Environment notebook

Commission OKs water loans, grants

The Arkansas Natural Resources Commission approved changes to the state's water and sewer loan program and approved more than $1 million in loans and grants to drinking-water and wastewater utilities in the state at a meeting last week in Batesville.

Commissioners approved issuing refunding bonds, which means the commission plans to sell its bonds and eventually lower the interest rates of new bonds that it issues, said Mark Bennett, the commission's water development division manager.

Bennett said current interest rates range from 3.9 percent to 4.75 percent. How low interest rates could go won't be known until the commission sells its bonds. The commission borrows money, then lends it to water and sewer utilities, Bennett said.

Commissioners also approved several loans during a Sept. 21 meeting: up to $1.1 million to Nashville to add two pumps and other enhancements to its sewer system; up to $500,000 to Mountain Pine to replace a water tank; and up to $103,000 to the Little River County Rural Development Authority to replace water pump station media and underdrains.

Commissioners also approved grants of up to $25,750 for the Nail-Swain Water Authority to repair waterline leaks and other failed equipment; and up to $7,210 to Alicia to replace a sewer lift pump station.

Whole Foods fined $3.5M over waste

Whole Foods will pay more than $3.5 million in penalties to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a part of a settlement over improperly handling hazardous waste, according to an EPA news release.

The compliance issue at hand involved 29 Whole Foods stores in EPA's Region 6, which covers Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Two of the stores are in Arkansas -- one in Little Rock and the other in Fayetteville. The Arkansas stores are responsible for $101,970 of the fines assessed across the region.

Texas stores also will fund a special environmental project promoting hazardous-waste laws and compliance to Texas retailers.

The EPA investigated Whole Foods for a year after receiving information about the company from the New Mexico Environment Department in August 2014. The EPA found that in the 29 stores, Whole Foods did not properly distinguish hazardous waste per federal law and improperly handled spent lamps. The lamps are a type of hazardous waste.

In November, Whole Foods provided information to the EPA that showed the company had customer returns and expired products that are considered "solid waste" and "hazardous waste" by law and did not adequately identify them as such within the solid-waste streams generated by the stores. According to the the settlement, the stores must rectify the problem within 180 days and pay the fines within 30 days.

Meetings set on wastewater rules

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality will hold two public hearings -- one this month and one next month -- on proposed changes to the state's regulations concerning wastewater discharges.

The changes are proposed to formally align state regulations with a state law passed in 2015 that eased some requirements for rural wastewater treatment plants applying for permits from the department.

Act 575, which already is being followed by department regulators, repeals the financial-assurance requirements of wastewater-treatment plants. Previously, plant operators had to prove they had tens of thousands of dollars available for operations or repairs. Now, they pay up to $1,000 annually into a state trust fund capped at $2.1 million for all wastewater operators. The law was sponsored by Rep. Andy Davis, R-Little Rock, who sells and operates wastewater plants as the owner of New Water Systems.

Davis has said the law doesn't change anything except to repeal cumbersome requirements. But opponents of some proposed privately owned wastewater-treatment plants in central Arkansas are concerned the law will hamper improvements to any plant in violation of environmental regulations.

Department Director Becky Keogh said last month that wastewater infrastructure is a challenge in Arkansas and that about 50 percent of the nonmunicipal wastewater plants -- the kind operated by Davis' company -- have had compliance concerns with the department. Those compliance concerns include reporting violations, in addition to discharge violations.

She added that the trust fund, which had a $36,745 balance in July, is growing at a "slow rate."

The department will hold a public hearing at 2 p.m. Friday at its headquarters in North Little Rock and at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Jones Center for Families in Springdale. People have until 4:30 p.m. Oct. 19 to submit comments to the department on the regulation change.

After the comment period, the change must be approved by Gov. Asa Hutchinson and legislative committees before heading back to the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission for final adoption.

Metro on 09/28/2016

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