EPA Loaning Defiance Funds To Alleviate Sewer Overflows

The Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency announced Wednes­day it is issu­ing Defi­ance a $393,750 low-interest loan to update the city’s blue­print for con­trol­ling com­bined sewer over­flows, an impor­tant source of phos­pho­rus that pro­duces algae in west­ern Lake Erie and its trib­u­taries. Ini­tial ben­e­fits won’t be real­ized for sev­eral years, until the project is engi­neered and con­struc­tion is done. Accord­ing to the EPA, Defi­ance has the most sewage over­flows between Toledo and Fort Wayne in the entire water­shed. The cost of retro­fitting Defi­ance sew­ers to avoid spills will run into the mil­lions of dol­lars. The prob­lem comes in because even at zero or very low inter­est rates, financ­ing that amount will be very difficult.