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Building on the momentum generated through its recent high-level meetings with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the Association’s Money Matters™ campaign, NACWA staff and key member agency leaders met yesterday with senior EPA water and enforcement officials on the need for a new, more flexible approach to meeting the mandates of the Clean Water Act (CWA). During the meeting, which took place October 3 in Milwaukee during the Clean Water America Alliance’s Urban Water Sustainability Leadership Conference, EPA committed to initiating a new effort to craft an integrated planning framework that would address many of the elements of NACWA’s Money Matters™ draft legislation. EPA will now be looking to NACWA and its members for further technical input on the elements of an integrated planning approach and the types of flexibility clean water agencies will need to prioritize CWA requirements in order to ensure that limited resources can be spent on a prioritized basis — namely on those programs that will have the greatest benefit for their communities.

This Advocacy Alert provides a brief summary of the October 3 meeting and an outline of EPA’s anticipated next steps.

EPA Staff, NACWA Member Leaders Focus on Needed Flexibility through Integrated Permitting

Nancy Stoner, Acting Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Water, and Mark Pollins, Director, Water Enforcement Division in the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, along with key staff from the Office of Wastewater Management including Deborah Nagle, Director, Water Permits Division, and Connie Bosma, Municipal Branch Chief, kicked off the discussion with an overview of the driving forces behind the current dialogue, including NACWA’s Money Matters™ campaign. Stoner noted that there were a number of elements in the proposed Money Matters™ legislation that EPA could agree with NACWA on and that she is committed to working with us on these core issues. She noted that EPA was particularly interested in helping utilities to use new and innovative approaches, including green infrastructure, and in providing a better way for utilities to integrate the planning and permitting of all their CWA obligations.

Utility representatives at the meeting provided a wide range of suggestions of the types of issues they would like to see EPA address as well as examples of where this type of innovation and integration is already occurring. EPA noted that although some of what was outlined during the meeting would be beyond the scope of the current effort, it was clear that the clean water community is already making strides to leverage existing flexibility and that these efforts could serve as a foundation for this new work.

EPA’s Next Steps — A Memo to the Regions and a Draft Framework

During the meeting EPA provided an update on the work it has underway. EPA has already begun work to scope out the effort and to lay out a schedule for its next steps. Based on its current thinking, EPA intends to look at all CWA obligations, including stormwater, but will stop short of including most drinking water obligations (beyond source water protection-related efforts) and any non water-related obligations. EPA stressed that it is looking at all of its options within its current authorities under the CWA.

EPA is currently working on a memorandum to its Regional offices that it plans to release in mid-October. The memorandum will inform the Regions that Headquarters is serious about this effort and that the Agency should be working as “a whole” on this. Utility representatives at the meeting stressed that for any effort like this to succeed EPA must ensure that its Regions are in lock-step with Headquarters. The memorandum will also provide the Regions with a sense of what they can expect next from Headquarters regarding this initiative.

EPA has also already begun work on a draft framework of what an integrated planning approach for clean water utilities might look like. The Agency hopes to complete this quickly after the Regional memo goes out. With the draft framework in hand, EPA will then seek stakeholder feedback and a continued discussion with NACWA and its members to refine the concept further. EPA indicated that all of this would be happening on very tight timelines.

NACWA Next Steps

NACWA will be working over the coming weeks as EPA drafts its framework to collect additional input from its members on the key elements of an integrated planning/permitting framework. NACWA will continue to meet with EPA as it works on its draft to provide additional insights into what utilities need.

Meanwhile, NACWA continues to maintain an aggressive effort on Capitol Hill to boost support for its legislation and to encourage Members of Congress to weigh in with EPA regarding the importance of advancing with this initiative in a timely manner. In effect, NACWA plans to maintain pressure on all fronts to provide the relief the clean water community needs.