AMSA Regulatory Update June 2003

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The National Office of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) is pleased to provide you with the June 2003 Regulatory Update. This Update provides a narrative summary of relevant regulatory issues and actions current to July 3, 2003. A Regulatory Digest of activities currently tracked by AMSA can be found on the Association’s web site at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/regupdates/reg_digest.cfm. Unless another contact person is specifically listed, call or email questions to Chris Hornback, AMSA’s Regulatory Affairs Director, at 202/833-9106 or chornback@amsa-cleanwater.org.

AMSA Conferences

There is Still Time to Register for AMSA’s Summer Conference
AMSA’s Summer Conference is set for July 15-18, 2003 in Boston, Mass., at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. The theme of the conference will be Water Quality and the Wastewater Community: Emerging Pollutants and New Challenges. Issues surrounding emerging pollutants, including endocrine disruptors, and the latest on mercury, water quality trading, and total maximum daily loads as well as other water quality topics will be addressed. The conference will also examine the heightened focus that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the States are now placing on existing pollutants such as nutrients and pathogens in many communities. Assistant Administrator for Water, G. Tracy Mehan III, will be on hand to give the conference’s keynote address. In addition to a strong agenda, AMSA and the Water Environment Research Foundation plan to launch a revised CleanWater Central database tool for the clean water community. To register for AMSA’s Summer Conference and to review an updated conference agenda please visit the Association’s web site at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/meetings/03summer/.

Air Quality

AMSA’s Air Quality Committee Begins Evaluation of EPA’s WATER9 Model
In June, AMSA’s Air Quality Committee began work with CH2M HILL, Inc., to evaluate EPA’s WATER9 Model for estimating air emissions of individual water constituents in wastewater collection, storage, treatment, and disposal facilities. The project will run the WATER9 model, and two other models currently available for collection system modeling, using data available in
published literature. Results from the WATER9 model will be compared with the other models used and with field-measured emissions to determine their accuracy. If the results of the comparisons show that the WATER9 Model does in fact over-predict emissions, CH2M HILL, Inc., will prepare a white paper that AMSA and its member agencies can use to express to air permitting authorities that the model over-predicts emissions, and to support requests that alternatives to it be used to estimate hazardous air pollutant emissions. AMSA’s WATER9 model project team will meet with EPA on July 31, 2003 in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to discuss the scope of the project with hopes of gaining Agency acceptance of the outcome of the project. For more information, please contact Will Pettit, AMSA, at 202/833-3280 or wpettit@amsa-cleanwater.org.

AMSA Supports Agency Clarification of Delegable NESHAP Provisions
On June 23, 2003, the Agency published its final Clarifications to Existing National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants Delegations’ Provisions (68 Fed. Reg. 37333). The final rule, which will become effective August 22, 2003, clarifies which portions of National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) can be delegated to state, local, and tribal agencies. The Agency retains the authority to implement and enforce NESHAP standards, but can delegate to state, local and tribal agencies the authority to approve certain compliance assurance measures that offer changes to testing, monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping procedures, as long as they are as stringent as EPA requirements. Additionally, through this clarification, the Agency has delegated the authority to approve alternate minor work practices that are of equal or greater stringency than the Agency’s own. AMSA supports the Agency’s clarifications in that they provide wastewater utilities with greater flexibility in meeting NESHAP requirements. For more information, please contact Will Pettit, AMSA, at 202/833-3280 or wpettit@amsa-cleanwater.org.

Biosolids

AMSA Urges the Agency’s Science Policy Council Not to Use Draft Science in Biosolids Rule
On June 13, 2003, AMSA sent Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, Paul Gilman, in his capacity as Chair of the Agency’s Science Policy Council, a letter urging the Council not to recommend the use of draft science contained in EPA’s draft Dioxin Reassessment in the forthcoming regulation governing dioxin in land-applied biosolids. In their urgency to finalize the biosolids rule by the court-ordered October 15, 2003 deadline, the Office of Water asked the Science Policy Council in a June 16, 2003 meeting if the draft science should be used. AMSA raised concerns that the use of draft science in a final regulation would set a bad Agency-wide precedent, and would serve to undermine the validity of the regulations to which it is applied. Since AMSA’s letter was sent, an Agency source has told the National Office that the Science Policy Council has decided that the Office of Water should not use the draft science in the final land application of biosolids rule – an important step toward a regulation based on sound science.

