Heyburn, a small community in southern Idaho, is being forced to make an estimated $7-8 million in improvements on their wastewater treatment facility or face over $53,000 fines every day from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The treatment facility has been under scrutiny from the EPA since 2014, but had violations compounded upon it during the extreme weather in 2016 and 2017 that overwhelmed the system, causing the amount of EPA violations to swell to nearly 600.
There is no question that the town of Heyburn should be responsible in updating its infrastructure as the need is warranted. If fact, they have been attempting to do just that. According to KTVB,
"Over the last two to three years, Heyburn has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars - comprised of their own money and grant money from the Department of Environmental Quality - on studies conducted by engineering firms and other experts to grasp the problem and what needs to be done to fix it.”
When asked how the city could have avoided this, City Administrator Tony Morley said, "A lot of times these things don't manifest themselves until you get there."
But the bureaucracy in Washington D.C., won’t have any of it. The first phase of improvements have to be done by July 19, 2020, and the second phase done by May 31, 2022, or the crushing $53,484 per day fines will rain down on Heyburn.
"In the wastewater world with engineering and construction, that is a very short timeline," Morley said.
Now facing a mandate to bring the plant into compliance, the town of Heyburn with a population around 3,300 must decide how to pay for the enormous upgrades - and fast.
According to KTVB, “The city can either ask taxpayers to pass a bond in an election or go through a judicial confirmation, where a judge issues an order for a bond without the people's vote.”
In other words, the people of Heyburn may have no say in the matter but still be forced to fund the enormous upgrades or pay for the daily fines issued by unelected bureaucrats at the EPA.
"You don't just cure these types of things in a month or two. It takes several months or a year, and so it could easily bankrupt a city of this size," Morley told KTVB.
As Convention of States co-founder Michael Farris put it, “When laws are made by anyone other than elected legislators, it is an act of tyranny.”
A Convention of States would allow the state legislatures to propose Amendments that would shrink the size and scope of the federal government, stopping unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the EPA from terrorizing small towns like Heyburn with their crushing fines and regulations.
States understand the nuance and circumstances surrounding situations that happen in their state. They should have the power to handle these situations as they know best - not some unaccountable bureaucracy that is thousands of miles away, heaping fines upon them that will only make the situation worse.
Put an end to federal tyranny by joining the Convention of States team today.
