May 12, 2010

    The public gets to weigh in on the subject of “TMDLs” at a public hearing Thursday. People not acquainted with those initials will find they deliver a painfully expensive message.

   The letters stand for “total maximum daily load,” which is a measure of pollutants allowable in bodies of water — in this case, the upper Klamath River and Lost River.

   What’s being found in the Klamath River now doesn’t meet the standards and it’ll cost a fortune to fix it — if it can be fixed. A resident of the city of Klamath Falls with an average city waste water bill ($41.77 a month, which is already scheduled to go to $57.17 next year) would see it go to at least $83.54 a month and, in the worst case scenario, double again to $167.08.  

   The financial impact on the South Suburban Sanitary District, which serves most of the suburban Klamath Falls area outside the city limits, is also expected to be heavy. The city and the district have been discussing the possibility of a joint effort, which makes sense and should create economies of scale.

   How much good will it do?

   There’s also the nagging question of how badly the improvements are needed. The city is discharging effluent in the Klamath River that’s already cleaner than the river is. There’s also debate about how much of the problem is naturally occurring phosphorous, and how much is added by such human activities as agriculture and industry. The proposed regulations cast a wide net that includes all human activities.  

   City of Klamath Falls officials have pointed out to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in the past — and we hope they continue to do so — that the impact of the city’s contribution to the problem is pretty close to non-existent — about a half of 1 percent.

   The city’s cost to deal with it would be huge. Would it really make sense to force an area with a weak economy and which already has costly needs to spend up to $40 million on new waste water facilities which will do little good?

   These are some of the points we hope will come up at Thursday’s public hearing.

   It will be from 6 to 9 p.m. at the College Union auditorium at Oregon Institute of Technology.

   Opinion Editor Pat Bushey wrote today’s editorial.