Pretreatment

AMSA to Review Need for Changes to Effluent Guidelines for Centralized Waste Treatment
Although some details are still unclear, AMSA has learned that the Agency is considering making revisions to the Effluent Limitations Guidelines for the Centralized Waste Treatment (CWT) Point Source Category, which were finalized in December of 2000 (65 Fed. Reg. 81242). Based on a review of the data used to develop the rule, the Agency is considering removing metal parameters, including those for antimony and molybdenum from both the Oils and Multiple Wastestream Subcategories. The Agency is apparently not planning to remove any metal parameters from the Organics Subcategory. AMSA’s Pretreatment & Hazardous Waste Committee will discuss this issue at its upcoming meeting at AMSA’s Summer Conference in Boston, Mass., on July 15, 2003.

Water Quality

AMSA Tracks Release of Two Relevant Environmental Reports
Two reports were released last month that are of significance to AMSA’s membership. The first is a General Accounting Office (GAO) report, released June 19, 2003, entitled Water Quality: EPA Should Improve Guidance and Support to Help States Develop Standards that Better Target Cleanup Efforts. The report, the product of a study to examine the state of water quality standards (WQS), shows that EPA’s guidance on the two building blocks of WQS, setting and changing designated uses of waterbodies and establishing water quality criteria, is severely lacking. Surprisingly, the report stated that 30 states would have different waterbodies slated for cleanup if the process of creating and modifying water quality standards was improved. John B. Stephenson, Director of Natural Resources and Environment at GAO, summarized the report findings in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, during a June 20, 2003 hearing to discuss the need for updating water quality standards. AMSA has long maintained that States must have the flexibility to set designated uses that reflect the realistic uses of their waterbodies and the GAO report helps support this position. The report may be found on GAO’s web site at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03881t.pdf.

The second report is the Agency’s first-ever Draft Report on the Environment, released June 23, 2003. This report is intended to describe current national environmental conditions and trends using existing data and indicators, identify data gaps and research needs, and discuss the challenges government and our partners face in filling those gaps. While the report does address indicators of water quality, it largely ignores the contributions and practices of the wastewater treatment sector. The Agency’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) has, at the same time, requested nominations for experts to serve on a panel to aid in the review and finalization of the Report on the Environment. This presents AMSA with an opportunity to not only nominate a prominent figure from its membership, but to raise the awareness and inclusion of wastewater practices and successes in the report. AMSA is currently considering several AMSA public agency member representatives to nominate and will do so prior to the July 8, 2003 deadline. The draft report may be viewed or downloaded on EPA’s web site at http://www.epa.gov/indicators/roe/index.htm.

AMSA to Participate in Water Quality Trading Forum, Aids in Pilot Study
AMSA will participate in EPA’s forthcoming National Forum on Water Quality Trading to be held in Chicago, Ill., July 22 – 23, 2003. The forum will focus on market innovations to restore watersheds and meet water quality goals more efficiently. The program, announced January 13, 2003 by then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, is a market-based approach to improve and preserve water quality. Trading is intended to provide greater efficiency in achieving water quality goals in watersheds by allowing one source to meet its regulatory obligations by using pollutant reductions created by another source that has lower pollution control costs. AMSA has remained active in the trading arena, as is evident in the pilot trading program of member agency Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer Board, Montgomery, Ala., where AMSA President Thomas R. “Buddy” Morgan is General Manager. More information on trading can be found on EPA’s web site at http://www.epa.gov/OWOW/watershed/trading.htm. For information on the Forum, visit http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/trading/conferences.html.

AMSA Lends Support to Water Efficiency Program
In response to a request, from the City of Seattle and others, seeking signatories on a Position Statement to encourage EPA to develop a water-efficiency product labeling program, which would be similar to the EPA's Energy Star program, AMSA’s Board decided to support the program and sign the Position Statement. This voluntary program would help protect the environment by enabling consumers to identify and select the most water efficient products that meet their needs. Supporters of this program include several AMSA member agencies, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, and the Water Environment Federation. A description of the program and a list of signatories are available on AMSA’s web site at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/07-01-03welp.pdf.

