AWWA JAW63313

This bimonthly roundup features highlights of the hottest news stories of recent months as reported in WATERWEEK, AWWA's weekly newsletter to member utilities. Topics covered include: water suppliers want their treatment plants excluded from a bipartisan chemical security bill before the Senate; a federal district court in Florida is considering another case addressing whether transfers of nutrient-polluted ambient waters by South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) flood-control pumps fall within the permitting requirements of Section 402 of the Clean Water Act (CWA); a new AWWA report provides comprehensive guidance to help water and wastewater utilities establish mutual aid and assistance networks to respond to natural disasters or other water emergencies; a National Research Council (NRC) panel that reviewed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) limits on fluoride in drinking water concluded that USEPA's current maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) for fluoride does not protect children from suffering severe enamel fluorosis and should be lowered to do so; acting to aid USEPA's effort to propose revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), the National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC) on March 10 approved key parts of a larger report prepared by the Working Group on Public Education Requirements for the LCR that will require U.S. water utilities to undertake expanded efforts to communicate lead risks to targeted at-risk audiences; Massachusetts water suppliers would have to reduce perchlorate levels to 2 µg/L and routinely monitor for the rocket-fuel chemical under a regulation proposed by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP); a new report funded by the Water Industry Technical Action Fund concludes that a perchlorate standard as high as 24.5 µg/L "should pose little or no incremental risk to the large majority of individuals in the most sensitive subpopulations exposed in the United States at current levels of perchlorate in water"; a USEPA advisory board has concluded that the affordability of water and wastewater service in the United States "is primarily a household problem" that is best addressed "through careful design of utility policies regarding subsidies, rates, collections, and financial assistance"; USEPA reports in its newest CWSRF annual report that it has, along with various states, invested almost $54 billion over the past 18 years in the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) program to improve wastewater infrastructure; and, legislation was introduced March 8 in the U.S. Senate to address the deteriorating conditions of the nation's drinking water systems, roads, bridges, and other public works by establishing a National Commission on the Infrastructure of the United States and charging it with completing a study of current conditions and recommending federal priorities in three years.