» Clean Water Current Archive

July 17, 2009

Kevin Shafer Elected 2009-2010 NACWA President at Summer Conference

Kevin Shafer, executive director of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD), was elected NACWA president for 2009-2010 during the Association’s 2009 summer conference this week in Milwaukee.  The Board also elected Jeff Theerman, executive director of the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, as vice president; Dave Williams, director of wastewater at the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland, Calif., as treasurer; and Suzanne Goss, specialist, Government Relations at JEA in Jacksonville, as secretary.

With the theme, The New Regulatory Climate…Clean Water Agencies Prepare to Act, the summer conference program focused on issues such as nutrient control, wet weather, emerging contaminants, and climate change that are certain to bring new regulatory requirements to utilities in the coming years.  NACWA’s committee meetings also focused on these issues and included updates on current regulatory and legislative initiatives and discussions about the positions NACWA should take to address them.  The conference and committee meetings were well-attended by utility leaders, consultants, and others interested in the latest clean water developments from Washington, D.C., and around the country, and in sharing their opinions on how the coming regulatory actions should take shape.

Mike Shapiro, acting assistant administrator of water for EPA, provided the keynote address, discussing the possible direction the Office of Water may take under the new administration and the leadership of Peter Silva, confirmed by the Senate last week as the new assistant administrator.  Nutrient control promises to be an important issue, and Shapiro noted that all nutrient sources would need to be addressed to make progress on restoring the Chesapeake Bay and other key watersheds and waterways.  Shapiro also talked about stormwater challenges and said EPA will work more closely with the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development on options to prevent and address water quality problems caused by runoff.  Green infrastructure will continue to become a more important method for controlling stormwater pollution, particularly with the green infrastructure funding provided for in the economic stimulus package.  Shapiro expressed EPA’s desire to engage NACWA and the expertise of its members in the development of regulations to address clean water challenges.

NACWA is also seeking to become more engaged with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the agency at the conference.  The MOU establishes a national partnership with shared funding responsibilities and will foster the exchange of ideas on water quality and quantity issues.  NACWA and USGS will track the implementation of the MOU and work to ensure better information sharing and priority setting between clean water agencies and USGS.  Key to this MOU is the sharing of data and improved communication from utilities about their environmental research needs.  Donna Myers, chief of the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program, spoke at the conference about the role of USGS in water resource management, saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Great Lakes water quality issues have already been a focus for the new administration and were discussed by Joel Brammeier, acting president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.  Brammeier said his organization shares NACWA’s goal of improving watershed health.   To help address this goal in the Great lakes, Kevin Shafer discussed the innovative work being done by MMSD to protect Lake Michigan and led participants on a tour of the utility’s MMSD’s historic Jones Island Wastewater Reclamation Facility.

The conference speakers and committee meetings generated informative discussions among NACWA members, which will help the Association as it moves forward with its advocacy efforts in the changing regulatory climate.  NACWA thanks all the participants for making this conference a success.  Presentations from NACWA’s summer conference will be posted today on the Association’s Conferences and Meetings website.

NACWA Applauds Introduction, Testifies in Support of $60-Billion Water Trust Fund Bill

Legislation that would establish a clean water trust fund, paid for by fees and various types of products, was introduced July 14 by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Mike Simpson (R-Idaho),  and Thomas E. Petri (R-Wis.).  The Water Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2009  (H.R. 3202) would assess fees on a broad base of industries that use water and contribute to water pollution.  NACWA participated in a press conference with Blumenauer, LaTourette, and Petri as well as with several members of the Water Infrastructure Network (WIN), which, like NACWA, has also been instrumental in generating support for the bill.  Later in the day, the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment held a hearing on the opportunity and challenges of a water trust fund.  Tom Walsh, engineer-director of the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District, a NACWA member agency in Massachusetts, testified  in support of the bill on behalf of NACWA, saying that a trust fund was needed to address the infrastructure funding crisis and pointing out that his own utility has had to raise rates 450 percent since 2000 to cover the debt service on upgrades to its treatment plant.  “We must remove water infrastructure investment from the realm of uncertain annual appropriations and focus on a dedicated funding stream,” he said.

Introduction of the bill comes on the heels of a report  released recently by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) analyzing revenue sources that could raise up to $12 billion per year.  These sources include a 4 cent per container excise tax on water-based beverages; a 3-percent excise tax on items disposed of in wastewater, such as toothpaste, cosmetics, toilet paper and cooking oil; a 0.5-percent excise tax on pharmaceutical products; and a 0.15-percent tax on the incomes of corporations with profits of over $4 million a year.

Almost half of the funding from the trust fund would be distributed as grants and loans through the existing clean water SRF, while about one-third of the funding would be distributed as loans through the drinking water SRF.  The remaining funding would support a number of new programs addressing security, climate change mitigation and adaptation, sewer overflow controls, research, workforce development, and drug take-back initiatives.  NACWA released a detailed analysis of the bill in its Legislative Alert 09-16.  NACWA also issued press releases applauding the introduction of the bill and touting Walsh’s testimony, and several media outlets ran stories.

H.R. 3202 marks a major milestone for NACWA, its Clean Water Funding Workgroup, and WIN, all of whom have worked hard over more than a decade advocating for legislation creating a trust fund, similar to those that exist for highways and airports.  The Association will continue working closely with the sponsors of the bill to generate more support and will keep its members informed as this important effort moves forward.