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A Clear Commitment to America’s Waters
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Law Seminar to Address Cutting-Edge Legal,
Regulatory Issues
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ACWA’s 2011
Developments in Clean Water Seminar
is just
around the corner and promises to deliver an engaging
and timely agenda covering critical legal topics directly
affecting the operations of municipal clean water utili-
ties. Scheduled for November 16 -18 at the Francis Marion Hotel
in historic Charleston, SC, the Seminar will feature top clean water
attorneys as speakers and provide an excellent opportunity to net-
work with leading clean water professionals. Registration is still
available and Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits will be of-
fered.
Consent Decree Reopeners Examined
Among the topics to be addressed at the conference will be a panel
discussion,
Every Utility Needs a Do-over: Pursuing Reopeners in Wet
Weather Consent Decrees
. The panel will explore the opportuni-
ties and hurdles agencies face when attempting to reopen existing
consent decrees. Case studies of utilities that have successfully
secured a reopener will be featured. More and more clean water
agencies are interested in altering their existing decrees due to
changed economic circumstances and the emergence of new tech-
nologies, such as green infrastructure and low impact develop-
ment, but there are substantial legal challenges to successfully
completing a reopener. This panel will provide both practical tips
and potential legal strategies for accomplishing this goal.
Wet Weather Issues a Focus
Wet weather issues will also receive substantial attention during
the Seminar. A panel,
Don’t Forget Your Umbrella: The Growing Legal
Challenges of Wet Weather Management
, will focus on sanitary sewer
overfows (SSOs) and municipal stormwater issues. As EPA contin-
ues to move in the direction of a national SSO rule, the legal and
regulatory questions for clean water agencies over how to deal with
SSOs continue to mount. Speakers on this panel will address these
issues and provide an update on what utilities need to know involv-
ing SSOs. The panel will also examine legal developments impact-
ing municipal stormwater, including EPA forthcoming post-con-
struction stormwater rule and the re-emergence of litigation over
federal payment of municipal stormwater fees.
Other topics to be covered at the seminar include nutrients, water
quality issues, biosolids management, and clean water enforcement
actions. Additionally, Alexandra Dunn, Executive Director and
General Counsel of the Association of Clean Water Administrators
(ACWA, formerly ASIWPCA), will provide the keynote address at
the opening day luncheon and discuss how clean water utilities
and their state regulators can improve communication and collab-
oration in the face of growing mutual clean water legal challenges.
CLEs Offered
Additional information on the Seminar is available on
, including an agenda, complete list of CLE offering, and
hotel and conference registration information. This November 16-
18
Seminar
is the only one of its kind to address the wide array of
legal issues impacting clean water attorneys and professionals.
Hot Topics Breakfast Draws Crowd, EPA Discusses SSO Rule
NACWA’s annual Hot Topics Breakfast during
WEFTEC 2011 in Los Angeles, Calif. drew over
70 participants and featured U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) James Hanlon, director of
the Offce of Wastewater Management; Ephraim King,
director, Offce of Science & Technology; and, Loren
Denton, acting chief, Municipal Enforcement Branch.
During the breakfast, Hanlon and Denton discussed the
wet weather permitting approach that EPA is pursuing,
inspired by NACWA’s
.
Hanlon also reiterated the Agency’s commitment to
pursing a comprehensive sanitary sewer overfow (SSO)
rule but could not give a timeline on when progress
could be made. Hanlon noted that as we approach
the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, in order
to make continued improvement to our water quality,
we must have a discussion on water priorities, cost for
improvement, and the regulation of nonpoint sources.