It's full steam ahead without the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Citizens for Affordable Sewer Rates, a grassroots group concerned that the new standard for cleaning up the Spokane River will double or triple sewer rates and cause a building moratorium in Kootenai County, has decided to proceed with a meeting on the wastewater discharge permit process even though the EPA opted out Friday.

The meeting will be on Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 5 p.m. at the Post Falls Senior Center, 1215 E. Third Ave. The public is invited.

The EPA expects to release draft wastewater discharge permits for public comment in spring 2012 for the cities of Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene and the Hayden Area Sewer Board.

And the citizen group, referring to the agencies' studies on the implications of reaching a standard that would be among the most stringent in the country, is bracing for a financial blow.

Craig Wilcox, a local businessman who leads the group, said the issue is too important to let the fire go out.

"Though this form of public engagement is not what we had hoped, we have decided to hold the public meeting regardless of their attendance," he wrote. "For the public to be involved in the permit writing process in a meaningful way, we must organize and move together.

The meeting will be focused on a common direction we can all participate in."

Wilcox said the group does not oppose cleaning up the river; it just fears the standard will be unattainable and unreasonable.

"We support the consistent improvement and cleanliness of our waterways," he wrote. "We simply argue that the permits being issued fall outside of the Clean Water Act. Our meeting will attempt to demonstrate why and what we as the public can do about it."

EPA officials say the permits won't cause as much of a financial hardship as the group believes and the cleanup standard it will seek has been done in other areas.

They said they have heard the local concerns and will draft the permits with those in mind.

Mark MacIntyre, EPA spokesman, said when the agency learned the meeting was taking on a larger format than a small, informal gathering of two committees of the Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls chambers of commerce it decided to opt out since the draft discharge permits haven't been proposed for public review.

The cleanup plans have been in the works for 13 years and, with dischargers downstream and Washington also involved, the process has been murky and contentious.

Idaho dischargers last year filed a lawsuit alleging the EPA violated the Clean Water Act by approving the plan developed by Washington Ecology. The lawsuit has been stayed while the Idaho permits are being drafted.

Some permits have been issued in Washington; others are outstanding.

The cleanup plan seeks to reduce phosphorous, which leads to algae growth and the depletion of oxygen from water that fish need to live.

Idaho dischargers have been testing new technologies for several years and implementing costly plant upgrades.