Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - March 04, 2005
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March 04, 2005
AMSA Participates in WET Listening Session, Begins Comment Effort
This week, AMSA participated in the first of two listening sessions on EPA's draft Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) Implementation Guidance. EPA has scheduled two sessions to give stakeholders an opportunity to provide limited oral remarks in advance of the extended March 31 written comment deadline. James Pletl, Environmental Scientist with the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, Virginia Beach, Va., presented AMSA's statement at the session in Washington, DC. The Association focused its remarks on several unresolved technical issues on which AMSA has sought guidance for over a decade. In its statement, AMSA emphasized the need to ensure that the guidance was sufficiently flexible to allow for different approaches at the state level. The Association's statement will be available on its website early next week. AMSA continues to work on its written comments which will include key method and enforcement issues as they relate to implementation of the WET program nationally and will highlight where the draft guidance needs to provide additional flexibility. The second listening session will take place on March 17 in San Francisco, Calif. The deadline to register for this session is March 10. Refer to Regulatory Alert 05-02 (http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/ private/regalerts/ra05-02.cfm) for additional information.GAO Releases Report on Security Improvements at Wastewater Treatment Plants
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its report Wastewater Facilities, Experts' Views on How Federal Funds Should be Spent to Improve Security (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05165.pdf) this week. The report recommends priorities as to how the federal government should spend its resources in the wastewater treatment security arena. The report concludes that collection systems are among the most vulnerable physical components of wastewater utilities and identifies several areas which require federal financial support. These include replacing gaseous chemicals with less harmful alternatives; improving state, local and regional collaboration; and completing vulnerability assessments for individual wastewater systems. The report also identifies more training opportunities for wastewater utility operators, hardening facilities against attack, and increasing research and development to improve detection, assessment and response as priorities. The report's findings benefited from the experience and expertise of AMSA members and staff who served on an expert panel. It is currently under review by AMSA's Security & Emergency Preparedness Committee.National Survey Shows Overwhelming Public Support for Clean Water Funding
The Luntz Research Companies and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, Inc. released, this week, a national survey on the public's support for clean and safe water. The results of the survey, which was commissioned through AMSA's Clean Water Funding Task Force, show overwhelming support for long-term federal funding of the nation's clean water infrastructure. The survey found that 86% of the public support legislation by the U.S. Congress that would create a long-term, sustainable and reliable trust fund for clean and safe water infrastructure. A memo (http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/reg_outreach.cfm) describing the survey's findings has been forwarded to all environmental legislative assistants and press directors on the Capitol Hill, as well as to over 700 media outlets. In the survey press memo, Luntz stated that this issue is "very personal to voters because of the importance of clean and safe water to their daily lives. This is not a local issue because Americans understand that water has no local boundaries. This is one of those areas where Americans demand that Washington take responsibility." Representatives of AMSA's Task Force and Frank Luntz also met this week with Representative John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), Chairman of the House Water Resources & Environment Subcommittee, to go over results of the survey in greater detail. The conversation was positive and the potential for a future hearing regarding federal funding and the trust fund concept will be explored.