This Week in Washington is a weekly publication of the Water Environment Federation’s Government Affairs department. It provides updates on the latest legislative and regulatory developments that affect the water and wastewater communities.

September 30, 2005

Provided by the Water Environment Federation, Alexandria, VA

Senate Passes Proposal to Waive SRF Requirements in Gulf States
The Senate passed legislation on September 27 that would make it easier for both public and private utilities in Gulf States to receive federal loan assistance. The Gulf Coast Water Infrastructure Emergency Assistance Act of 2005, S.1709, would allow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to waive some eligibility requirements for federal loans to repair and upgrade wastewater and drinking water systems.  Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced the legislation earlier this month. Under Inhofe's bill, state officials administering EPA's loan programs would have the authority to forgive the principal on Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) loans and expand the scope of drinking water projects eligible for funding under the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF).  Of the $900 million CWSRF, EPA has allotted $14.8 million to Alabama, $14.6 million to Louisiana and $11.9 million to Mississippi. For fiscal year 2006, the agency has tentatively divided up the DWSRF fund by state, giving Alabama $8.4 million, or 1 percent of the total $850 million fund, $8.4 million to Mississippi and $11.8 million to Louisiana. (SJH)

EPA Finalizes Pretreatment Streamlining Rule
EPA announced on September 28 that it has finalized the Pretreatment Streamlining Rule which revises how industrial and commercial facilities manage their wastewater discharges before sending it on to publicly owned treatment works (POTW) for final treatment.  The new rule removes process requirements for industrial operations, such as sampling their discharges for pollutants that are not present at their facilities.  POTWs will be granted greater flexibility to issue general permits for effluent to multiple industrial users within the same treatment district that have similar operations, discharges, and requirements.  Additional benefits to POTWs include allowing industrial users (IUs) 45 days, instead of the current 30 days, to submit key reports before they are considered in significant non-compliance, providing POTWs the flexibility to convert traditional concentration-based limits to mass-based limits on a case-by-case basis, and establishing a tiered structure for regulating categorical industrial users (CIUs) instead of automatically treating all CIUs as significant industrial users.  EPA estimates the rule will save 240,000 employee hours or $10.1 million annually currently expended on pretreatment requirements.  The rule will appear in the Federal Register.  Details about the pretreatment streamlining rule are available at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pretreatment. (SRT)

Paper on Global Water Futures Released
The Center for Strategic and International Studies and Sandia National Laboratories released a white paper on Global Water Futures addressing the growing global challenges of dealing with the devastating effects of increasing water scarcity and declining water quality.  The white paper is the result of a joint research effort between the two institutions to generate fresh thinking and concrete policy recommendations on how the U.S. can better address future global water challenges and more efficiently leverage and deploy available technologies.  The paper explored four major themes:  how global water problems could be a source of conflict and instability in the future; how institutional capabilities must transform and expand to meet current and future challenges; policy approaches and technological approaches that must be fully integrated; and how the U.S. should raise international water issues on its list of priorities as a way of enhancing national security. (PS)

Senate Passes Water Resources Research Bill
On Tuesday, September 27, the Senate passed S.1017, The Water Resources Research Act Amendments of 2005, reauthorizing a network of water resources research institutes located at land-grant colleges in every state.  The research institutes address water supply and water quality problems, such as water-quality regulations, drinking water standards, wastewater treatment, and water reuse programs.  Participants include federal, state, and local governments, state universities, and stakeholders.  The Senate bill authorizes up to $62 million for the program through 2010 and another $32 million for the law’s Interstate Research Program.  (PS)
 
GAO Examines Federal Data Gaps that Support Ecological Indicators
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report assessing the state of federal data programs that provide data in support of ecological indicators.  The GAO reviewed twenty federal programs that provided data for a Heinz Center 2002 Report on the State of the Nation’s Ecosystems at the request of Congressman Sherrod Boehlert (R-NY), Chairman of the House Science Committee and Congressman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards.  The Members requested this review to identify whether these federal programs would continue to provide data at a comparable level for the next publication of the Heinz report scheduled to be released in 2007.  GAO found that of the twenty programs, two programs – the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) and the USGS National Stream Water Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) - were identified as not able to have comparable data available for the 2007 report.  Programs found to be uncertain as to whether data would continue to be available at the same level included:  The U.S. Forest Service’s National Survey on Recreation and the Environment, National Marine Fisheries Service programs, National Ocean Service programs, USGS’s EROS Data Center, and USGS’s National Water Information System, NWIS.  Collectively, these programs provide data for a large number of indicators.   The report can be found at the GAO website:  www.gao.gov. (PS)
 
EPA Inspector General Calls for Advancement of the Watershed Approach
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) recommended that the Agency improve integration of the watershed approach into its core water quality programs.  In a report titled "Sustained Commitment Needed to Further Advance Watershed Approach," the inspector general recognizes the progress made by EPA but calls for further improvements in addressing stakeholder concerns, strategic planning, and performance measurements.  EPA has supported the watershed-based approach since the early 1990s, according to the OIG, but the approach has only gained "limited acceptance as a means to implement water programs."  The agency has 90 days to respond with a corrective action plan.  The report is available at http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2005/20050921-2005-P-00025.pdf.  (SRT)

EPA Revises Hazardous Waste Exemptions for Wastewater Treatment
On September 28 EPA announced that it has finalized revisions to the wastewater treatment exemptions for hazardous waste mixtures, an action also known as the "Headworks Rule Exemptions."  Entities affected by the revisions are generators of industrial hazardous waste, and those that treat, store, transport and/or dispose of these wastes. The revisions include: (1) the addition of two solvents (benzene and 2-ethoxyethanol) to a list of solvents whose mixtures are exempted from the rules under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); (2) the addition of an option to directly measure solvent chemical levels at the headworks of the wastewater treatment system to the current requirement; (3) a clarification in the preamble that scrubber waters generated from the incineration of spent solvents listed in the headworks rule would be eligible for the exemption; (4) the addition of listed hazardous wastes as eligible for the exemption, as well as the addition of non-manufacturing facilities to those that qualify for this exemption if certain conditions are met. Many of these changes are based on public comments the Agency received during the public comment period.  Additional information on the headworks rule is at http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/id/headworks/index.htm. (SRT)

 

Quote of the Week:  “Water links us to our neighbor in a way more profound and complex than any other."   -John Thorson

This Week in Washington is provided by the Water Environment Federation, Alexandria, VA. To receive This Week in Washington by e-mail, contact Lisa Jones, (703) 684-2400 ext. 7741, ljones@wef.org. For more information on this week's stories, please contact the WEF staff whose initials appear at the end of the item in which you are interested. TW –Tim Williams (703) 684-2437, twilliams@wef.org; SRT - Sharon Thomas, (703) 684-2423, sthomas@wef.org; SJH - Sam Hadeed (703) 684-2418, shadeed@wef.org; PS-Patricia Sinicropi (703) 684-2416, psinicropi@wef.org. This Week in Washington is available on-line at http://www.wef.org/PolicyAction/USGovernmentAffairs/TWIW/.