Page 1 - Clean Water Advocate - December 2012/January 2013
Basic HTML Version
DECEMBER 2012/JANUARY 2013
Inside
Winter Conference to Highlight
Innovation and Ingenuity............... 2
The 113th Convenes and Work
Gets Immediately Underway.......... 2
NACWA Applauds
TAF Champions.............................. 3
Social Media & Clean Water
Utilities - Case Studies and
Best Practices................................ 4
NACWA Continues to
Expand Social Media Presence,
Outreach........................................ 5
Mark Your Calendar....................... 6
Tom Sigmund, Chair of the NACWA/WERF/WEF
Utility of the Future Task Force and Executive Director
of Green Bay’s NEW Water, will speak at NACWA’s
2013 Winter Conference, February 3-6, in Miami,
Fla. In his remarks, Sigmund will outline how the soon-
to-be- released water resources utility of the future
Blueprint for Action will inform, complement, and build
upon NACWA’s existing advocacy agenda.
N
ACWA has been busy in recent weeks advancing the
Association’s stormwater advocacy agenda in both the
legal and regulatory arenas, contributing to a key vic-
tory in the courtroom and providing additional input to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency as it develops a post-construc-
tion stormwater rule.
Federal Court Strikes Down “Flow TMDL,” Embraces
NACWA Position
The municipal stormwater community won a significant legal
victory Jan. 3 when a federal district court ruled that EPA’s use
of stormwater flow as a pollutant surrogate in stormwater total
maximum daily loads (TMDLs) is illegal under the Clean Water
Act (CWA). The decision in Virginia DOT, et al. v. EPA clearly
found that stormwater flow by itself cannot be considered a “pol-
lutant” under the CWA, and therefore EPA’s efforts to use flow
as a pollutant surrogate when developing TMDLs is improper.
Among the highlights of the decision, the court expressly ruled
that the CWA language limiting EPA’s TMDL authority to actual
pollutants is unambiguous, noting that “EPA’s authority does not
extend to establishing TMDLs for nonpollutants as surrogates for
pollutants.”
NACWA Active on Stormwater Litigation, Regulatory
Advocacy
EPA Makes the Right Call on Addressing
Nutrients from Clean Water Agencies
T
he U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) issued a strongly-worded
denial December 14 of the Natural
Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC)
2007 petition that sought to modify the second-
ary treatment regulations to include nutrient re-
moval. Citing the technical constraints and costs
associated with uniform national limits, EPA’s
December 14 letter denying the petition reaffirms
the Agency’s preference for controlling nutrient
discharges from POTWs through site specific wa-
ter quality-based permitting.
TAF Supported Advocacy Pays Dividends
This decision is a major victory for the clean water
community that will save publicly owned treat-
ment works (POTWs) tens of billions of dollars
annually, even based on EPA’s conservative, “lower
end” cost estimates. NACWA, supported by its
Targeted Action Fund (TAF), has led the advocacy
efforts on this issue since 2007 and encouraged
the Agency to take the exact steps laid out in the
December 14 denial.
NRDC’s petition contained two key requests.
First, the petition argued that EPA had not met
its statutory duty under Clean Water Act (CWA)
Section 304(d)(1) to periodically publish informa-
tion on the degree of effluent reduction attainable
through the application of secondary treatment,
and that such a document needed to be published.
On this point EPA agreed with NRDC and plans
to publish a report with updated information on
the performance of secondary treatment. The
Agency underscored that the “technology that
formed the basis for EPA’s secondary treatment
regulations…is not designed to remove nutrients”,
a key argument that NACWA has made since 2007.
EPA has committed to providing NRDC (and
other stakeholders) the “Secondary Treatment
Performance Report” in early 2013.
Nurient Limits “Not Warranted”
The second portion of NRDC’s petition requested
that EPA establish nutrient limits as a part of the
generally applicable secondary treatment regula-
tions. Citing careful consideration of the infor-
mation and arguments presented by NRDC – and
NACWA’s letters and follow-up data and informa-
tion submittals – EPA determined that “it is not
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A
Clear
Commitment to America’s Waters
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National Association of
Clean Water Agencies
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Washington DC 20036-2505
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