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May 23, 2002 AMSA Fax Alert

Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - May 23, 2002

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May 23, 2002

Whitman and Watersheds Highlight AMSA’s 2002 Policy Forum
AMSA’s 2002 National Environmental Policy Forum & 32nd Annual MeetingThe 30th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act . . . Looking to the Future, provided a detailed look into EPA and Congress’s clean water initiatives. One of the highlights of the Forum was EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman’s keynote address on Tuesday, in which she called water quality the primary environmental challenge of the 21st century, and described AMSA and its members as “critical partners for the mission” of ensuring clean and safe water in America. Whitman outlined the many water challenges we face, pointing to a water and wastewater funding shortfall that “could be as much as $1 trillion,” and calling nonpoint source pollution our “main challenge.” Whitman, and other EPA staff at the AMSA conference, touted watershed planning as the most effective solution to solving the many clean water challenges POTWs face — an approach that could drastically alter many core EPA programs from permitting to total maximum daily loads, among others. Whitman also thanked AMSA for its input into EPA’s voluntary effluent credit trading proposals, and discussed the development of an agency-wide homeland security plan being developed by EPA that would include proposals to further secure wastewater treatment utilities.

The AMSA Policy Forum also witnessed the election of the Association’s new President, Paul Pinault, Executive Director of the Narragansett Bay Commission, Rhode Island. As his first official act, Pinault announced the formation of a Wastewater Infrastructure Funding Task Force, which will wrestle with the numerous challenges associated with the creation of a trust-fund to ensure a sustainable monetary source for the nation’s critical clean water infrastructure. AMSA congratulates Paul Pinault, and also thanks Gurnie Gunter, Direct of Kansas City’s Water Services Department for his dedicated service as AMSA’s President during 2001-2002. AMSA thanks all its members who made the trip to DC for making the Policy Forum such a success. The Association looks forward to seeing all of you at our Summer Conference, Controlling Wet Weather Overflows . . . Challenges and Solutions, July 16-19 in Portland, Ore. More detailed information on the Forum and the upcoming Summer Conference will be available in the next Clean Water News, and in future Updates and Alerts. We encourage you to make your hotel reservations now by calling the Hilton Portland at 513/226-1611. The hotel cut-off for AMSA’s discount rate of $159 per night is June 14.

 
AMSA Meets with OMB Officials, Explains Position on SSOs
Lisa Hollander, Vice Chair of AMSA's Wet Weather Issues Committee and Assistant General Counsel, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District and AMSA staff met with officials at the Office of Management & Budget to discuss the path forward on the proposed sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) rule, a subject that was intensely explored at AMSA’s Policy Forum this week. The meeting with OMB provided a rare opportunity to discuss the fate of this key pending rule with high ranking decision-makers who guard the gates for all EPA regulations by making critical cost-benefit analyses that determine the rule’s viability. OMB was particularly interested in AMSA-supported alternatives to the current draft rule language, and AMSA’s emphasis on establishing a rule with a control standard for SSOs based on the implementation of site-specific capacity, management, operation and maintenance (CMOM) plans. AMSA will continue to keep in close contact with EPA and OMB as the Agency continues developing its SSO proposed rule.