Operator Certification Working Group
Executive Summary
"The Partnership"
August 28-29 Meeting
I. Background
The third meeting of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC)
Operator Certification Working Group (the Partnership) was held on August
28-29, 1997, in Washington, D.C. Nineteen working group members were present
for both days, one member was present for one of the two days, and one
member participated by teleconference on the 28th. Members Crawford and
Sass were unable to attend either day.
II. Meeting Summary
The Partnership reviewed and provided comments on the draft cover letter
for the information package for States, the new foreword to the Association
of Boards of Certification Document-Operator Certification Program
Standards, the Summary of Existing Operator Certification Programs,
and the Summary of Programs by Category. Overall, there were few requested
changes to the documents. These changes will be made, and final drafts
will be presented to the Partnership.
The State/EPA workgroup completed and presented to the Partnership all
nine of the issue papers on the recommended standards for their review
and comment. These are: Authorization; Classification of Systems, Facilities,
and Operators; and Operator Qualifications; Renewal; Recertification;
Resources Needed to Implement a Program; Stakeholder Involvement; Enforcement;
and Program Review. To facilitate the discussion of the issue papers,
a summary of the State/EPA workgroup meetings was prepared and presented
to the Partnership in an unbiased fashion. The summary detailed all of
the considerations that went into the development of the papers.
The Partnership reconsidered the first three papers which dealt with
Authorization; Classification of Systems, Facilities, and Operators; and
Operator Qualifications. Whenever optional language was recommended, a
poll was taken on the various options presented.
The majority of the meeting was devoted to an in-depth discussion of
the coverage issues that were incorporated in the revised issue paper
on Classification of Systems, Facilities, and Operators, and additional
language on grandparenting which was added to the Operator Qualifications
paper. The Partnership also completed its review of the new issue paper
on Enforcement, providing editorial comments, as well as a unanimous request
to have the term Primacy Agency defined to include cases where a State
does not have primacy, such as Wyoming.
III. Next Steps
The Partnership has scheduled a meeting for September 22-23 in Washington,
D.C. to review and comment on the remaining issue papers.
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