Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - June 27, 2003
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June 27, 2003
AMSA Continues Push on Blending Amidst High-Level EPA Resignations
Despite the announcement this week that EPA Deputy Administrator Linda Fisher will be resigning July 11 and Christine Todd Whitman’s departure from EPA effective today (see FaxAlert 06/20/03), AMSA continues to work closely with members of Congress and EPA officials to ensure a policy that allows for blending of peak wet weather flows. Although Fisher and Whitman’s departures will leave a significant leadership vacuum at the Agency for the time-being, AMSA remains optimistic that its recent meetings with key EPA officials, including a representative from Fisher’s office, will ensure that the concerns of the treatment works community will be taken into full account as EPA continues its discussions on a national blending guidance. AMSA has also learned that a coalition of activist organizations wrote to Fisher this month urging EPA to adopt a “no feasible alternative” standard for publicly owned treatment works that blend — a position that AMSA has consistently explained as environmentally, economically and legally unsound. AMSA urges its public agency members that blend to continue to contact their EPA Headquarters and Regional officials to explain the need for a sound national guidance that allows for blending and to counter the activist position. The activists’ letter to Fisher is available on AMSA’s website at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/faxalerts/062703a.pdf.AMSA Participates in EPA Meeting on CSO/SSO Report to Congress
AMSA, along with over 100 stakeholders, participated in an EPA meeting on June 24-25, in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Agency’s upcoming 2003 Report to Congress on the impacts of combined and sanitary sewer overflows (CSOs and SSOs). The Agency made presentations on several topics, including the potential nexus between overflows and environmental as well as human health impacts, overflow control technologies and the link between the infrastructure funding shortfall and overflow control expenses. Each of these topics will comprise a chapter of EPA’s final report. EPA also acknowledged that it needs to do more to put CSOs and SSOs into the context of the broader wet weather picture, which includes stormwater/urban runoff, agricultural/nonpoint runoff, while also examining the relative impacts of dry versus wet weather overflows. A similar meeting will be held on July 8 in Huntington Beach, Calif., and AMSA members will attend. AMSA is also moving forward with a Technical Action Fund project to evaluate levels of pathogens in wet weather flows and to attempt to characterize the potential associated risk for waterborne illness. AMSA’s Wet Weather Issues Committee will meet during the Association’s upcoming summer conference to discuss these stakeholder meetings in detail. EPA hopes to complete a draft of the report for consideration by the White House's Office of Management and Budget by August 29. Copies of EPA presentations from the meeting are available on AMSA’s website at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/faxalerts/0624-2503pm.cfm.Hurry and Pre-Register for AMSA’s 2003 July Conference!
The advance registration deadline for AMSA's July 15-18 summer conference in Boston, Mass., Water Quality and the Wastewater Community: Emerging Pollutants, New Challenges, is Thursday, July 3. With the July 4 holiday on its way, the deadline will be fast upon us, so please register as soon as possible! Also include in your registration your plans to attend the July Conference’s "special events" – AMSA’s annual golf tournament at Pinehills Golf Club, or a guided tour of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Facility. For more conference information, see AMSA's homepage at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org. Please note that the National Office is available to assist with hotel reservations. AMSA members who booked hotel rooms, but may no longer need them, are asked to call Nirah Forman at 202/833-8418 prior to canceling your room reservations, so that other AMSA members without rooms may be accommodated.