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Water Headlines for February 4, 2008Benjamin H. Grumbles Water Headlines is a weekly on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water. In This Week’s Water Headlines:
President's Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Reques
The President’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget request including for EPA’s National Water Program was announced on February 4, 2008. EPA's request for water programs is over $ 2.5 billion or 35 percent of the agency’s overall budget, and will allow EPA, along with our state, tribal and local partners, to make continued progress in ensuring America’s waters are clean, safe and secure. This budget will help EPA to: Guidebook to Help Water Utilities Improve Energy ManagementEPA and its water and wastewater partners are learning more and doing more to confront serious challenges related to rising energy costs. A new guidance, Ensuring a Sustainable Future: An Energy Management Guidebook for Wastewater and Water Utilities, will help utilities systematically assess their current energy costs and practices, set measurable performance improvement goals, and monitor and measure their progress over time. "Water and wastewater utilities can do more to save more energy with this timely guidebook," said Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin H. Grumbles. "Energy efficiency is good for the planet as well as the plant managers who make water clean and healthy." Steadily rising energy costs and associated environmental effects have made energy use one of the most pressing challenges facing water utilities. Energy management is also at the heart of efforts across the industry to ensure that water and wastewater systems are operated in a sustainable way. The guidance follows the successful Plan-Do-Check-Act methodology embodied in environmental management systems and other utility management tools. It was developed with the help of utilities that are successfully confronting their own energy challenges using this approach. It will serve as a step-by-step guide to help utilities systematically manage their energy programs over time. For an electronic copy of the handbook: http://www.epa.gov/waterinfrastructure/bettermanagement_energy.html Treatment in a Manner Similar to a State Strategy IssuedOn January 23, the Deputy Administrator issued a strategy for EPA's Assistant Administrators and Regional Administrators to streamline their reviews of tribal applications to administer EPA regulatory programs. The strategy is designed to improve the timeliness of EPA reviews and improve ongoing communication with tribes concerning their applications. Several statutes, including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act, enable EPA to determine that qualified tribes are eligible to be treated in a manner similar to a state, or "TAS," for administering certain regulatory programs. The strategy will guide EPA's internal processes, and is posted on EPA's web site at http://www.epa.gov/tribalportal/laws/tas.htm#related. EPA developed the strategy, based in part on input from a tribal work group established by the EPA National Tribal Caucus. The strategy provides direction to EPA staff in five strategic areas: establishing common expectations with tribal applicants concerning the TAS process, supplying additional tools to assist applicants in preparing TAS applications and to facilitate timely reviews, establishing improved internal review procedures including sequencing and timing of review steps, facilitating regular and effective communications with each applicant regarding the TAS review process, and identifying potential approaches for EPA to reach out, where appropriate, to other governmental entities and to the public to improve understanding of TAS. EPA Releases Draft Guidance for Drinking Water RegulationsEPA is releasing draft guidance to help public water systems and states understand and implement recent drinking water regulations. The 2006 Stage 2 Disinfection Byproducts (DBP) Rule will help to protect public health by reducing exposure to contaminants that can result from the disinfection process needed to inactivate microbial pathogens. The rule extends protection to consecutive water systems (those that receive water from another public water system) and, under certain conditions, requires public water systems to evaluate their source, treatment, and distribution system operations to understand potential causes of elevated DBP monitoring results. The Consecutive Systems Guidance Manual and Operational Evaluation Guidance Manuals are intended to assist public water systems to comply with these provisions of the regulation. In 2006, EPA also released the Ground Water Rule (GWR), which extends protection from microbial pathogens to consumers served by systems using ground water as a source of drinking water. States are required to conduct sanitary surveys that look at the critical components of these public water systems to ensure that there are no deficiencies that could result in threats to public health, and take action when problems are identified. The GWR Sanitary Survey Guidance briefly reviews the sanitary survey regulatory provisions, describes the elements that should be evaluated during the course of a sanitary survey, and gives specific examples of what constitutes a significant deficiency. The draft guidance documents are being made available to allow for public comment before they are finalized. The documents supporting the Stage 2 DBP Rule are available at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/disinfection/stage2/compliance.html and the GWR guidance is available at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/disinfection/gwr/compliancehelp.html. Municipal Wastewater Technology Fact SheetsEPA has developed four new fact sheets for innovative municipal wastewater technologies. These fact sheets are part of a continuing effort by the Office of Water to provide municipal utilities and state regulators with general technical and cost information on a variety of innovative or cost-effective technologies and best management practices. The new fact sheets are entitled: "Denitrifying Filters" (EPA 832-F-07-014), "Side Stream Nutrient Removal" (EPA 832-F-07-017), "In-Plant Wet Weather Peak Flow Management" (EPA 832-F-07016), and "Membrane Bioreactors" (EPA 832-F-07-015). These fact sheets, along with other previous municipal wastewater technology fact sheets on Combined Sewer Overflow Treatment, Biosolids Management, Wastewater Treatment, Storm Water Management, Decentralized Wastewater Systems, Collection Systems Rehabilitation and Replacement, and Energy Conservation and Green Power Generation can be viewed on the EPA web site at http://www.epa.gov/owm/mtb/mtbfact.htm Subscribe to Water HeadlinesPlease forward this message to your friends and colleagues who share an interest in water-related issues and would like to hear from EPA’s Office of Water. To subscribe to the Water Headlines listserve: Send an email message, leave the subject line blank, and address it to: In the body of the message write: Subscribe Water Headlines first name last name (Please leave one blank space between each word, do not include any other message, and use your actual name- i.e. Subscribe Water Headlines Robert Jones)
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