Attachment E
Water Quality Committee
Norm LeBlanc, Chair
Peter Ruffier, Vice-Chair
Mark Hoeke, Lead Staff
Report to the Board of Directors
July 1998
The following report sets forth issues and activities anticipated to be addressed through the Water Quality Committee over the next year:
- Work cooperatively with EPA's Office of Water in the development of a whole effluent toxicity (WET) implementation strategy to address how these requirements will be addressed in NPDES permits.
- Provide member agency resources to validate WET method blank study results as part of a related WET settlement agreement.
- Sponsor a WET training workshop for wastewater treatment personnel in cooperation with the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC).
- Coordinate AMSA review effort for Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for revisions to EPA's 1983 water quality standards regulation and work cooperatively with EPA's Office of Water to integrate watershed management tools during the revision process.
- Provide technical reviews and analyses of proposed revisions to total maximum daily load (TMDL) regulations and accompanying guidance.
- Coordinate with the Regulatory Policy Committee's Mercury Working Group to provide technical review and analyses of proposed revisions to mercury analytical methods and human health criteria methodologies
- Assist in reviewing Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act reauthorizations, and other legislative proposals affecting water quality standards and criteria issues.
- Assist in reviewing EPA streamlining initiatives addressing analytical methods, water quality standards, sediment quality, criteria document development, and related issues.
- Work closely with EPA to address issues related to the reevaluation of chemical criteria and the development of appropriate permit limits for discharge of metals.
- Review development of Endangered Species Act issues related to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) consultation requirements on proposed EPA actions.
- Actively represent AMSA interests in water quality information advisory councils, including the Advisory Council for Water Information, and the National Water Quality Monitoring Council.
- Actively represent AMSA interests in EPA's development of a strategy to implement a criteria system for nitrogen and phosphorus runoff for lakes, rivers, and estuaries by the year 2000.
- Actively represent AMSA interests in EPA's ongoing refinements to the Index of Watershed Indicators through expert panel discussions.
- Work cooperatively with EPA in reviewing and implementing a strategy to improve the nation's Water Quality Criteria and Standards program.