The state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is poised to mandate that the city of Warwick upgrade its treatment plant in order to reduce the amount of phosphorus and nitrate it discharges into the Pawtuxet River. The problem, however, is that these upgrades would cost the WSA ratepayers a combined $14 million up front, and an additional $1 million per year.

What’s worse, there is no proof that these upgrades would significantly improve the health of Narragansett Bay. It would be one thing if the DEM provided the city with an adequate cost/benefit analysis of the regulations, but that hasn’t happened despite a request from the mayor.

A better solution would be to use the scarce resources that the WSA has to extend sewers into more city neighborhoods. That, from our perspective, would not only do more to improve the health of the Bay by eliminating failing septic systems, it would also be more cost effective. More people paying sewer usage fees spread the costs out amongst a larger number of people, which ultimately lowers rates.

And these proposals show the DEM to be tone deaf to the current economic climate and struggles of ordinary Rhode Islanders. Averaged out, the projected costs of upgrading the treatment plant would cost the average sewer user about $137 per year.

There’s no question that we need a clean Narragansett Bay, and nobody argues to the contrary. But our residents need to be able to adequately weather the economic downturn and pay their mortgages and food bills before we worry about the Bay.

State mandates, which would further reduce the discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus, need to be shelved until the troublesome times we’re currently facing abate.

Let’s not forget that these new regulations come after the WSA ratepayers already spent $35.2 million to upgrade the treatment plant in 2004.

The state has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, at a sobering 13 percent. Rhode Island has a budget deficit of an estimated $200 million this year.

And cuts in state aid to cities and towns have put huge amounts of pressure on local property taxpayers. Now the state will once again put tremendous pressure on residents by forcing them to upgrade the plant once again.

The sewer authority and Mayor Scott Avedisian have the option of contesting these new mandates, which would probably end up in the courts. Maybe there the citizens will get some answers and logic, if not a more reasoned approach to the best means to cleaning while preserving our environment.