Even the City of Mesa, which is the minority shareholder in the Val Vista plant, would like to see the plant operating.
"We have the money invested in the dewatering facilities," says Bill Haney in the Mesa public utilities department. "We think they ought to run."
The City of Tempe and SRP complained to the EPA. And now, after Phoenix put off the capital improvements for years, the water bill may come due for the city.
The standard amount of sludge removal that the EPA will likely require falls somewhere between 80 percent and 85 percent. Crypto or no crypto, Kuhlman is adamant that Phoenix be held to that standard.
Phoenix has other plans.
Last fall, Mayor Skip Rimsza approached Republican Congressman John Shadegg to support a proposed amendment to the Clean Water Act of 1980.
The amendment was presented by a California congressman and drafted by WESTCAS, the Western Coalition of Arid States, to which SRP belongs. And, in fact, SRP executive Kevin Wanttaja participated in the writing of the proposed bill.
The Clean Water Act requires that all "waters of the United States" be maintained as swimmable and fishable. But since the irrigation and drinking-water canals in Arizona and elsewhere in the West were never intended to be fisheries or swimming holes, the WESTCAS amendment wanted those water conveyances held to lesser standards to be set by state governments.
To SRP's chagrin, Mayor Rimsza interpreted that wording as meaning that the State of Arizona would be able to set the water-quality standards for the canals--and, perhaps, allow continued sludge dumping, saving the city $66 million that Rimsza sees as providing dubious environmental benefit.
"I just think that, getting it closer to the local level of government, there'd be a better chance of working out something amicable," Rimsza told New Times. "And the reason is, I'd like to spend that $66 million in an area that would give the citizens of this community a significant environmental improvement. And the professionals are saying, 'Mayor, we're probably better off, assuming we're going to spend $66 million, putting it elsewhere than in solids removal.'"
Rimsza would rather put it to work on riparian projects, including canal beautification.
"If I could save some money on this project and then use that money to make the canals an attractive, environmentally pleasant place for this community, I'd do it."
Of course, one of the main obstacles to making the canals more pleasant is the sludge piled along the banks for half of the year.
Shadegg declined Rimsza's overtures. Both SRP and the EPA say that Rimsza is mistaken in his interpretation of the WESTCAS bill. Catherine Kuhlman even called the water department and asked officials to convey that message to Mayor Rimsza in no uncertain terms. The proposed bill has nothing to do with sludge, they say, and any standards that the state sets have to be approved by the EPA anyway.
Which may not be saying much.
Arizona's water-quality standards are already so lax that the EPA has been ordered to rewrite them.
And drinking-water standards are under attack in Congress, with a torrent of legislation floated to weaken them.
The EPA, meanwhile, has been foundering in the government shutdown. The agency had intended to issue cryptosporidium guidelines early this year, but was set back by the federal furlough.
"We know that cryptosporidium is most likely to occur during spring thaws and rains," EPA administrator Carol Browner told the newsletter Inside EPA in December. "We're losing weeks now in terms of finalizing a rule that allows the data collection to take place so we can set standards and issue guidance. When we come back we'll have to evaluate what four weeks means in terms of that rule--can we be ready to go this spring? And we may not be."
Congressional Republicans have already stated that one way to deal with federal agencies they dislike is to cut their appropriations. They immensely dislike the EPA.
Catherine Kuhlman lamented to New Times that, for budgetary reasons, she has not been able to put her people out in the field yet this year to check on compliance. Still, she hopes to hold Phoenix to some final decision on sludge removal by the end of this year or by early 1997.
Given the sludgelike flow of budget talks in Washington, that may be wishful thinking. And the delay could work in Phoenix's fiscal favor. In fact, almost anything could happen with the EPA and drinking-water regulation.
As Skip Rimsza says with a faint tone of Sagebrush Rebellion in his voice, "We don't even know if they'll be the regulatory authority by then.
