Not likely to happen

It’s a nice idea, and it would certainly make life easier for local government officials. But don’t hold your breath waiting for it to become reality.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has introduced something he calls the Clean Water Affordability Act in Congress.
What it would do, says Brown, is give small communities some funding assistance when it comes to solving the problem of combined sewer overflows.
Anyone who has ever served on a town board or city council can tell you about combined sewer overflows, also known as CSOs.
Most small communities in the Midwest have sewer systems where sanitary sewage — the stuff you flush down the toilet — uses the same set of underground pipes as storm water. It’s in many ways a primitive system, but it made sense when it was built.
And it was certainly less expensive than building two completely separate sewer systems back in the days when these communities were founded.
Back then, the whole notion of sewage treatment wasn’t being considered.
The sewer pipes usually just dumped the combined mess in the nearest river.
With the advent of modern wastewater treatment systems, that began to change.
Today’s typical combined sewer system takes both the storm water, which is relatively clean, and the sanitary sewage to a treatment plant.
During times of normal rainfall, such a system is actually treating rainwater as if it were sanitary sewage simply because the two have been combined in the system.
But during times of extremely heavy rainfall, the combined sewer system is overloaded. There are overflows, usually into ditches, streams, or rivers. And those overflows include sanitary sewage.
Obviously, it’s an environmental problem. But it’s an expensive one to fix.
Virtually every community around — from Portland to Fort Recovery, from Redkey to Decatur — is today faced with pressure to take on costly measures to eliminate those occasional overflows.
In some cases, it involves building separate sewer systems so storm water and sanitary waste are piped separately. In all cases, it’s an expensive proposition.
Sen. Brown’s proposal would provide an assist from the federal government, similar to the sort of assistance that was provided back when the Clean Water Act of 1974 was enacted. Brown is proposing that federal dollars cover 75 percent of the cost of designing and building systems that would end CSOs. The other 25 percent would be borne by municipal government.
There’s just one big problem: The price tag.
Sen. Brown’s bill would set aside $1.8 billion over a five-year period to help cities and towns that are trying to solve the problem.
And if ever there were a time when $1.8 billion was hard to find, this is it.
Would it be money well spent?
Yes, it would be. Would it create some construction jobs? Sure.
But is it likely to happen in the current fiscal situation at the federal level?
Probably not. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]