AMSA Regulatory Regulatory Update March 2003

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The National Office of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) is pleased to provide you with the March 2003 Regulatory Update. This Update provides a narrative summary of relevant regulatory issues and actions current to April 7, 2003. A Regulatory Digest of activities currently tracked by AMSA can be found on AMSA’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

Register Now for AMSA’s 2003 National Environmental Policy Forum
AMSA's 2003 National Environmental Policy Forum & 33rd Annual Meeting (NEPF): Making Our Voices Heard . . . Mobilizing in Support of the National Clean Water Agenda is just around the corner. This year’s NEPF will be held May 17 – 21, 2003 at the Hyatt Regency Washington in Washington, D.C. Take this opportunity to learn more about the national clean water agenda and engage national policymakers on legislative and regulatory issues of importance to your agency, including blending, the Watershed Rule, and sanitary sewer overflows. Visit AMSA’s web site at www.amsa-cleanwater.org/meetings/ for program information and online registration.

Mark Your Calendars 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, such as endocrine disruptors, and the latest on mercury, water quality trading, and total maximum daily loads as well as other water quality hot topics will be addressed. The conference will also examine the new, heightened focus that has been placed on existing pollutants such as nutrients and pathogens in many communities. Mark your calendar for what is sure to be a valuable forum to explore these important topics.

Air Quality

AMSA Submits Comments on Air Emission Standards for Boilers and Heaters
On March 13, 2003, AMSA submitted comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its Proposed Rule on National Emission Standards for Hazardous (NESHAP) Air Pollutants for Industrial/Commercial/Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters (68 Fed. Reg. 1659). The proposed rule, published in the Federal Register on January 13, 2003, would require AMSA members who install new boilers and heaters to constantly monitor carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, and comply with a 400 part per million CO emission limit. In its comments, AMSA recommended that the Agency exempt new, as well as existing, gaseous-fueled boilers from any NESHAP requirements because the proposed standards do not establish a direct relationship between CO and HAPs concentration and do not support the necessity of continuous CO monitoring. When final, AMSA will review the rule to determine the degree to which our comments were addressed. AMSA’s comments are found on the Association’s web site at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/03-13-03NESHA.pdf.

Biosolids

AMSA Reviews EPA Notice Responding to NRC’s Biosolids Report
On April 2, 2003, the Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Water, G. Tracy Mehan, III, signed a notice that outlines how EPA plans to respond to the recommendations contained in the National Research Council (NRC) report entitled Biosolids Applied to Land: Advancing Standards and Practices. The notice outlines EPA’s short and long term goals for the biosolids program and categorizes each of the 57 NRC recommendations and includes the Agency’s general responses to each category.

The notice also outlines how EPA conducted its 405(d) review of the Part 503 regulations. While EPA indicates that its review has thus far not identified any additional toxic pollutants that warrant regulation, the Agency will continue to conduct its screening analysis, expected to be completed in January 2004, and which will serve as the basis for determining whether additional pollutants should be considered for regulation. When the notice is published in the Federal Register, a 90 day public comment period will begin. The National Office will prepare comments on EPA’s response and will continue to work with the Agency as it moves to respond to the NRC recommendations. To assist in the Association’s comment effort, AMSA will also prepare a Regulatory Alert to solicit member comments and input.

Water Quality

AMSA Meets with OMB and CEQ to Urge Support of Watershed Rule
On March 19, 2003, EPA formally withdrew the controversial July 2000 total maximum daily load (TMDL) rule (68 Fed. Reg. 13607), an action that AMSA had expected for some time, leaving the 1992 TMDL rules in place to govern the program. To ensure that EPA moves forward with its “Watershed Rule” – a rule which would replace the 1992 TMDL Rule, AMSA and an extensive group of state, industry, and nonpoint representatives met with key officials from the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to voice support for moving through the informal interagency review quickly – allowing the Watershed Rule package to proceed to formal review and, ultimately, to public comment. Consistent with recent presentations to EPA and congressional staff, the group emphasized that operating the TMDL program under the existing 1992 rules, or supplementing the program with guidance, is an unworkable solution that will not improve water quality. The group highlighted the broad consensus surrounding the need for new TMDL rules to ensure the program is “certain, simple, and consistent” across the country. While OMB indicated that “no one is saying that this rule is not going out,” they could not provide an exact timetable for future action on the proposal. Mack Gray, Deputy Under Secretary For Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture (USDA), assured OMB in the meeting that USDA supports the Watershed Rule package.

Based on a meeting the following week with officials on the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), including James Connaughton, AMSA believes that EPA will make a decision on the Watershed Rule's future by mid-May. AMSA, joined by an informal coalition of states, point, and nonpoint source groups, met with CEQ to urge that the draft Watershed Rule be submitted for formal interagency review as soon as possible, so that it may be published for public comment, and hopefully finalized in the near future. AMSA and the other stakeholders emphasized the need for the Watershed Rule — not guidance — to put the total maximum daily load (TMDL) program on solid scientific ground and provide much-needed consistency in TMDL implementation. The coalition also highlighted the significant consensus built around the new package resulting from over two years of extensive stakeholder input. Connaughton indicated that if the Administration decides to move the package forward, it should move quickly given the lack of significant opposition. Connaughton also acknowledged that the coalition's recent meeting with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had led to OMB renewing its requests to EPA to circulate the package informally to the federal agencies with a short-term opportunity for review and comment.

