» Clean Water Current Archive

December 2, 2009

Action by: January 8, 2010

On July 15, 2009, NACWA acted to identify public satellite collection systems and stormwater management agencies as entities eligible for Association membership. With this broadened eligibility for NACWA membership, the Association will be better positioned to move in a direction consistent with our strategic objectives and the priority we place on holistic, watershed-based approaches to water quality improvement.

To facilitate our outreach to the satellite collection system community, we are asking our member agencies to provide us with the names and contact information of the systems for which they provide wastewater treatment services. Specifically we are asking you to provide the following information:

• Satellite Collection System Name
• Management Level Contact Person
• Title
• Address
• E-mail
• Phone
• Population Served (If known)

We ask that you provide this information in a MS Word or Excel format via e-mail to Kelly Brocato, Director, Membership Development at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by Friday, January 8, 2010. Thank you in advance for your assistance with this initiative.

Satellite Collection Agencies Key to Wet Weather Progress

Over the past 10 years, several drivers have emerged for regional clean water agencies and their satellite municipalities to address wet weather flow and collection system management in a coordinated fashion. While federal regulations on sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) are still lacking, state programs and federal enforcement actions have sought to impose a management framework, similar to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s(EPA) capacity, management, operation and maintenance (CMOM) program, on Clean Water Act permittees. Compliance problems at the treatment plant and the regional wastewater system are the responsibility of the regional agency. However, a regional system will typically consist of only 10 percent of the publicly-owned pipe upstream of the permitted treatment plant, and five percent of all pipe in the system. Therefore, the regional agency can typically make limited progress in reducing wet weather flows by improving just its own system. In many cases, a significant amount of the stormwater and groundwater entering the sewer system, or infiltration and inflow (I/I), enters the collection system through defects in the satellite systems and private property. Without including these portions of the system within the ultimate solution, little progress will be made.

NACWA has been working since the mid-1990s advocating for a comprehensive, national program to address the issues of SSOs, collection system maintenance, blending, peak excess flow treatment facilities, and more. While the federal government has not issued any guidance, policy, or regulation over the past decade, NACWA has been providing information to its members on a number of fronts. Most recently NACWA published a white paper on several case studies where regional collaboration, among the treatment authority and the satellite communities, was successful in addressing wet weather flow issues. As the new administration begins to examine the issues facing it, wet weather challenges and specifically SSO issues will be front and center. NACWA has already learned that EPA’s Office of Water is revisiting its late 1990s proposal on SSO controls and will be exploring options for moving ahead on a national policy. NACWA and its members will play a vital role in any such effort, but it will be critical to ensure the Association has an active engagement with those communities, the satellite systems, that are not currently regulated via a Clean Water Act permit.