic NNC rule is poised to require wholly different engineering approaches from those that are currently under way to meet the river's TMDL. So, it may cause JEA to turn its focus away from its current emphasis on reusing reclaimed water as a water supply for irrigation in residential and other areas that are accessible to the public, and instead focus on membrane and other advanced treatment technologies. JEA was actually on course to remove more nutrients from its discharge than required by its TMDL, to potentially help compensate for other contributors that could not meet their obligation cost-effectively. As a matter of fact, the State of Florida promulgated a very forward-thinking water quality credit trading pilot program for the river for just this purpose – the idea being that municipalities with stormwater nutrient reductions or other entities with reduction obligations that are expensive could make their reductions through water quality credit trades instead of through expensive direct engineering changes. Unfortunately, counting on those programs is not a prudent approach and we have put those "above and beyond compliance" initiatives on hold. So you can see, the NNC approach is displacing other programs that are already in place, using innovative cost effective constructs for the many participants that have removal obligations. In terms of the cost differential, the Utility Council has estimated that the average water/sewer bill in the state would approximately double due to this misguided regulation. In our particular case, we expect the rate impact to be somewhat less because we have economies of scale, but nevertheless, we are talking very significant rate impacts. And again, the issue here is that the environment is not getting a commensurate benefit from these expenditures. Because, for example, if a specific TMDL that is already under way or at completion has already reduced nutrients in a water body to below the "limiting nutrient threshold” (i.e. the level of nutrients that cause algae blooms or other negative biological responses), then spending twice as much because of the EPA’s new rules to get those nutrient concentrations a tiny bit lower to meet an arbitrary target is not going to improve the environment. We cannot justify these costs to our customers.

Can you describe FWEAUC's efforts to affect the rulemaking process?
Steinbrecher: The UC has done what no single utility could do. It has been actively engaged with this rulemaking effort since its inception. Teaming with other affected organizations, it has been providing meaningful comments and information to its members as well as to regulators. It engaged the EPA directly in hopes of impacting the rule. The UC has also initiated legal action challenging the rulemaking effort and has successfully recruited the support of other public agencies and affected industries in Florida. Our objective is to make sure that the science and economics are well understood and transparent to our state and federal policy makers, both elected and appointed, with the hope that they will help ensure that the EPA carefully considers the concerns of Floridians and adjusts its nutrient management proposals to avoid unneeded negative impacts to Florida’s economy, environment, and water quality programs. We were successful in obtaining some modest concessions, particularly with respect to the effective dates of standards for freshwaters and an extension on the EPA's rulemaking schedule for developing marine and estuarine standards, as well as standards for canals. Unfortunately, the EPA rushed the first phase of its rulemaking (focused on Florida's freshwaters) and promulgated a highly flawed rule in November. That rule will now be the focus of litigation. While the ideal outcome would be for the EPA to abandon its ill-conceived rulemaking, we are hopeful that the EPA will at least be more deliberative in their efforts over the next one to two years as they work to derive similar criteria in the second phase of their rulemaking, which is focused on Florida's marine and estuarine waters. Far more of Florida will be affected by this second rulemaking, as the majority of our population is concentrated along the coastlines of the state.

Do you see the NNC as having consequences to other utilities throughout the nation?
Steinbrecher: Absolutely. All indications are that the EPA will roll across the nation with similar rulemaking initiatives and we are already seeing such efforts in Wisconsin and Kansas, with rumblings as well for Alabama. For that reason, the UC has coordinated with national organizations such as the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) and the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF).

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Do you think that utilities may be pushed beyond the limits of technology in order to comply with the proposed rule or is it just a matter of economic impacts?
Steinbrecher: As an engineer, I tend to believe that the technology exists to achieve the very low nitrogen and phosphorus limits that are being proposed as water quality criteria. In essence, it is what our astronauts use every day to recycle their wastes for direct potable reuse. That technology is not commonly used in the wastewater industry and historically has been considered ultra-pure water production technologies. So the real question to me is not "can it be done?" but rather, does it make any sense to place the extraordinary costs for achieving crudely derived nutrient criteria on the backs of our customers? This is a cost effectiveness and environmental effectiveness issue. Do we need to be doubling utility bills? Will we see environmental benefit for this level of investment? We already know the answer to that. Paradoxically, this EPA initiative will delay the imminent restoration of many water bodies that are now completing their TMDL projects, as those projects are mothballed and a new cycle of compliance schedules with permitting, design, and construction milestones for wholly new projects is started. That is going backwards.

How do you think the new rules will impact the state's economy?
Steinbrecher: We may see some very unusual or unexpected reactions. As some clean water bodies are declared impaired, it affects growth and economic development in those watersheds that otherwise would have occurred. Businesses, and industries and developers, may choose to locate elsewhere. Smaller utilities that are faced with even bigger cost impacts to their customers may attempt to accept some level of non-compliance while others will go out of business and leave their rural constituents to move back to septic tanks. Another consequence could be a slowdown in the growth of our irrigation reuse as utilities focus their resources more on aquifer recharge and treatment. The capital requirements will be very daunting and comparable with those in the 1970s with implementation of effluent standards on the wastewater industry, only this time there does not appear to be the grants program that helped subsidize the investment and lessen the impact on the customer, nor again, the environmental benefit that we need to have commensurate with that type of investment.

Do you think that this rule is needed to improve water quality in Florida or are existing rules protective enough?
Steinbrecher: I am so glad that you asked that question. In my opinion this rule is not needed to protect water quality in Florida and as I said earlier, will actually delay the imminent restoration of numerous water bodies that are being addressed now through the TMDL program. While there are certainly still some nutrient problems in Florida, they are being systematically addressed and Florida has been a leader nationally in restoring and protecting its surface waters. Let me show you one metric as an example. The graph above, produced by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in its annual water quality report for the state, shows the average trend for Total Phosphorus (TP) in state waters since the 1970s. You can clearly see the alarming increase in TP as the state experienced very high growth rates into the early ‘80s. The state continued to experience dramatic growth until just two years ago, but you can also clearly see the dramatic reductions in TP that have occurred as a direct result of the state’s water quality programs, implemented mainly through their stormwater and NPDES programs. (By the way, the small upturn in TP in the early 2000s is attributed by FDEP to unusually high hurricane activity during that time frame as well as additional growth). So it is clear to us that our efforts are working, and that the issue is being mischaracterized by the EPA in its rulemaking effort. I am sorry to report to you that the EPA's rhetoric is aimed at convincing the public that nutrient water quality issues are getting worse, and this is simply not true. The results of the existing TMDL program and the current water quality standards are clear. These existing programs make the most sense, are sufficiently protective and are the most effective way to go about addressing the nutrient issues. Generally we see this rule as an impediment to progress and a waste of resources.