AWWA JAW64959

This bimonthly feature highlights the hottest news stories of recent months as published in WaterWeek. Topics covered include: water supply interests opposed to applying Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permit requirements to routine water transfers have failed to convince the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that ordered New York City to obtain just such a permit; a legal accord between two leading manufacturers of ultraviolet (UV) disinfection technology grants Trojan Technologies worldwide immunity from all current and future legal action related to patents held by Calgon Carbon Corporation; legal arguments made by Portland, Oregon, challenging certain requirements of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) Long-Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2ESWTR) amount to "little more than a quarrel over the fine points of USEPA's cost and risk estimates," the government asserts in defense of the rule; communities across North America are at a turning point in financing the replacement of aging water and wastewater infrastructure, concluded a panel of experts on the final day of a three-day conference in Atlanta; highlighting a deepening divide between the White House and Congress over water infrastructure funding, a House committee marked up legislation that would authorize $20 billion over five years for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) two days after the Bush administration submitted its fiscal year (FY) 2008 budget seeking again to cut the fund by $200 million; funding for US Department of Agriculture (USDA) loans and grants for rural water and waste disposal projects would jump to $1.5 billion under the White House budget request for FY2008; unhappy with USEPA's proposed budget cuts for FY2008, state environmental officials have set forth a budget-neutral alternative that would boost grants to help states implement federal programs and support infrastructure improvements; a coalition of 14 water agencies from Hawaii to Florida has formed to seek greater federal funding to develop new water supplies through recycling, desalination, and groundwater reclamation; and, the biggest problem with water security is that the utilities that need information on security threats can't always get it, concludes a National Research Council (NRC) panel in a newly released assessment of the agency's water security research program.