AWWA JAW65348

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: the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) issued its first-ever 10-year FiltrationAvoidance Determination (FAD) on July 30, 2007, to New York City, allowing it to continueproviding unfiltered water from the city's Catskill/Delaware watershed; after enduring daily fines for delays in constructing its Croton Water Filtration Plant, theNew York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently reported that it hasfinalized a contract with Sweden-based Skanska Corporation for $1.3 billion, the largest singleconstruction contract in city history; to date, DEP has paid $5.5 million in fines to the stateand federal governments for failure to meet various deadlines set for building a filtration plantagreed to in 1998 that would improve water quality for the 1 million city residents who relyon supplies from the Croton Watershed; asked by USEPA to recommend ways to improve sustainable water infrastructure, theNational Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT) hasidentified lack of understanding and use of the watershed approach to water resourcemanagement as a major opportunity for USEPA, and while commending the agency for numerous activities it is already doing to support thisconcept, NACEPT recommended that USEPA create a position for a "sustainablewatershed coordinator" and charge that position with aligning all agency activities andinteraction with other federal agencies, and communicate the"urgency" of adopting a watershed approach to sustainable water infrastructure; USEPA's annual accounting of the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF)shows that dollars for the federal/state infrastructure funding partnership were higher thanever in 2006 after a dip in 2005, nearing $13 billion in its 10th year; the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA), a national organization that represents state water pollution control agencies, has calledon Congress to write specific language to prohibit USEPA from making Clean Water Act(CWA) Section 106 set-asides; efforts by US water suppliers to stop Congress from exempting concentrated animalfeeding operations (CAFOs) from cleanup liabilities under Superfund legislation continuedduring a Sept. 6, 2007, hearing by the Senate Committee on Environment and PublicWorks; Ontario's Ministry of the Environment reports it has implemented all 121 of therecommendations made to avoid a repeat of the May 2000 tragedy in Walkerton, a smalltown northwest of Toronto where contaminated drinking water killed seven people andsickened 2,300; California has adopted a drinking water standard for perchlorate of 6µg/L, equal to the public health goal that was set in large part to protect fetuses of womenwith hypothyroidism or iodide deficiencies; a final study released by the USEPA concludes that a "combination offactors" caused elevatedlead levels in the waterdelivered to District ofColumbia Water and Sewer Authority (DCWASA) customers several years ago, and that treatment changes starting in the mid-1990s at the USArmy Corps of Engineers Washington Aqueduct facility led to the release of lead fromlead service pipes throughout WASA's distribution system; and, Southern FloridaWater Management District (SFWMD) has honored a US District Court order not topump phosphate-laden canal water into Lake Okeechobee until it obtains a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Standards (NPDES)permit for the transfer.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. 99 - No. 11

Published:

11/01/2007

Number of Pages:

12

File Size:

1 file , 100 KB