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To:

Members & Affiliates
Wet Weather Issues Committee

From:

National Office

Date:

June 3, 1999

Subject:

Urban Wet Weather Priorities Act of 1999

Reference:

LA 99-10

Action Please By: June 14, 1999

Attached, please find the final version of the Urban Wet Weather Priorities Act of 1999, legislation designed to reform the Clean Water Act to improve urban wet weather control programs to establish renewed grant fuding for municipalities. A companion summary of the bill is also attached for your use in understanding the different provisions in the bill and for informing others of the effort. AMSA took the lead in developing this bill with a number of municipal partners including the National League of Cities, the National Association of Flood & Stormwater Management Agencies, the National Association of Countries, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the American Public Works Association, and the Water Environment Federation.

AMSA has begun an aggressive campaign to win Congressional support and sponsorship for the bill. In the next few weeks, the National Office will be working to secure bipartisan support for, and sponsorship of, the Wet Weather Priorities Act of 1999. Last week during AMSA's National Environmental Policy Forum, many of the Association's members visited personally with their Congressional delegations to rally support for the bill. Thanks to this effort, the National Office now has several Members of Congress interested in sponsoring this bill.

How Can You Help?
AMSA has learned that it is highly likely that the Urban Wet Weather Priorities Act of 1999 will be featured in a hearing before the House Water Resources & Environment Subcommittee in late June. Should the hearing occur AMSA will be invited to provide testimony on the ways this bill will benefit municipalities. In order to make this testimony as effective as possible, we would like to provide Congress with as many site-specific examples as possible on the types challenges facing your agency on wet weather discharges an on how this legislation would help. Please take a minute to complete the attached questionnaire and Fax it to AMSA no later than Monday, June 14. We will submit this anecdotal information with our testimony.

How This Bill Differs From the Earlier Bill
The Urban Wet Weather Priorities Act of 1999 would represent a major step towards establishing national consistency and flexibility in municipal wet weather regulatory programs. Because the current political climate favors narrower environmental reform efforts, the partner groups decided to support the more targeted wet weather bill.

The proposed legislation retains the same core priorities of the earlier draft bill (the Wet Weather Watershed Act of 1999): 1) codification of the National CSO Control Policy of 1994; 2) development of a national program for sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs); 3) clarification of the Clean Water Act to prohibit numerical water quality standards for municipal stormwater permits; and, 4) establishment of a new wet weather grants program, however, provisions on total maximum daily loads and wet weather program unification have been removed. A new section has been added which requires EPA to conduct demonstration projects on the use of watershed management for urban wet weather management.

Thank you for you continuing efforts in support of this legislation and POTWs nationwide. We will keep you appraised of new developments as they occur.

ATTACHMENT:

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