Following these meetings, key members of the stakeholder group indicated that they will continue to meet with other federal agencies, including the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy as needed to get the package through the informal review process. The Watershed Rule will be a focus of discussion at AMSA’s National Environmental Policy Forum in Washington, D.C. in May. For further information, contact Alexandra Dunn, AMSA, at 202/533-1803 or adunn@amsa-cleanwater.org.

AMSA Creates Two New Workgroups to Address Emerging Issues
In an effort to address two increasingly important issues, AMSA has formed a Pathogen Workgroup and an ISO (International Standards Organization) Advisory Committee. The Pathogen Workgroup combines AMSA members from three existing committees, the Water Quality, Wet Weather, and Legal Affairs Committees, in an effort to look at the crosscutting issues surrounding EPA’s more intense focus on pathogens. The Workgroup has already started work on a project examining pathogen levels in wet weather flows and potential impacts on receiving waters to help AMSA respond to the forthcoming CSO/SSO Report to Congress on sewer overflows due out in December.

In addition, AMSA created an ISO Advisory Committee to participate and advocate on behalf on POTWs in international talks that have the purpose of creating a framework of international standards for water and wastewater treatment utility services. AMSA’s ISO Advisory Committee is led by AMSA members Steve Hayashi, General Manager of Union Sanitation District in Union City, Calif., and Mike Sweeney, Director, Research and Productivity Assessment at Louisville and Jefferson County, Ky. AMSA’s Consultant, Mark Hoeke, participated in an ISO meeting in Paris on March 25 – 27 and voiced POTW concerns that these standards remain flexible in order to allow wastewater utilities to meet their site-specific needs. The ISO Advisory Committee will be meeting again in mid-April to review and comment on the ISO Working Group’s forthcoming release of a document summarizing the outcomes of the March meeting and indicating next steps in developing international wastewater standards.

AMSA Submits Comments on EPA’s Enforcement Compliance History Online Database
On March 31, 2003, AMSA filed comments on EPA’s Enforcement Compliance History Online Database (ECHO), which is intended to give the public and industry direct access to the environmental compliance records of more than 800,000 regulated entities nationwide, including public water and wastewater treatment facilities (67 Fed. Reg. 70079). The ECHO database is located on the Agency’s web site at http://www.epa.gov/echo. Currently ECHO is in the pilot phase, but is publicly accessible and provides detailed facility reports including federal and state compliance inspections, environmental violations, recent formal enforcement actions, and demographic profiles of surrounding areas.

The bulk of the Association’s comments focused on member concern over the frequency of errors shown in facility enforcement compliance histories, the lack of context for compliance data, and the error correction process. Misleading or incorrect information can be damaging to the public perception of POTWs, and, therefore, it is critical that an efficient process to correct faulty information is available to POTWs. While EPA has given facilities an opportunity to correct such errors, many are finding the correction process confusing and impractical. AMSA is encouraging the Agency to do all it can to ensure that only the most accurate, up-to-date information is in ECHO. AMSA will likely meet with EPA to discuss the Agency’s oversight of state review of ECHO and to ensure corrections are made in a timely fashion. For more information, please contact Will Pettit, AMSA, at 202/833-3280 or wpettit@amsa-cleanwater.org.

Security

AMSA Continues Work to Develop Protocol on Anthrax Decontamination Water Treatment
Over the past year, AMSA has worked with EPA to develop a national protocol for POTWs that could potentially need to treat anthrax decontamination water in the event of a terrorist attack. The final draft, on which AMSA provided significant input, is being circulated to EPA regions and certain POTWs for review. Several AMSA agencies were asked to treat anthrax decontamination water following the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001. Those members and others asked AMSA to help EPA with the creation of a national protocol. AMSA and EPA have had a series of conference calls and will review incoming comments over the coming months. AMSA hopes the protocol will be final by the end of the summer.

Wet Weather

AMSA Urges EPA’s Office of Enforcement Compliance to Give Green Light to Blending
On March 4, 2003, AMSA sent a letter to EPA’s Office of Enforcement Compliance and Assurance (OECA) on blending, emphasizing its belief that prohibiting blending is a backward approach to achieving operation and maintenance improvements and capacity enhancement measures, and that such a prohibition would negatively impact water quality. AMSA believes a national blending policy should state that blending is not a bypass as defined by 40 CFR §122.41(m), as long as the POTW meets appropriate conditions, and that permitting agencies should be authorized to incorporate blending as an “alternative flow routing scenario” in permits. EPA continues to work on the blending guidance and AMSA has learned that the Agency is briefing Deputy Administrator Linda Fisher today on the guidance. AMSA will update the membership of the outcome of the briefing and on developments as they occur. AMSA’s letter may be found on the Association’s web site at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/03-04-03blending.pdf.