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November 1, 2002 AMSA Fax Alert

Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - November 1, 2002

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November 1, 2002

AMSA Recognized for 30 Years of Water Quality Achievement
This week, Thomas “Buddy” Morgan, General Manager of the Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer Board, Ala., and AMSA Vice President, accepted the Clean Water Act 30th Anniversary Award on behalf of the Association at the World Watershed Summit. This award recognized AMSA and its members for their dedication to fulfilling the objectives of the Clean Water Act (CWA) over the last 30 years. The Summit was part of America’s Clean Water Foundation’s Year of Clean Water initiative, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the CWA. The Summit took place October 31 - November 1 in Washington, DC. AMSA’s Executive Director Ken Kirk opened one of the Summit’s technical sessions, The Realities of Restoring Urbanized Streams, highlighting the progress in wastewater treatment achieved since the CWA’s enactment in 1972. Kirk also underscored the need for a federal recommitment to a long-term, sustainable funding source to upgrade municipal treatment plants and collection pipes in order to ensure further clean water progress.


AMSA Supports Concept of Water Industry Sector in EPA
AMSA was briefed this week by officials from EPA’s Office of Policy, Economics & Innovation (OPEI) on the merits of creating a new sector within the Agency’s Industry Sector Performance Program, either for POTWs alone or for a joint drinking water utility and POTW industry sector. AMSA is giving initial support to the Agency initiative because the creation of an industry sector covering wastewater issues would establish an internal Agency ombudsman to help reduce regulatory barriers within EPA. If established, EPA’s role would include advocating POTW-proposed options for advancing complex issues, including infrastructure funding, security, urban wet weather watershed issues, and pretreatment streamlining. EPA is looking to create eight to ten new industry sectors and will ultimately recommend to OPEI’s Associate Administrator Thomas Gibson a short list of favored sectors for his review. The final list of candidates selected by OPEI will then be forwarded to EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman for official designation. AMSA will keep members fully informed of developments on this issue as they occur.


Blending, Sewer Overflow Lawsuit Heats Up
EPA filed an October 25 motion seeking to dismiss from federal district court AMSA and other municipal associations’ challenge to several EPA regions' prohibitions on blending, the permitting of collection system emergency outfalls, and declarations that secondary treatment is the standard for sanitary sewer overflows. EPA's motion to dismiss the suit asserts that the challenged regional approaches do not constitute final Agency action ripe for judicial review. EPA also claims the federal appeals courts, not the district courts, have jurisdiction over challenges to the Agency’s rulemakings regarding permit effluent limitations. AMSA will oppose EPA's motion to dismiss the case by a November 27 deadline. AMSA's opposition will highlight that regional decisions are having immediate impact on municipal wastewater treatment agencies; that a blending prohibition could cost cities' billions of dollars in wet weather capacity construction; and that holding collection systems to the secondary treatment standard designed for the treatment plant creates an unachievable technology based standard. AMSA continues to work on resolving these wet weather issues with EPA's regulatory officials, and Association staff also met this week with congressional staff on the blending issue to inform them of the wastewater treatment community’s concerns.