News

EPA Press Release: $1.9 Billion Additional State Revolving Loan Funds

On May 13, 2022 EPA announced $1.9 billion in grant funding to the State Revolving Funds (SRF) to “accelerate progress on water infrastructure projects.” “With this funding provided through annual appropriations, coupled with investments under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, EPA is providing $9.6 billion in the SRFs to deliver the benefits of water infrastructure investments to more communities—especially those that have long been overburdened by water challenges,” said EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Radhika Fox. EPA is encouraging states, tribes, and territories to “strategically deploy SRF funding through the BIL alongside SRF base funding and other water infrastructure financing tools to make rapid progress on their most pressing needs.” A copy of the entire press release can be found here.

CWA Hazardous Substance Worst Case Discharge Planning Extension

On May 16, 2022 EPA announced comment period extensions for a proposed rule that required an owner/operator of a facility to prepare and submit a plan for responding, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge, and to a substantial threat of such a discharge, of a hazardous substance from an onshore, non-transportation-related facilities that could reasonably be expected to cause substantial harm to the environment. The comment period is being extended to July 26, 2022. A copy of the notice can be found here.

Association Updates

Seeking Case Studies to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the CWA

ACWA is preparing to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Clean Water Act later this year and we are seeking case studies from our members.   The goal of the campaign is to highlight the great work the states/interstates have been doing in implementing the CWA.  We will kick off the campaign during the 2022 ACWA Annual Meeting (August 3-5, 2022) at Graceland in Memphis, TN.

The campaign includes several components (social media, Story Map, Etc.)  with the most visible being a Story Map website that will consist of state/interstate stories highlighting how your programs are working to achieve the goals of the CWA. This is the time to celebrate the hard work of you and your staff and toot your own horns.

We would like to have stories from all ACWA members in the Story Map. We have created a simple template for you to use to enter your information. You can use an existing case study that you may have already created for another effort or you can come up with a new story.  You can submit more than one story too!  As the template is updated, our consultant will work to get the stories included in the map.

If you would like to submit a case study, please let Julia Anastasio or Kara McCauley know if you intend to submit a case study by June 1, 2022, and we will provide you with a link to the template. This is the time to show how you have been using the CWA to protect and restore the waters in your state!

ACWA/EPA to Support States Helping States Initiative

Our goal with this effort would be to bring state inspectors together to learn from one another.

1. If you are an inspector willing to travel out of state to learn from one of your peers conducting an onsite inspection at a facility, please send Sean Rolland (srolland@acwa-us.org) note with the type of sector/facility of interest. ACWA would cover travel costs via an EPA cooperative agreement.
2. If you are a state with a robust inspection program and would be willing to allow another state inspector to join you onsite at a facility to do a walk through, please send me a note as well. ACWA plans to do another outreach effort we have a better understanding of the types of sectors/facilities of interest.

Travel would likely occur later in the year and would be at the discretion of the host state’s inspection schedule.

2022 ACWA Annual Meeting Registration Open

Registration is now open for the 2022 ACWA Annual Meeting, August 3-5, 2022, at The Guest House at Graceland, Memphis, TN.   We are looking forward to gathering face to face for the first time in two years!  Join us as we celebrate reconnecting with colleagues and kick off the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act.  As part of the celebration, the ACWA Board of Directors has decided that there will be no registration fee for the meeting.

2022 ACWA Annual Meeting Travel Scholarships Available

ACWA is also offering a limited number of travel scholarships to help states/ interstates with travel costs to the meeting.  If you are interested in applying for a scholarship, please contact Kara McCauley.

Register for the Next ACWA Legal Affairs Committee

The ACWA Legal Affairs Committee will hold its next meeting on June 2, 2022, from 2:00 to 3:00 PM ET.  This call will feature a discussion of Residual Designation Authority (RDA).  If you are interested in participating, please contact Julia Anastasio for registration information.

Meetings and Webinars

EPA Webinar: Reproducible Workflows – Moving From Spreadsheets to Coding

Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Time: 1–3 PM EST
Register here

In this introductory webinar to the “Coding-Based Workflows for Water Quality Modeling” series, we will discuss the benefits of incorporating reproducible practices into data acquisition, processing, analysis, and management. This session will include example applications of reproducible practices in data workflows. We will also highlight software and file management platforms relevant to this workshop series.

