Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - April 23, 2004
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April 23, 2004
AMSA’s Clean Water
Advocacy Efforts Kick into High Gear for Earth Day
With the focus on environmental issues that accompanies the April 22 celebration of Earth Day, AMSA took a leadership role in making Congress and the media aware of the need for a federal recommitment to clean water issues. AMSA successfully obtained the endorsement of 29 national organizations, including municipal, state, drinking water, wastewater, labor and environmental groups, for a full-page ad (http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/advocacy/co/2004earthdayad.pdf) in Congress’s Roll Call newspaper’s special Earth Day issue. The ad calls on the congressional budget conferees to support the Senate Budget Resolution that would increase the budget authority for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) to $3 billion, from its current funding level of $1.35 billion. The conferees began meeting on the budget resolution on April 19 and is expected to be finalized by the end of April. AMSA urges its members to contact their Senators and Representatives and seek their support for the increased SRF authorization level.AMSA also sent an editorial (http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/042204Edit.cfm) to over a dozen major news outlets regarding the need for a federal recommitment to clean water funding. The editorial emphasized that the voice of municipal public servants, who work to improve the nation’s water quality each day, often goes unheard. The editorial stated that the municipal public servants are the nation’s true environmentalists and their expertise and perspective should be integral in setting clean water policy not only on Earth Day, but every day. AMSA encourages its members to contact the media about the growing need for a federal commitment to clean water funding.
AMSA, CSO Partnership
Co-Sponsor Workshop on Combined Sewer Overflows
AMSA and the CSO Partnership co-sponsored a workshop this week on combined sewer overflow (CSO) issues in Chicago, Ill. The workshop was very well attended and was scheduled to coincide with the tenth anniversary of EPA’s CSO Control Policy. Key EPA officials provided attendees with updates on the Agency’s wet weather initiatives, with Walker Smith, Director of Regulatory Enforcement at EPA, reiterating that wet weather issues will remain EPA’s top enforcement priority for fiscal years 2005-2007. Jim Hanlon, Director of EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management, noted that in the coming weeks the Agency will release a memo clarifying language in the Wet Weather Water Quality Act of 2000 that states that all CSO permits "shall conform to" the CSO Control Policy. AMSA will provide members with this memo and an accompanying Regulatory Alert once the memo is released.AMSA Releases New
Emergency Response Module for Water Utilities
AMSA has released a new software module, Vulnerability Self Assessment Tool (VSAT™) 3.0, to help water utilities create, update, and/or revise their Emergency Response Plans (ERPs). The ERP module offers an enhancement to the both the Water and Water/Wastewater versions of the VSAT™ software. The release of this new tool will support medium and small water utilities in meeting the ERP update/preparation deadlines contained in the 2002 Bioterrorism Act. VSAT™ 3.0 requires the VSAT™ vulnerability software for downloading of the new ERP module, but utilities need not have previously conducted a vulnerability assessment to do the ERP. Plans are currently underway for a similar ERP module for wastewater utilities. AMSA is collaborating with the Water Environment Research Foundation to make this new module available to the users of VSATwastewater™. Visit www.VSATusers.net to download VSAT™ 3.0 or to order the VSAT™ software free of charge.
- The General Accounting Office (GAO) released its Asset Management report (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04461.pdf) this week. The report supports a more comprehensive use of asset management plans by municipal drinking water and wastewater utilities and calls for an increased role for the federal government in implementing these techniques.