» Clean Water Current Archive

July 2, 2010

Key Senators Introduce Green Infrastructure Funding Bill with NACWA’s Support

This week Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced The Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act of 2010 (S. 3561) in the U.S. Senate.  This is a companion bill to H.R. 4202 which was introduced by Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and has the support of nearly 40 co-sponsors.  The Senators’ introduction of this legislation represents the culmination of months of extensive outreach by NACWA and its green infrastructure coalition partners, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and American Rivers.  The Senate bill exemplifies the recent momentum the green infrastructure issue has enjoyed as does the fact that H.R. 4202 has also added 11 co-sponsors in recent weeks.  NACWA is encouraging members to contact their Representatives and Senators and urge their support of H.R. 4202 and S.356, respectively.  The Senators have asked NACWA to be part of a media campaign on behalf of their bill after the July 4th holiday and the Association believes this will further heighten the need for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address green infrastructure programmatically as a viable and affordable technique to help control stormwater and address wet weather challenges.

Clean Water Community Voices Views on Sanitary Sewer Issues at Listening Sessions

Following up on last week’s session in Seattle, Washington (see the June 25 Clean Water Current), EPA continued its data collection this week on potential regulations for collection systems, sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs), and peak flows, with listening sessions in Atlanta, Georgia and Kansas City, Kansas.  NACWA has attended each session to ensure a full understanding of stakeholder concerns, especially the municipal community.  There was broad support for a national regulation for sanitary sewer systems, including the need for some form of capacity, management, operation and maintenance (CMOM) planning – as well as reasonable reporting, recordkeeping, and notification of SSOs.  There was also generally broad support for including satellite collection systems within the permitted universe.  The details regarding each of these issues, however, varied and were open to debate.

Speakers in Atlanta and Kansas City noted the need for increased consistency in reporting of overflows and better certainty in terms of the standards they must meet when managing their collection systems.  There was broad support for an affirmative defense from unavoidable overflows based on some type of system design or performance standard.  On the issue of peak flows, speakers in both cities noted that peak flow blending should be allowed and not covered under the bypass regulations.  In Atlanta, there were mixed opinions on how to best move forward with blending and SSOs, either independently or together in a single rulemaking, but participants in Kansas City clearly supported addressing both issues under a single rulemaking effort.  Many of the municipal comments echoed NACWA’s talking points .  NACWA plans to provide comments at the listening session on July 13 in Washington, DC and is working to develop its written comments which need to be submitted to the Agency by August 2.  The presentation EPA has been providing at the listening sessions is now posted on the web at www.epa.gov/npdes/sso.

Senate Environment Committee Passes Chesapeake Bay, Other Watershed Legislation

The Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee this week reported out The Chesapeake Bay Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act (S. 1816) to reauthorize the Clean Water Act’s Chesapeake Bay Program.  In order to ensure bipartisan support for this bill, changes were made to eliminate the section in the bill that codified the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (TMDL).  States would still need to abide by TMDL load and wasteload allocations.  Other revisions would limit EPA’s enforcement review to only those actions called for in the State Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) and prevent EPA from imposing regulatory controls that were not already specified in these WIPs, including potential nonpoint source controls.   NACWA will provide a full analysis of other changes made to the proposal in the coming weeks.  In addition to the Bay legislation, the Committee also reported out several other regional watershed bills, including:  The Gulf of Mexico Restoration and Protection Act (S. 1311), The Columbia River Basin Restoration Act (S. 3025),  The Great Lakes Ecosystem Protection Act (S. 3073),  The San Francisco Bay Restoration Act (S. 3539), The Clean Estuaries Act (S. 3540), The Puget Sound Recovery Act (S. 2739), and The Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Act (S. 3119).

In other Chesapeake Bay-related efforts, Representative Tim Holden (D-Pa.) introduced an alternative bill for the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort – The Chesapeake Bay Program Reauthorization and Improvement Act (H.R. 5509).  This bill focuses primarily on voluntary incentives for agricultural producers to control nutrient run-off from their farms and establishes a water quality trading program.  The bill has been referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee where staff is working to merge it with Rep. Elijah Cummings’ (D-Md.) bill that closely mirrors the Senate bill.  It is unclear when the House will take up this measure.

Also, EPA released draft nutrient allocations for the Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts.  EPA proposed watershed-wide limits of 187.4 million pounds of nitrogen and 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus annually, and divided those allocations among the six watershed states and the District of Columbia, as well as the major river basins.  EPA’s July 1 press release notes that “these loadings were determined using the best peer-reviewed science and through extensive collaboration with the states and the District of Columbia.” EPA will assign draft allocations for sediment August 15.

EPA’s key next steps include issuing a draft TMDL or as it calls it “a pollution diet” for the Bay on September 24, with a 45-day public comment period immediately following.  NACWA plans to provide comments on this effort and would be interested in member views on this as it proceeds.  The final Bay TMDL is expected to be issued by EPA before the end of this year.

NACWA wishes all of its members a safe and happy July 4th holiday.  
NACWA’s office will be closed on Monday July 5th.