Hosted by the EPA Water Quality Modeling Workgroup
Presentation Speakers: Kateri Salk and Brian Pickard

Eastern: 1–3 pm | Central: 12–2 pm | Mountain: 11–1 pm Pacific: 10 am–12 pm | Alaska: 9 am–11 am

Integrating Water Quality Management and Natural Hazard Resilience through Nature Based Solutions – Watershed Academy Webinar

Date: May 24
Time: 1–3 PM EST
Register here

Registration is now open for EPA’s Watershed Academy webinar on Integrating Water Quality Management and Natural Hazard Resilience through Nature Based Solutions, which will take place on May 24^th, 2022. This webcast will feature professionals from across the country that are conducting projects that promote both water quality and hazard resilience. Speakers will discuss a variety of work, research on how communities can integrate nature-based practices into their planning and resource management, building partnerships across agencies and organizations, and creative funding strategies.

IJC Great Lakes Science Advisory Board Public Webinar: Development of a Great Lakes Groundwater and Surface Water Conceptual Framework

Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Time: 3–4 PM EST
Register Here

The Great Lakes Science Advisory Board-Research Coordination Committee of the International Joint Commission (IJC) invites you to participate in a webinar about the board’s newly-published report on Development of a Great Lakes Groundwater and Surface Water Conceptual Framework.

The Great Lakes groundwater and surface water resources are connected, but there are gaps in coordinating and integrating how they are modeled and managed.

The IJC Great Lakes Science Advisory Board-Research Coordination Committee discusses how groundwater and surface water can be better linked and modeled in their latest report. This webinar will provide a deeper dive into the science and technical aspects of the report, of interest to groundwater and surface water researchers, managers, funders, regulators and those involved in using and modeling groundwater and surface water data.

On the webinar, a panel of IJC Great Lakes Science Advisory Board-Research Coordination Committee members will provide information and answer your questions about the report’s recommendations. Panelists include:

• Sandra Eberts, United States Geological Survey
• Réjean Couture, Geological Survey of Canada

NASEM Workshop: Communities, Climate Change, and Health Equity — State-Level Implementation

Date: May 24-26, 2022
Time: 12:00-3:00 PM EST
Register Here

In October 2021, the Environmental Health Matters Initiative (EHMI) organized the workshop Communities, Climate Change, and Health Equity—A New Vision, which provided an overview of how changing climate conditions exacerbate existing health inequities experienced by communities across the United States. The workshop identified a broad set of potential actions and actors that could lead efforts to address the intersection of climate change, health inequity and environmental injustice.

Given that much of the authority for addressing these issues rests at the individual state level, EHMI is organizing an additional workshop – the next in a series – from 12:00 – 3:00 PM ET on May 24 and 26, 2022.

This workshop will delve deeper into specific state-level actions and actors that could help improve climate-related health outcomes in disproportionately impacted communities, particularly through the deeper integration of health equity into climate programs and consideration of climate justice in public health programs.

APHL Webinar: Naegleria fowleri – Public health response to municipal water-associated cases in Texas and Louisiana

Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Time: 3–4 PM EST
Register Here

Presented by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL).

As summer approaches and recreational water activities increase, it is important for public health laboratories to be aware of environmental microbes that can live in water such as Naegleria fowleri. This amoeba can grow in warm, fresh water and can cause serious harm if contaminated water enters the body through the nose. Join this webinar to hear how the Louisiana Department of Health and the Texas Department of State Health Services responded to municipal water-associated Naegleria fowleri cases in their jurisdictions.

SPEAKERS

• John Williams, PE, Deputy Chief Engineer, Field Operations, Louisiana Department of Health
• Christa Cook, CIC, Team Lead IRID Epidemiologist III, Texas Department of State Health Services
• Ryan Wallace, Epidemiologist II, Texas Department of State Health Services

MODERATOR

• Mia Catharine Mattioli, PhD, EIT, MS, Environmental Engineer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

EPA Intro to ECHO Public Webinar: ECHO Behind the Scenes

Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Time: 1:30–2:30 PM EST
Register Here

During this webinar, we will dive into the “Behind the Scenes” of ECHO, answering questions about environmental data such as:

• From which EPA systems does ECHO retrieve data?
• How frequently are the data updated, and how do I make corrections?
• How can I download ECHO data?
• What are the ECHO web services?

Closed Captioning will be provided. Please contact EPA by June 1 to request other accommodations.

EPA Webinar: EFAB Announces Upcoming Webinar June 22

Date: Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Time: 12–1:30 PM EST
Register here

 The Pollution Prevention Finance Forum is a series of webinars that explore opportunities and challenges in financing sustainability, with an initial focus on advancing opportunities for small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses. The purpose of the second Forum webinar is to further assess the types of financial tools and models that are or could be made available for pollution prevention (P2) projects and are relevant to small and medium-sized businesses and manufacturers. The third Forum webinar will assess partnership models and explore potential partnership opportunities and distribution networks for P2 projects. P2, also known as source reduction, is any practice that reduces, eliminates, or prevents pollution at its source prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal. More information can be found here.

