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April 9, 2004 AMSA Fax Alert

Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - April 9, 2004

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April 9, 2004

AMSA Urges Members to Support Increased Funding for the SRFs
The House-Senate Conference Committee will resume negotiations on the Fiscal 2005 Budget Resolution on April 19, with an agreement expected by the end of the month. Among the various items up for debate is the Senate Resolution provision that would increase the authorized funding level for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) to $3.2 billion and the Drinking Water SRF to $2 billion – a total increase of $3 billion over the fiscal year 2004 enacted levels. The Senate unanimously adopted this AMSA-supported amendment at the end of March. The House, however, did not authorize a similar increase, making the conference discussions critical. As the conferees prepare to meet later this month, AMSA strongly encourages its members to send letters to the conferees and to forward these letters to your Representatives and Senators’ district offices in support of the $5.2 billion authorization. To assist members in this effort, the Association this week sent out Legislative Alert 01-04 (http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/legalrts/la04-1.cfm), containing a sample letter, which can be accessed on AMSA’s homepage by clicking on the Write Congress Now icon, along with a list of the conferees. AMSA requests that members forward a copy of their letters to Lee Garrigan, AMSA’s Director of Legislative Affairs, by fax (202/833-4657) or email (lgarrigan@amsa-cleanwater.org).

EPA’s Risk Management
Program Rule Signed, AMSA Comments Reflected

EPA finalized a rule this week that amends the Agency’s risk management program (RMP) submittal requirements for chemical facilities, including publicly owned treatment works (POTWs), covered under Clean Air Act Section 112(r). AMSA submitted comments (http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/2003-09-15RMPCmts.pdf) to EPA in September 2003, and revisions incorporated into the final rule reflect the Association’s suggestions. The final rule does not require wastewater utilities to resubmit a complete RMP within six months of a reportable accident for wastewater utilities, as was initially proposed by EPA. Instead, in line with AMSA’s comments, a much more limited update of Chapter 6 of the RMP with the appropriate accident information must be filed within the six month period. Other revisions to the rule also reflect AMSA’s comments, including the decision to remove the offsite consequence analysis summary from the RMP executive summary, which will help ensure plant security. EPA believes that the new revisions will save staff time, reduce administrative burden, and increase plant security. The final rule will be made available soon at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/index.html. AMSA will distribute a more detailed Regulatory Alert on this final rule to Association members early next week.

EPA Proposes New,
Less Costly Method to Detect Mercury in Wastewater

In line with AMSA input to EPA over the past several years, the Agency has completed its validation work and is proposing to approve Method 245.7 for the analysis of mercury in wastewater (http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WATER/2004/April/Day-06/w6427.htm). If approved, Method 245.7 will provide POTWs with a cost-effective alternative for monitoring mercury in their influent and effluent. Currently, POTWs are encouraged to use Method 1631 for mercury detection, which is very costly as it involves ultra-clean sampling techniques and a gold trap – not required under Method 245.7. Utilities will be able to achieve similar detection levels at a fraction of the cost with the new proposed method. The Association originally requested that EPA validate and approve Method 245.7 in July 1998, but learned in early 2000 that due to budget cuts there would be no further efforts to validate the method. In light of EPA’s 2000 decision, AMSA sent the Agency a petition (http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/3-3-00PettitiontoEPA.pdf) that same year that urged EPA to conduct a formal rulemaking process to validate and approve this new method. AMSA’s Mercury Workgroup’s six years of advocacy on this issue has yielded this key proposal. AMSA will solicit comments on the proposed approval of Method 245.7, and several other analytical method changes contained in the April 6 notice, via Regulatory Alert next week.