Wet Weather

AMSA Advocates for Reasonable Guidance on the Practice of Blending
With EPA’s Office of Water (OW) ready to issue its blending guidance, the primary roadblock to issuing the guidance remains the Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA). OECA has made it clear that they do not intend to pursue a guidance that prohibits the practice of blending, but instead add an additional condition to the OW guidance that would require performance of a "no feasible alternative" determination akin to the bypass regulations prior to permitting blending. Since AMSA's May 30 meeting with the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement & Compliance Assurance, John Peter Suarez, OW and OECA officials have met with Linda Fisher, EPA's Deputy Administrator, to again brief her on the issue. At that meeting, both OW and OECA were given "homework" to obtain additional information on the issue, especially with regard to the cost associated with each option. AMSA has learned that EPA's Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation has also been involved in these discussions. AMSA continues to advocate that a national blending policy should state that blending is not a bypass as defined by 40 CFR §122.41(m), as long as POTWs meet appropriate conditions, and that permitting agencies should be authorized to incorporate blending as an “alternative flow routing scenario” in permits.

Activity on the blending issue has not been restricted to discussions within the Agency. In fact, Suarez and other EPA officials met with staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee last week to discuss the issue. AMSA has also been actively discussing the issue with key EPW staff. It remains to be seen whether any type of congressional action may be taken, but AMSA has learned that some stakeholders may ultimately request a congressional hearing on blending. AMSA does not believe such hearings are warranted at this time.

The issue of blending and several other key initiatives that AMSA continues to track, including EPA’s Watershed Rule, will likely be impacted by the recent shake-up in EPA leadership. Just a day before Administrator Whitman was scheduled to leave her position, her Deputy, Linda Fisher announced that she was resigning her position effective July 11. As both the blending issue and the Watershed Rule have been elevated to the Deputy Administrator level for ultimate approval, it remains unclear whether either issue will proceed until new leadership is in place. AMSA remains active on these key clean water issues and will alert the membership as more information becomes available.

AMSA Attends Stakeholder Meeting on CSO/SSO Report, Shows Need for More Data
On June 24 and 25, AMSA attended a stakeholders meeting held by EPA in Washington, D.C. to discuss what data the Agency has collected so far in support of the upcoming 2003 Report to Congress on the Impacts and Control of Combined Sewer Overflows and Sanitary Sewer Overflows, which is under court-ordered deadline to be submitted by December 15. EPA hopes to complete a draft of the report for consideration by the White House's Office of Management and Budget by August 29. EPA provided presentations on several topics including the characterization of CSOs and SSOs, environmental and human health impacts, overflow control technologies, and resources/funding, each of which will comprise a chapter in the final report. Copies of the presentations are available on AMSA's web site at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/faxalerts/0624-2503pm.cfm.

The discussion regarding the characterization of CSOs and SSOs, in which EPA attempts to define the universe of CSO and SSO communities, including number and volume of overflows, was by far the most contentious. Much of the information presented by EPA in its presentation was straight from engineering textbooks and, in the opinion of many participants, did not accurately reflect actual characteristics of overflows. The stakeholders provided EPA with additional data sources that would help inform their decision-making process in this section and in nearly every other section of the report. Based on feedback received during the meeting, EPA acknowledged that the final report will need to do more to put CSOs and SSOs into the context of the broader wet weather picture, including stormwater/urban runoff and other sources of pollutants. Furthermore, EPA acknowledged that the report must do more to examine the relative impacts of dry versus wet weather overflows.

EPA is hosting a similar, though shorter, one-day meeting in Huntington Beach, Calif., on July 8. AMSA will discuss the stakeholder meetings during the Wet Weather Committee Meeting at its Summer Conference in Boston. AMSA will consider whether to prepare a companion report, as it did for the first Report to Congress in December 2001, or prepare some other advocacy paper either in advance of, or in response to, EPA's report. AMSA hopes to use the results of a recently initiated pathogens study in support of this effort, and will keep members apprised of further information regarding this initiative.