Water Views

Sandra L. Allen, Director, Division of Water, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Wastewater treatment facilities operators are the first line of defense for water quality protection in New York State. Our water pollution control plants are complex facilities with advanced levels of treatment, and keeping up with even everyday operation, maintenance, and management requires skilled and committed operators. These people reacted to August's cascading electrical blackout with swiftness, expertise, competency, and preparedness. We wish to thank the treatment plant operators across the state for their cool and skilled response to this crisis as well as their ongoing dedication to protecting New York waters.

It is always eye opening for us to hear from veteran operators about their day-to-day challenges. Over the past several years, we have often heard about the concerns of operators of aging municipal plants in cash-strapped communities. They have more wastewater to treat, higher standards to meet, and less money to pay for necessary upgrades, expansions, and new construction. We clearly need to reinvigorate the federal commitment to this vital infrastructure. Thirty years ago, the nation recognized the importance of these facilities. With the passage of the Clean Water Act, billions of dollars were spent to construct municipal plants to ensure secondary treatment. Many of those plants are now near or at the end of their design life. We can't allow our efforts to backslide. We all must work to ensure that our operators get the fiscal resources needed to protect our waters.

We also need a greater public commitment to water protection. The public expects well-maintained, appropriately designed, and properly run wastewater treatment plants. Yet, at times the cost to do so is ignored. The average American willingly pays $1.34 a day for cable TV, and only about 62 cents a day for wastewater treatment. One would be hard pressed to argue that cable TV plays the important role in protecting human health and the environment that wastewater treatment does. All of us in the water environment professions must work to ensure that the public understands the importance of investing in the infrastructure needed to keep our waters clean.

—Sandra L. Allen, Director of the NYSDEC Division of Water