SEWER DISCHARGE LIST - S.B. 1216: FLOOR ANALYSIS
Senate Bill 1216 (as reported without amendment)
Sponsor: Senator Ken Sikkema
Committee: Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs
CONTENT
The bill would amend Part 31 (Water Resources Protection) of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act to require the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to compile and maintain a list of occurrences of discharges of untreated or partially treated sewage from sewer systems into State waters.
The list would have to be made available on the Department's website on an ongoing basis. In addition, the DEQ would have to publish the list annually and make it available to the general public. The list would have to include the entity responsible for the discharge; the waters and/or land area receiving the discharge; the volume and quality of the discharge; the time the discharge began and ended; a description of the actions the DEQ had taken to address the discharge; whether the entity responsible for the discharge was subject to a schedule of compliance approved by the DEQ; and any other information that the DEQ considered relevant.
("Partially treated sewage" would mean any sewage, sewage and storm water, or sewage and wastewater, from domestic or industrial sources that was not treated to national secondary treatment standards for wastewater or that was treated to a level less than that required by a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. "Sewer system" would mean a system designed and used to convey sanitary sewage and/or storm water.)
Proposed MCL 324.3112c - Legislative Analyst: N. Nagata
FISCAL IMPACT
The bill would result in a marginal increase in Department of Environmental Quality administrative costs. The Department's website currently includes the required information for combined sewer system overflows. The bill would require the Department to include information on all sewer overflows, not just from combined sewers. The costs of this increased effort probably would be absorbed within existing budgetary resources.
Date Completed: 5-4-00 - Fiscal Analyst: P. Grahamfloor\sb1216 - Analysis available @ http://www.michiganlegislature.org
This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.