Member Pipeline - Fax Alerts - August 20, 2004
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August 20, 2004
AMSA Collaborates with VAMWA on Nutrient Loading Limits In Chesapeake Bay
This week AMSA’s Board of Directors approved a recommendation by the Legal Affairs Committee leadership to join with the Virginia Association of Municipal Wastewater Agencies (VAMWA) to intervene in Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) v. Town of Onancock. In this National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit appeal, CBF alleges that new nutrient monitoring requirements in the Town's permit are insufficient, and seeks to have the Town install advanced nutrient removal technology – all before Virginia updates its nutrient water quality standards and develops nutrient total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for the Chesapeake Bay. The State plans to reopen the Town's permit once these activities are complete in 2005. The results of this case will be important to AMSA’s Virginia member agencies, and could set a precedent for public utilities across the country. AMSA will file papers in the case in the coming days. The Association is also working with VAMWA to develop comments on EPA Region III’s permitting approach for nutrients in the Chesapeake Bay. Comments on the nutrient permitting strategy are due September 15 and Region III members should forward their own comments or insights on EPA’s approach, by September 10, to Chris Hornback at chornback@amsa-cleanwater.org or 202-833-9106.AMSA Provides Recommendations to EFAB on Affordability
AMSA participated this week in a one-day workshop in San Francisco, Calif., hosted by the Environmental Financial Advisory Board (EFAB), on the issue of water and wastewater treatment utility service affordability. EFAB is a federally charted advisory committee that provides advice to EPA on "how to pay" questions for environmental protection. EFAB designed the workshop to obtain input from key stakeholders on affordability issues, which they will use as the basis for recommendations to EPA on next steps on affordability. In advance of this workshop, AMSA distributed a brief survey on affordability issues to the membership. Survey responses were used as the basis of the Association's PowerPoint presentation at the workshop and included two overarching themes: 1) many municipal clean water agencies do not believe EPA should be involved in making affordability determinations and view it as solely a local function; and 2) if EPA decides to produce further guidance on affordability, it should be through a menu of options that allow municipalities needed flexibility to account for the many site-specific factors involved in such a determination. AMSA will continue to track EFAB and EPA's work on the affordability front and thanks its members for their input on the affordability survey.AMSA Seeks to Join Effluent Guidelines Case
This week, with the support of its Pretreatment and Hazardous Waste Committee, AMSA motioned to intervene in a suit filed by activist groups in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The groups allege that EPA has failed to review its Clean Water Act (CWA) effluent limitations every five years and to evaluate whether technological advances or changed economic circumstances have made it feasible to make existing guidelines more stringent. The plaintiffs challenge EPA's failure to publish a mandatory biennial effluent guidelines plan. This case could lead to a settlement agreement governing EPA’s future effluent guidelines activities, and given AMSA's long history of leading important policy developments in the effluent guidelines program, the Association’s participation is vital.
- AMSA, a founding member of the National Biosolids Partnership (NBP), congratulates King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division in the Department of Natural Resources and Parks, Seattle, Washington, for their successful certification for its NBP biosolids Environmental Management System. See AMSA’s press release at (www.amsa-cleanwater.org/advocacy/releases. cfm#nr).