Kennett awaits EPA response to wastewater treatment suit

KENNETT, Mo. -- It has been a month since the city of Kennett filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but the EPA has yet to respond in federal court. The city is protesting the agency's water quality standards for wastewater treatment.

If the existing requirements stand, City Light Gas & Water customers will see a $55 to $70 increase in sewer bills each month.

The EPA's response is due June 6, but it is not uncommon to ask for an extension, said the city's attorney, Aimee Davenport.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh has been assigned to the case in Cape Girardeau.

The EPA requirement for low dissolve oxygen levels is twice what is found in Buffalo Ditch, in which the Kennett Wastewater Treatment Plant discharges. The ditch runs roughly from Ely Street in Kennett several miles south. Before discharge, wastewater is treated in an aerated lagoon.

The requirement assumes the ditch has flourishing aquatic life and a biological community.

"What EPA is doing is holding the ditch to an impossible standard -- a one-size-fits all standard that is not appropriate or achievable," Davenport said.

Reasons the ditch cannot meet the standards, Davenport said, include maintenance, physiological aspects and the way the ditch was "channelized" in the beginning. Utility officials say those factors make it impossible to raise the low dissolve oxygen levels, no matter what technology is used.

The low dissolve oxygen levels are not unique to Buffalo Ditch. Other ditches nearby have similar levels, which are characteristic of sandy-bottom streams.

The city asserts that a much lower standard should be applied to Buffalo Ditch and those like it. The suit calls for the EPA to correct the science used to determine the standards, making them more applicable to Buffalo Ditch.

The Board of Public Works estimates that if the current standards remain in place, the city will spend at as much as $15 million to meet them, forcing sewer bills to rise.

Pertinent address:

Kennett, Mo.