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July 9, 1999
AMSA Plans for Active Involvement in Air Toxics Strategy
AMSA is preparing to engage the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air & Radiation (OAR) in discussions following the listing of publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) as a source category under the Integrated Urban Air Toxics Strategy. The Strategy combines and coordinates several Clean Air Act authorities designed to reduce hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in urban areas. Although initial indications from OAR were that POTWs would be withdrawn from the list of source categories in the proposed Strategy, EPA has apparently decided to include POTWs.“The Strategy by itself doesn't automatically result in regulation or control of emissions,” the document points out. “EPA will perform further analyses of HAP emissions, control methods and health impacts, as appropriate, for stationary and mobile sources,” and “these analyses will inform any ultimate regulatory requirements that EPA develops under the strategy,” the Strategy says. Later this year EPA will begin stakeholder discussions on implementing the strategy with states, tribes and local governments. EPA also indicates that “over the next year, we [the Agency] plan to meet with other regulatory partners including . . .city mayors to help shape the coordination process.”
AMSA, with the guidance and support of the Association's leadership and the Air Quality Committee, will seek to be involved early and actively in the stakeholder process to ensure that POTWs' interests are represented and that EPA's analyses and decision making with regard to potential new Clean Air Act regulations are based upon accurate data and scientifically defensible methodologies.
AMSA Briefs Water Office Chief on Municipal SSO Concerns
Late this afternoon, AMSA met with EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Chuck Fox to share the Association's concerns over the recent direction the Agency has taken with respect to several critical sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) regulatory issues. The purpose of the meeting is to make the Agency aware of these concerns prior to a SSO Federal Advisory Committee (FACA) meeting later this month and to allow for substantive input into the FACA process.The concerns stem largely from process issues arising out of the two-and-a-half-year lapse since the last SSO FACA meeting and from recently released EPA SSO issue papers that lay out the Agency's proposed regulatory approach to SSOs. Over two years ago EPA suspended SSO FACA meetings to give the Agency time to work out differences among its program offices and EPA Regions. Since the two-year lapse, however, municipal entities involved in the FACA, who met last week in Washington, DC, have noted significant shifts in EPA's approach to SSOs. There are significant concerns with the regulatory language in EPA's set of five issue papers. For instance, it is unclear whether language on the capacity, management, operations and maintenance of systems is intended as guidance or regulations. The definition of an SSO also remains unclear.
Municipal interests have also noted that process issues having to do with the time-lag between meetings may affect the outcome or the quality of the FACA's recommendations. After the two-year suspension in FACA meetings AMSA is concerned that one final FACA meeting will not allow substantive input and analysis of complex SSO issues. AMSA members will be kept apprised of new developments in this arena as they occur.