NASEM Climate Conversations: Water Justice

Date: June 23, 2022
Time: 3:00 PM–4:00 PM ET
Register Here

Join the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for a conversation about how to ensure all people in the U.S. have access to clean and safe drinking water in a changing climate.

Millions of people in the U.S. currently lack access to clean and safe drinking water, particularly in low-income rural areas and in communities of color. Our changing climate creates additional threats, such as droughts that diminish surface water bodies, algal blooms and salt-water intrusion that contaminate water supplies, and floods that overwhelm water treatment facilities. Join us for a conversation about how policies and infrastructure could help address current disparities in access to water and build resilience to the increasing impacts from climate change. Speakers will be announced soon.

The conversation will be webcast on the Climate Conversations: Water Justice webpage on Thursday, June 23, 2022 from 3-4 p.m. EDT. Closed captioning will be provided. The conversation will include questions from the audience and will be recorded and available to view on the page after the event.

Climate Conversations: Pathways to Action is a monthly webinar series from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that aims to convene high-level, cross-cutting, nonpartisan conversations about issues relevant to national policy action on climate change.

NNCR Training Descriptions

NNCR Basic Training: Quarterly Report– Basic Training Presentation (PPTX) (1.6 MB)

This webinar focuses on the new quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), currently available on ECHO Lab (echolab.epa.gov) for EPA and state testing. The training covers what the quarterly NNCR is and why it was developed, background on the NNCR workgroup, violation types and violation details included in the report, information about accessing the quarterly report, and includes a demonstration of the beta-version available in ECHO Lab.

NNCR Advanced Training: DMR Reporting Violations – DMR Reporting Violations Presentation (PPTX) (1.8 MB)

This webinar focuses on the new quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), currently available on ECHO Lab (echolab.epa.gov) for EPA and state testing. This training is an advanced training focused on DMR reporting violations. The training covers when DMR reporting violations are generated in ICIS-NPDES, criteria for detecting Category I or II noncompliance, resolution of DMR reporting violations, and a demonstration of how to identify DMR reporting violations and details related to the violations on the quarterly NNCRs.

NNCR Advanced Training: Effluent Exceedance Violations – Effluent Exceedance Violations Presentation (PPTX) (2.2 MB)

This webinar focuses on the new quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), currently available on ECHO Lab (echolab.epa.gov) for EPA and state testing. This training is an advanced training focused on effluent exceedance violations. The training covers when effluent exceedance violations are generated in ICIS-NPDES, criteria for detecting Category I or II noncompliance, resolution of effluent exceedance violations, and a demonstration of how to identify effluent exceedance violations and details related to the violations on the quarterly NNCRs.

NNCR Advanced Training: Schedule Violations – Schedule Violations Presentation (PPTX) (1.9 MB)

This webinar focuses on the new quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), currently available on ECHO Lab (echolab.epa.gov) for EPA and state testing. This training is an advanced training focused on schedule violations of permit and enforcement action requirements. The training covers when schedule violations are generated in ICIS-NPDES, criteria for detecting Category I or II noncompliance, resolution of schedule violations, and a demonstration of how to identify schedule violations and details related to the violations on the quarterly NNCRs.

NNCR Advanced Training: Other Violations

This webinar focuses on the new quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), currently available on ECHO Lab (echolab.epa.gov) for EPA and state testing. This training is an advanced training focused on single event/other violations. The training covers when single event/other violations are generated in ICIS-NPDES, criteria for detecting Category I or II noncompliance, resolution of the violations, and a demonstration of how to identify these violations and details related to the violations on the quarterly NNCRs. Note: the initial version of the NNCR only includes base program and biosolids violations. Other NPDES program violations will be integrated into the NNCR before the eRule phase 2 deadline.

NNCR Basic Training: Annual Report

This webinar focuses on the new annual summary National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), currently available on ECHO Lab (echolab.epa.gov) for EPA and state testing. The training covers what the annual NNCR is and why it was developed, permit groups and metrics included in the report, information about accessing the annual report, and includes a demonstration of the beta-version available in ECHO Lab.

