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Friday January 10, 1997

AMSA Monitors SDWA Source Water Protection Efforts
AMSA representatives this week attended a Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) stakeholder meeting designed to assist the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the development of the statute's new source water protection provisions. The Association is participating in the effort to ensure that the new SDWA provisions account for watershed management efforts conducted under the Clean Water Act, and because publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) will undoubtedly be drawn into the source water protection planning at the local level. Also, approximately 30 percent of AMSA's membership is comprised of agencies which handle the duel role of wastewater treatment and drinking water supply.

EPA held the two-day meeting to garner input from stakeholders on the scope and content of guidance it is developing to help states implement the source water protection provisions that were contained in the recently reauthorized SDWA. The revised SDWA for the first time requires states to conduct source water assessments that define areas that provide water used by public drinking water systems and identify water quality threats in those areas. The law also allows water systems, governments or other political entities to petition a state to form a partnership of stakeholders who would be charged with controlling contamination and developing long-term strategies for water quality protection. EPA must provide guidance to the states by this summer, according to the new law.

Stakeholders at the meeting included representatives of water utilities, municipalities, state regulatory agencies, local governments, environmental and public citizen organizations, and agricultural groups. AMSA was represented by Ken Kirk, the Association's executive director, and Howard Neukrug, director of planning and technical services for the City of Philadelphia Water Department.

During the meeting many stakeholders called on EPA to ensure that the guidance relies on a voluntary approach to source water protection, and includes strong incentives to ensure maximum participation from those involved. Environmental stakeholders, however, called on the agency to use as many tools as possible to ensure that states undertake the assessments and implement source water protection programs. EPA officials, for their part, emphasized that local governments and water suppliers will have access to SDWA state revolving loan funding to assist them with implementing source water protection planning. The agency officials also suggested that their source water protection activities would be integrated with other efforts to protect watersheds.

Ken Kirk, speaking after the meeting, suggested that this is easier said than done, adding that AMSA would monitor the agency's development of source water protection guidance to make sure it is consistent with current CWA watershed management activities. Kirk also noted that POTWs will undoubtedly be involved in local source water protection plans, either targeted as a source of contamination, or brought in as an element of source water protection. "Either way, POTWs need to be sitting at the table," concluded Kirk.