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September 26, 1997
AMSA Urges Funding for Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments
Appropriations legislation will go to conference early next week for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, the Judiciary & Related Agencies. The legislation includes $1 million to fund section 6217 of the 1990 Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments (CZARA) and $3 million to fund research on Pfiesteria piscicida, the microbe associated with nonpoint source pollution responsible for fish kills and health concerns in the coastal rivers of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.
AMSA played a role in ensuring funding for CZARA, sending a letter earlier this week to Representatives on the House Appropriations Committee urging their support of an amendment to fund the CZARA program at $2.5 million in 1998. AMSA noted that CZARA offers the only national program that reduces nonpoint source pollution through better government coordination and, when voluntary measures are ineffective, by providing states with backup authority to require additional actions to control polluted runoff. The legislation should be completed by October 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.
AMSA Leaders Convene in Washington, DC
AMSA leadership will convene in Washington, D.C. early next week for their fall leadership meetings and meetings of AMSA board of directors and board committees. On Monday, AMSA leadership with meet with officials from the EPA Office of Reinvention and the Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance. Also scheduled is a wide-ranging informal discussion with representatives from five environmental organizations: the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Trout Unlimited, Clean Water Action, and American Rivers. On Tuesday, AMSA leadership will meet with officials from the EPA Office of Water to discuss a number of critical initiatives currently underway at the Agency
AMSA Across the Nation:AMSA CSO Permit Negotiation Workshop A Success
AMSA's one-and-a-half-day CSO Permit Negotiation workshop in Cincinnati was a huge success. Over 125 POTW representatives were assisted with the negotiation of CSO permits.AMSA Represented at U.S. Conference of Mayors Urban Water Summit
Ken Kirk, executive director of AMSA, was in New Orleans at a two-day summit where our nation's mayors, along with their water directors, identified and prioritized key urban water issues. Their suggestions for addressing theses issues will assist the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Urban Water Council in developing national priority issues and strategies to accomplish the goals of cities through the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act and reauthorization of the Clean Water Act.Odeal Represents AMSA at Rebuild America Coalition Leadership Summit
Erwin J. Odeal, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District and former AMSA president, represented the Association at the Rebuild America Coalition's leadership summit in Houston. The summit brought together the organization's leadership to make suggestions about its focus and direction and to discuss the nation's infrastructure. A joint AMSA/WEF statement focusing on water and wastewater infrastructure was distributed to the assembled leaders.