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May 18, 2001

AMSA Welcomes Members to Annual Conference
AMSA is pleased to welcome its members and all participants to Washington, DC for its 2001 National Policy Forum & 31st Annual Meeting, May 19-23. With the forum’s attendance well up from last year, this conference offers a unique and exciting opportunity to hear from a stellar roster of EPA, congressional, legal and municipal perspectives. AMSA also urges all participants to set up Capitol Hill visits with their delegates or their staff for the afternoon of May 22nd. AMSA’s members provide the local and human faces to our priority issues, and with these visits our efforts on water infrastructure funding, wet weather and biosolids issues become infinitely more likely to succeed. AMSA’s on-site staff at the conference will answer any further questions you may have!

AMSA Sends CSO Member Survey to EPA
AMSA today submitted responses to a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) survey it conducted for EPA’s review as the Agency prepares a Report to Congress required under the Wet Weather Water Quality Act of 2000. The Act directs EPA to report to Congress by September 1, 2001 on the progress made in federal and local CSO control policy. The Agency’s report is expected to provide a comprehensive assessment of CSO implementation and to raise Congressional awareness of CSO-related wastewater infrastructure needs. AMSA received an excellent response from its members, with more than 50% of AMSA’s CSO members responding. The CSO survey revealed that despite multi-billion dollar investment in CSO controls and an average reduction in CSOs of approximately 34 percent, members still face challenges meeting Water Quality Standards (WQS), due to other pollution sources. AMSA is preparing a summary of the CSO survey responses for distribution to its members in June.

Science Board Approves Dioxin Reassessment Report
AMSA was present in a May 15 meeting of EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) Executive Committee that officially endorsed an SAB subcommittee report responding to questions posed by EPA for its dioxin health assessment report. The Executive Committee made very few changes to the subcommittee report, making it likely that SAB will adopt the conclusion that there is no consensus on whether dioxin is a carcinogen in its report to EPA. The SAB told EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman that it hopes to have its dioxin report completed by June 1. At that point, EPA will begin the process of revising its dioxin assessment. More information on the dioxin report can be found at http://www.epa.gov/sab/diox501d.pdf.

AMSA Voices Concern Over Clean Water Research Cuts
AMSA participated this week as a member of a federal advisory committee on water quality information use and expressed a number of concerns, some of which focused on cuts in the Fiscal Year 2002 budget to the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) clean water research program. The Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI) met May 15-16 with representatives of EPA, DOI, USGS and other agencies. AMSA specifically voiced that a proposed $20 million cut to USGS’ National Water Quality Assessment Program could jeopardize effective resource management and accurate identification of water quality priorities. During the meeting, AMSA’s views also were incorporated in the final version of a resolution adopting the revised Data Elements for Reporting Water Quality Results of Chemical and Microbiological Analytes. Additional information on ACWI can be found at http://water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/.