Nutrient issues remain a priority for the Nation’s clean water utilities and two new lawsuits are signaling a determined push to further ratchet down on point sources. This series of two one-hour webinars will explore both technology-based and water quality based approaches to nutrient control, and the potential implications of the two new legal cases for clean water utilities. The web seminars will also look at continued efforts to seek meaningful participation from the largest source of nutrients in most watersheds – agriculture.

Web Series Seminar 1: Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 2:00 PM ET

Nutrients – Are Technology Controls the Solution?

Join us as we explore technology-based approaches to nutrient control, which continue to be the focus of the environmental NGO community and some states. Since petitioning EPA to modify secondary treatment to include nutrient removal requirements, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has continued to push for these nationwide-requirements. A recent NRDC lawsuit seeks to compel EPA to respond to the petition. At the same time, the states, which have been tasked with developing water quality criteria for nutrients, are having difficulty developing meaningful nutrient criteria. Where criteria are developed, they often require treatment beyond the limits of technology for a clean water utility. Technology-based approaches offer an alternative that achieve reductions without pushing utilities to unreasonable control levels.

Speakers:

• Jon Devine, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council, who works on issues related to the health of our surface waters and the aquatic ecosystem.
• Mike Tate, Chief, Bureau of Water, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, who administers programs related to public water supplies, wastewater treatment systems, the disposal of sewage and nonpoint sources of pollution.

Web Series Seminar 2: Wednesday, June 27, 2012, 2:00 PM ET

Nutrients – Give Water Quality a Chance

Where technology-based controls are not sufficient to meet water quality standards, the Clean Water Act requires that water quality-based controls be imposed. Since 1998, EPA has made it clear that it prefers that states use numeric water quality criteria to address nutrient-related impacts and that preference has spawned more than a decade of work by EPA and the states. Recent litigation to compel EPA to develop numeric nutrient criteria and total maximum daily loads for the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico has again underscored the imbalance in the Clean Water Act. While 80-90 percent of the nutrient load to the Mississippi and Gulf are from nonpoint sources like agriculture, the only definitive result from the development of federal numeric criteria and TMDLs would be more onerous requirements for clean water utilities.

Speakers:

• Ellen Gilinsky, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, oversees the Agency's efforts on nutrients.
• Rich Budell, Director of the Office of Agricultural Water Policy for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services where he specializes in the areas of Total Maximum Daily Loads, and Numeric Nutrient Criteria.