NNCR Webinar Training Dates

GWPC on Aquifer Storage and Recovery – Managed Aquifer Recharge

As part of the 2022 State Summit Webinar Series on Water Reuse, the Groundwater Protection Council (GWPC) is hosting a webinar for state staff on Aquifer Storage and Recovery – Managed Aquifer Recharge (ASR-MAR), on May 25 at 2-3:30 p.m. Eastern. The webinar will feature a lively panel of leaders, including representatives of  GWPC, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, U.S. EPA, and Eastern Research Group, Inc.. A member of EPA’s water reuse team will also provide a brief update on the National Water Reuse Action Plan. The webinar is hosted by GWPC in collaboration with ECOS, ACWA, ASDWA, ASTHO, and EPA. Register here.

EPA Webinar: Small POTWs: What to Expect and How to Prepare for your NPDES Permit

Date: May 25, 2022
Time: 1– 2:30 PM EST
Register Here

EPA’s Office of Compliance invites you to a free webinar on May 25, 2022, as part of EPA’s ongoing Technical Assistance Webinar Series: Improving CWA-NPDES Permit Compliance at Small Wastewater Treatment Systems.

In this 90-minute webinar, the speakers will discuss what a Small POTW should expect as they undertake the NPDES Permit process. We will give a brief overview of the NPDES permit program and its goals and implementation under the Clean Water Act. Then we will cover the steps to obtain a permit from application to public notice and comment to improve the operator’s understanding of required components of a permit and give insight on how to improve collabo-ration with the permitting authority. Participants will be encouraged to comment and ask questions throughout the webinar.

Presenter Sean Ramach, EPA

Sean Ramach has worked with the US EPA for over 18 years and currently serves as the National Pollutant Discharge Eliminations System (NPDES) Training Coordinator for the US EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management, Water Permits Division.

Job Opportunities

Water Quality Standards and Assessment Analyst | Washington Department of Ecology

Location: Lacey, WA
Closing Date: May 26, 2022

This position works with a small team of water quality scientists who assess statewide datasets to report on the condition of lakes, rivers, and marine waters in Washington. We are looking for applicants who want to apply their water quality monitoring, data analysis, and data management skills to improve our analysis process and assessment techniques. This is an opportunity to learn real-world application of environmental data for use in Federal Clean Water Act programs.

For more information, click here.

WPDES General Permits Coordinator | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

Location: Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Oshkosh, Spooner, or Horicon, WI
Closing Date: May 29, 2022

The WPDES General Permits Coordinator is responsible for drafting WPDES general permits (non-stormwater) and coordinating the administration of the WPDES General Permit program.  This includes coordinating reissuance activities, providing leadership on DNR’s General Permits Functional Group, working with contractors on the transition to electronic reporting for general permittees, interfacing with the public and stakeholders in public hearings and trainings, and wastewater plan review.  This position offers an opportunity for high impact, as general permits cover a vast majority of dischargers in Wisconsin.  More information on Wisconsin’s WPDES General Permits program is available here.

For more information or to apply, click here.

Environmental Specialist | Kansas Department of Health and Environment

Location: Topeka, KS
Closing Date: June 1, 2022

The Kansas Department of Health & Environment is hiring a WQS coordinator to work in its Bureau of Water in the Policy Planning and Standards Unit. The position will be responsible for overseeing the triennial review process, reviewing associated documents, and writing technical documents in support of agency positions.

For more information, click here.

Monitoring Coordinator (Environmental Analyst III) | Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection

Location: Worcester, MA
Closing Date: Open until filled (first consideration will be given to applications received within 14 days of the May 16^th posting date).

MassDEP seeks applicants for the position of Environmental Analyst III within the Watershed Planning Program (WPP), Division of Watershed Management, Bureau of Water Resources. Under the direction of the WPP Monitoring Program supervisor or designee, the successful applicant will work collaboratively with WPP staff, as well as sister agencies and other interested parties to perform professional field investigations of the water quality and biological integrity of Massachusetts’ surface waters to support multiple water quality management objectives. The successful applicant will formulate quality assurance project plans, coordinate field and laboratory investigations, compile and analyze environmental data, and report findings in technical reports and memoranda. Additional responsibilities will include leading coordination efforts for WPP’s macroinvertebrate monitoring activities, as well as managing and reporting on macroinvertebrate data.

For more information, click here.

Surface Water Bureau Chief | Idaho Department of Environmental Quality

Location: Boise, ID
Closing Date: June 1, 2022

Seeking a team-oriented, motivated individual to provide leadership as the Surface Water Bureau Chief for Clean Water Act programs. This position leads a team of nine staff in the central office and coordinates with staff in DEQ’s regional offices to implement surface water programs, including TMDLs, