1999 AMSA Accomplishments
AMSA developed comprehensive comments on EPA's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for revising national water quality standards regulations and stressed the need for watershed-based approaches, non-point source controls and refined designated uses.
AMSA gathered important mercury data that convinced EPA of potential compliance issues for POTWs arising from the promulgation of a new, more sensitive mercury detection method.
AMSA engaged Capitol Hill on municipal wastewater agencies' priority issues and informed lawmakers and staff of the Association's positions on nonpoint source pollution, waste-water infrastructure funding and urban wet weather flows legislation.
AMSA published an influential “TMDL survival guide” — Evaluating TMDLs... Protecting the Rights of POTWs — for municipalities to ensure that total maximum daily loads are based on firm scientific and legal footing.
AMSA rallied congressional support for restoring funding cuts to the State Revolving Loan Fund Program.
AMSA focused national attention on wastewater infrastructure funding needs with the release of The Cost of Clean... Meeting Water Quality Challenges the New Millennium.
AMSA joined in a hard-won consensus of stakeholders on recommendations to EPA for developing national sanitary sewer overflow regulations.
AMSA convened a national dialogue — the Water Infrastructure Network — among a broad spectrum of local, state, federal, technical, professional and environmental organizations seeking increased federal funding for water and wastewater infrastructure.
AMSA testified before the House Subcommittee on Water Resources & Environment on urban wet weather flows and municipal wastewater infrastructure funding.
AMSA helped coordinate the Y2K preparedness of wastewater agencies in cooperation with EPA and the President's Y2K Council.
AMSA offered recommendations in national EPA stakeholder discussions on the implementation of water quality standards requirements in the context of long-term combined sewer overflow control plans.
AMSA intervened in a total maximum daily load lawsuit on behalf of EPA to represent municipal wastewater agencies' interests and to prevent the possible exemption of nonpoint sources from inclusion in TMDLs.
AMSA won the inclusion of provisions protecting POTWs from unwarranted exposure to liability in a bipartisan Superfund reform bill, positioning the Association favorably to ensure that the language is taken up in future Superfund reform legislation.
AMSA recognized the environmental performance of 13 member agencies with the Platinum Peak Performance Award, which the Association awards to member facilities that achieve five consecutive years of perfect compliance with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
AMSA awarded a record number of Gold Peak Performance Awards to 163 member agency facilities, recognizing a full calendar year of perfect compliance with their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
AMSA unanimously adopted — during its National Policy Forum & 29th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC — a resolution that called on Congress to fully support the State Revolving Loan Fund, increase water infrastructure funding, establish a wet weather grants program and begin addressing nonpoint source pollution through a comprehensive national approach comprised of federal funding, monitoring and enforcement.
AMSA facilitated the submission of hundreds of comments from POTWs across the country on EPA's pretreatment streamlining proposal, encouraging the agency to allow greater flexibility on issues such as significant noncompliance determinations, pH levels and sampling for pollutants not present.
AMSA welcomed 36 new members to the Association — 30 municipal agencies and six new affiliate members — while adding a public agency in West Virginia, which increased the number of states with AMSA members to 42.
AMSA responded to a call from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and EPA for volunteers with drinking water and wastewater treatment expertise to aid in the cleanup of flooded sections of North Carolina in the aftermath of a tropical storm and hurricane Floyd.
AMSA served as a key partner with EPA and the Water Environment Federation in the National Biosolids Partnership as it continues its efforts to develop, pilot and widely implement an Environmental Management System for biosolids that goes beyond federal requirements.
AMSA opposed EPA's proposed ban on mixing zones in the Great Lakes on the grounds that the prohibition would obstruct municipal agencies' efforts to fund other priorities such as addressing urban wet weather flows and upgrading treatment plants.
AMSA brought together all sides of the clean water debate during its 1999 Summer Conference in Philadelphia, Unifying Urban Wet Weather Programs.
AMSA launched the development of an alternative, more workable and less costly approach to EPA's national nutrient strategy which seeks to promulgate national numeric water quality standards for nutrients by 2003.
AMSA coordinated a series of Onsite Thinking Getting & Staying Competitive Workshops for individual public water and wastewater agencies.
AMSA received recognition for The Cost of Clean and the Association's competitive management initiatives — the AMSA/AMWA Resource Guide and the AMSA/AMWA On-Site Thinking Getting and Staying Competitive Workshops — from the American Society of Association Executives' Associations Advance America Awards Program.
AMSA participated in successful strategic alliances with several of its municipal and clean water partners to address important issues such as water infrastructure funding, utility leadership and urban wet weather legislation as well as to provide useful tools for POTWs including on-site competitiveness workshops and develop an online water quality database.
AMSA filed a persuasive amicus brief in support of several Arizona municipalities to prevent the unnecessary inclusion of numeric and whole effluent toxicity-based limits in municipal stormwater permits.
AMSA developed another in its long line of useful, innovative competitive management handbooks — Creating High Performance Business Services — which presents a five-step process for enhancing the competitiveness of the business services that municipal wastewater agencies rely upon to serve their communities.
AMSA co-hosted the 10th annual AMSA/EPA Pretreatment Coordinators Workshop, which provided local, state and federal pretreatment officials with the latest information on regulatory and technical trends and developments.
AMSA factored decisively in EPA's decision to withdraw its proposed industrial laundries effluent guidelines by supplying data that confirmed that industrial laundry discharges do not interfere with the treatment processes of POTWs.
AMSA tackled pressing legal issues impacting drinking water and wastewater agencies during the 1999 AMSA/ AMWA Legal Affairs Seminar Developments in Water & Wastewater Law.
AMSA explored enhancements to the public procurement process in a dialogue with the Water & Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association.
AMSA co-hosted a whole effluent toxicity training course for POTWs with the Society of Environmental Toxicologists and Chemists to assist POTWs in implementing the controversial and highly technical EPA program.
AMSA purchased and moved into its new offices located at 1816 Jefferson Place, NW, Washington, DC, where the Association has already hosted important meetings of AMSA member agency representatives and partner organizations.