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September 30, 2005 NACWA Fax Alert

Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - September 30, 2005

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September 30, 2005

After Decade of NACWA Advocacy
EPA Finalizes Pretreatment Streamlining Rule

EPA’s Administrator, Stephen Johnson, signed the Agency’s long-awaited Pretreatment Streamlining Rule (http://www.nacwa.org/advocacy/co/2005-09-28pretrule.pdf) this week. The rule follows years of NACWA advocacy and the efforts of the Pretreatment & Hazardous Waste Committee. A specific debt of gratitude is owed to the Chair of the Committee, Guy Aydlett, director of water quality at the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, Virginia Beach, Va. More than 1,500 clean water utilities with approved pretreatment programs will benefit from the rule through its resource-saving measures. Specifically, the new rule will reduce unnecessary administrative and financial burdens allowing industrial facilities to meet mass-based rather than concentration-based pollutant limits to conserve water; allow facilities a longer period of time to report discharges before being deemed in significant noncompliance with Clean Water Act requirements; and provide a three-tiered approach for categorizing industrial users based on their discharge flow. This tiered approach will help reduce reporting and inspection burdens significantly. The Association, however, will continue to work to further streamline the pretreatment program, as long as such changes have no adverse impact on water quality, including providing relief from unnecessarily burdensome permit requirements. The rule constitutes an important achievement for clean water agencies nationwide. The 320-page rule is currently being carefully reviewed and NACWA will provide members with a detailed summary next week via a Regulatory Alert.

NACWA, Municipal Groups Meet
with EPA on Key Water Quality Issues

NACWA, along with other municipal groups including the National League of Cities (NLC) and the Water Environment Federation (WEF), met with EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management (OWM) staff this week to discuss the Agency’s work on water quality issues affecting municipalities across the country. Topics covered in the meeting included EPA’s cleanup work after Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey, watershed permitting, and water quality trading. Jim Hanlon, director of OWM, noted that much of the Agency’s time and resources have been devoted to the response to Hurricane Katrina which has stalled work on other clean water issues. EPA, along with NACWA and other organizations, are working to institute a national response plan in the wake of such natural disasters, including the National Emergency Response Registry (NERR), a repository of services and other information to assist in the recovery. Hanlon said that the Agency had been working on the 2004 Needs Survey but told NACWA that it may need to be revised to reflect the fact that several facilities in the Gulf Coast region were significantly damaged thereby altering their previously estimated needs.

On the permitting front, EPA officials said that the number of permitted sources has increased from 50,000 ten years ago to approximately 500,000 today with no increase in resources to deal with the growing permit backlog. To address this problem, the Agency is working to improve efficiencies in the program with a greater focus on watershed and general permits and developing an electronic tool to speed up the permitting process. Agency officials also outlined their plans for a training conference on water quality trading. Hanlon said he expects the opportunities for trading to increase significantly with the adoption and implementation of numeric water quality criteria for nutrients. More information on the meeting will be available in next week’s Regulatory Update.

Make Your Plans to Attend
NACWA’s 2005 Law Seminar and Pretreatment Workshop

NACWA encourages members who plan on attending the Association’s November conferences to make their hotel reservations soon. The 2005 Developments in Clean Water Law Seminar will be held November 9-11 at the Inn at Loretto in Santa Fe, N.M. Attendees should contact the hotel at 800/727-5531 to receive the special room rate of $125 single/double by the Wednesday, October 19 deadline. The 2005 Pretreatment & Pollution Prevention Workshop will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo., November 16-18. To receive the special room rate of $125 single/double, contact the Hyatt Regency at 816/421-1234 by the Tuesday, October 25 deadline. Visit NACWA’s Conferences & Meetings webpage (http://www.nacwa.org/meetings/) for additional registration and hotel information.