Important bipartisan legislation was introduced by US House Representatives Lori Trahan (D-MA) and Darin LaHood (R-IL) on May 15 to extend the authorization of the Clean Water Act, Section 221 Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Control Grants, which provides grants to states and municipal entities for treatment works to intercept, transport, control, treat, or reuse municipal combined sewer overflows; sanitary sewer overflows; and/or stormwater.

US House Representatives Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) and Steve Stivers (R-OH)—Co-Chairs of the bipartisan House Municipal Finance Caucus—introduced The Investing in Our Communities Act (H.R. 2772) on May 15, which would amend the federal tax code to reinstate the option for a single advance refunding of municipal bonds.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) held a legislative hearing on May 22, to consider numerous bills for addressing PFAS concerns that have been introduced this congressional session.

Over 200 pretreatment professionals met in Tacoma, WA May 14 – 17 for NACWA’s annual Pretreatment & Pollution Prevention Workshop, which featured presentations by EPA staff, utilities, and consultants. NACWA extends a big thank you to all the participants, and especially to Member Utility the City of Tacoma Environmental Services Department for being such welcoming hosts!

NACWA members that purchased liquid aluminum sulfate may qualify for either the Direct or Indirect Liquid Aluminum Sulfate Settlement. This litigation alleges that the leading manufacturers of liquid aluminum sulfate, commonly referred to as “Alum,” conspired to allocate territories, and/ or not compete for each other’s historical business by rigging bids, allocating customers and stabilizing the price of Alum sold in the United States between January 1, 1997 and February 18, 2011.

The NACWA Security & Emergency Preparedness Committee heard a presentation by guest speaker Jake Schmitter, Senior Manager for Training and Exercises at the Electricity-Information and Analysis Center (E-ISAC), during its May 23 web meeting on the upcoming GridEx V exercise. Water and wastewater utilities can experience adverse impacts during a significant electric utility outage, and GridEx is a useful exercise for exploring these interdependencies and how utilities can respond to emergencies resulting from cyber and physical attacks.

The federal government released its Spring 2019 Unified Agenda on May 22, providing updates on the timing for all of its ongoing regulatory activity.

The Association’s Water Quality Committee met via conference call on May 22 and discussed the latest developments from the EPA and around the country.

NACWA Member Utility the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) recently unveiled its Community Benefits Dashboard, which is a tool that tracks and transparently reports out on the utility’s Community Benefits Program and Environmental Justice investments.

NACWA conveyed the public clean water sector’s perspective to the US Supreme Court on May 16 in one of the most significant Clean Water Act (CWA) cases to reach the High Court in decades. For more information and analysis, see NACWA’s recent Advocacy Alert.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change held a legislative hearing on May 15, entitled Protecting Americans At Risk of PFAS Contamination & Exposure. The hearing aimed to address the tsunami of legislative bills that have been introduced in the 116th Congress on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Assistant Administrator for Water, David Ross, along with representatives from the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Interior (DOI) and Commerce (DOC), hosted a roundtable on nutrient-related pollution in Baton Rouge, LA last week.

NACWA met with senior EPA Office of Water staff last week to discuss compliance issues for combined sewer overflow (CSO) communities that have reached the end of their long-term control plan (LTCP) projects. The conversation focused specifically on communities that may still not be meeting water quality standards, despite having completed all the work and CSO remediation projects that they agreed to under their LTCP, and how to address these issues through future permits.