Clean Water Current

NACWA submitted initial comments to EPA and the Department of the Army on September 20 urging the agencies to maintain existing and added exclusions for waste treatment systems, stormwater control features, wastewater recycling structures, and groundwater as the agencies begin another effort to revise the definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS).

The House and Senate reconvened this week as both chambers work to iron out spending and policy differences on the reconciliation bill and on a short-term spending measure to avert a government shutdown on October 1st.

Following recent high profile cybersecurity incidents, the White House in July released its National Security Memorandum on Improving Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Control Systems, outlining a plan to promote industrial control system (ICS) security in critical infrastructure sectors.

NACWA joined with other organizations in the municipal governance space last week on a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department seeking clarification on the taxability of certain utility financial assistance.

The Executive Highlights and raw data from NACWA’s 2020 Financial Survey are now available for download on NACWA’s website. The Survey’s results reflect input from 109 public agencies, collectively serving more than 74 million people, with more than $159 billion in total asset and over $20 billion in 2019 revenues.

Congressional work on infrastructure continued this week as several U.S. House committees marked up and passed their respective jurisdictional bills related to the “Reconciliation” package as the Democrat Majority looks to further build on the investments that were included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

EPA announced its Preliminary Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15 in the September 14 Federal Register. The Plan is published every two years to outline EPA’s planned studies and rulemakings related to effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) and pretreatment standards for industrial dischargers. The Plan, an FAQ, and other documents are available on EPA’s website.

If you haven’t yet registered for EPA Finance Center’s upcoming Funding Stormwater Operations and Maintenance webinar, NACWA encourages you to consider sitting in on this event.

The debate over investing in infrastructure continues to advance in the U.S. Congress. Majority leadership in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate are working feverishly to draft a “Reconciliation” package that could be advanced alongside the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act, which passed the Senate last month and is scheduled for a House vote by Sept. 27th.

NACWA is proud to release its 2020-2021 Annual Report, which documents the accomplishments and milestones the membership accomplished together over the past 12 months and outlines our vision for the year ahead. The electronic version is available on the NACWA website, and the print version is now being delivered to all member agencies, along with Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 member invoices.

EPA, in collaboration with the Department of Defense (DoD), announced a new analytical method—Method 1633—to test for PFAS in various environmental media on September 2. This single-laboratory validation method can test for 40 PFAS compounds in wastewater, surface water, groundwater, soil, biosolids, sediment, landfill leachate, and fish tissue using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).

NACWA joined Association members the Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District and the City of New York, as well as the California Association of Sanitation Agencies (CASA), in filing an amicus brief this week in support of NACWA member the City and County of San Francisco’s challenge to their first post-long term control plan (LTCP) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

NACWA joined a broad coalition this week on a letter to Congress requesting support for municipal bonds as part of infrastructure investment, especially in the context of the upcoming budget reconciliation process. The letter notes the importance of municipal bonds in funding infrastructure projects around the country.

NACWA’s thoughts are with all of our members and other utilities that have been impacted by Hurricane Ida. The Association stands ready to provide any assistance it can to utilities that need help.

Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA) and a group of ten moderate Democrats reached a deal August 24 to move forward on two of their key legislative priorities: the Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act (i.e. the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill with $550 billion in new spending) and the $3.5 trillion Budget Resolution.

EPA’s Water Permits Division, as part of renewing the information collection request (ICR) for the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program, is considering making minor revisions to the forms and instructions of permit applications.

The Northwest Environmental Advocates (NWEA) recently filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit asking the court to force EPA to respond to its February 2017 petition requesting that the Agency revoke the State of Washington’s authority to issue permits pursuant to the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program.

EPA is sponsoring a series of free virtual workshops on water sector cybersecurity. These offerings are timely given that recent cyber-attacks on water and wastewater systems have manipulated treatment processes, disabled process control and business enterprise systems, and stolen proprietary data.

Both the U.S. House and Senate are on recess this week, back in Members’ respective districts and states. However, the House plans to return on August 23, weeks earlier than scheduled, to continue advancing legislation following the Senate’s passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on August 10th.

EPA released its final ambient water quality criteria (AWQC) to address nutrients in lakes and reservoirs on August 13. This publication finalizes the Agency’s 2020 proposed rulemaking that moves towards a national stressor-response modelling framework approach that allows states the ability to input local or regional limnological data to derive more specific numeric nutrient values.