Managing Wastewater in Coastal Urban Areas

**shadabg** · 01-17-2013, 12:11 PM

Although significant progress has been made in improving the nation's water quality over the past 20 years, many coastal areas continue to suffer from persistent environmental problems and can expect to encounter new problems in the future. Today's coastal water-quality management practices do not provide adequate protection from some types of problems and in some cases are overprotective of other types of problems. Much of the debate over how to protect and improve coastal water-quality has focused on urban wastewater and stormwater management.

This report, as requested of the National Research Council by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at the direction of Congress, examines issues relevant to wastewater management in coastal urban areas. These issues include environmental objectives, policies, and regulations; technology; management techniques; systems analysis and design; and environmental modeling. The National Research Council was not asked to review past policies or decisions. Instead, it was directed to identify opportunities for improving the current system through which coastal urban wastewater and stormwater are managed. The report identifies several key areas in which specific progress could be made, and recommends a new framework for coastal management toward which current management practices should evolve. It addresses the management of marine and estuarine areas in particular and does not consider the Great Lakes.

The scope of activities involved in the management of wastewater and stormwater in coastal cities is large and complex. In the broadest terms, the purpose of managing these wastes is to protect the environment while using it for waste disposal. At least 37 percent of the United States' population resides along the coast, mostly in urban areas. More than 1,400 municipal wastewater treatment plants provide service to the coastal population, discharging 10 billion gallons of treated effluent per day. During the period from 1972 to 1992, about $76 billion were spent in constructing or expanding publicly owned treatment works; $50 billion of this total came from federal grants. At an estimated operating cost ranging from $300 to $500 per million gallons of treated effluent, the national expenditure for operating these plants is between $1.1 billion and $1.8 billion per year.

The management of wastewater and stormwater in coastal urban areas takes place in the context of a multitude of other human activities and natural processes within the coastal zone. Some major factors that cause perturbations in the coastal zone include, in no special order, municipal wastewater and stormwater discharges; combined sewer overflows; other urban runoff; direct industrial wastewater discharges; agricultural runoff; atmospheric deposition; ground water flow; boating traffic; shipping; dredging and filling; leaching of contaminated sediments; oil and gas production; introduction of nonindigenous species; harvesting of fish and shellfish; freshwater impoundment and diversion; and land-use changes in coastal drainage basins.

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