City, EPA hold closed hearing on GWTP

Gallup Joint Utilities Administration Executive Director Lance Allgood talks with Independent reporter Kathy Helms following a show-cause hearing Tuesday. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Gaye Brown de Alverez

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

GALLUP — Staff from the city of Gallup and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency met for approximately an hour Tuesday in a closed show-cause hearing held via conference call to discuss violations of the Clean Water Act by Gallup Wastewater Treatment Plant.

EPA, Region 6, in Dallas cited the plant in a Dec. 4 administrative order following a July 15 inspection of the wastewater treatment plant. Violations included failure to meet effluent limits at one of its outfalls and failure to submit required discharge monitoring reports.

GWTP’s federal discharge permit places certain limitations on the quality and quantity of effluent discharged to the Rio Puerco in the Lower Colorado River Basin. Certified discharge monitoring reports show the facility exceeded permitted effluent limits for fecal coliform, E. Coli bacteria, total residual chlorine, and biochemical oxygen demand.

Following the closed conference call, which began around 9 a.m., and included Gallup Joint Utilities Administration Executive Director Lance Allgood, plant operator Robert Sikeya, engineer Ernest Thompson, and others, the group then met nearly another two hours in closed session.

The decision to close the show-cause meeting is not based on federal law but on EPA policy as dictated in a memorandum from the agency’s Washington headquarters issued under former EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson during the Bush administration and supported by EPA memos dating back to 1990.

“Many times I’ve been asked why can’t the media or the public attend a show-cause meeting, and I have to fall back to the agency’s policy of confidentiality during settlement negotiations,” David Bary, EPA public information specialist, said Tuesday afternoon.

“The only thing that I can tell you at this time is the matter remains under enforcement review. These discussions between the agency and the city are a matter of settlement negotiations and have to remain confidential until such time that we have a settlement agreement, and at that time we are able to make the terms of the settlement public,” Bary said.

“We do attempt to resolve these enforcement matters as expeditiously as possible.”

During an interview with the Independent after the hearing, Allgood said they deferred to EPA policy on closure of the conference call. “That’s their decision,” he said, adding that the city fared “relatively well.”

“They seemed to be pleased in our efforts to date. The next step in the process will be they will issue an administrative complaint and we’ll have 30 days to respond to that. When they will get that out, they didn’t say. We would expect it in the next 30 days or so.”

EPA requested some backup documents they did not have in their possession, he said, and the city expects to submit those by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, things are running “pretty good” at the wastewater treatment plant, according to Allgood.

“Certainly we’ve been in compliance with our permits for quite some time now on a daily basis,” he said, but they are still struggling to hire staff. “The good news is we did hire a lab tech. We’re looking for a Level 4 operator and a Level 4 supervisor.”

Regarding issues in the administrative order, Allgood said, “Those that we could address, we have addressed.”

Now it’s up to EPA.

“There’s no final determinations made as part of the conference call. That will come later in writing,” Allgood said.

“It’s just the process.”