i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time . 
mr. chairman , the author of this amendment , the gentleman from michigan ( mr. stupak ) xz4003910 , is a good man and a good friend of mine and i think he is well intentioned , but i think my colleagues should know that this amendment is opposed by the u.s. conference of mayors , the national league of cities , the national association of counties , the national rural water association , and 38 other national and state water organizations whose job it is to protect the environment and provide communities with clean water . 
let me tell you why these organizations oppose this amendment . 
communities all over the country have wastewater treatment plants that are designed and permitted to allow blending during extreme wet weather events . 
that is only a very small percentage of the time , usually maybe 2 or 3 percent . 
these plant designs allow communities to prevent sewer overflows and meet all clean water act standards in a cost-effective way . 
if blending is prohibited , then cities like atlanta , detroit , cincinnati , tacoma , portland , oregon , boston and many , many others would have to spend billions of dollars to change their wastewater treatment plant designs , all to deal with extreme wet weather events that occur only once or twice a year . 
some individual cities could have to spend as much as $ 100 million on this or perhaps even more . 
blending has been mischaracterized as the discharge of raw sewage . 
this is not true . 
here are the facts . 
during normal dry weather operation of a typical wastewater treatment plant , the wastewater receives three stages of treatment : solids removal , biological treatment , and disinfection . 
during extreme wet weather events , wastewater flows can exceed the capacity of the biological treatment unit . 
in those cases a plant then treats it twice . 
this blending does not mean the discharge of raw sewage into any river or waterway . 
these flows are recombined and blended with wastewater chemical treatments and so forth and disinfection so that it meets all clean water act water quality and technology-based treatment standards . 
this practice is not a bypass around treatment because it is part of the plant 's permitted treatment design . 
we held a hearing on this . 
let me just tell you a few quotes from some of the experts . 
one person from the ohio river valley water sanitation commission said , `` in the case of the ohio river , without our blending policy more untreated overflows would occur and the water quality impacts of wet weather would be more damaging. '' the head of an agency in california said , `` with blending , our member communities can provide the maximum clean water treatment possible to unpredictable , exceptionally heavy rains and snowmelt , while still meeting permit limits which are set to protect public health and the environment. '' a water executive from little rock , arkansas , said , `` blending protects public utility infrastructure by preventing washout of sensitive biological systems and protects public health and private property. '' another official said , `` a prohibition of blending will result in the need for extremely expensive facility upgrades that will not result in any meaningful improvement to water quality or protection of the public health. '' if we prohibit blending , it will cause worse environmental trouble than if we allow these experts and these utilities to proceed with it . 
there is a lot of misunderstanding on this issue . 
what we should do is we should work with the gentleman from michigan because what he wants to accomplish and what we want to accomplish is really the same thing . 
we need to have more work on this before we leap into this very complicated situation . 
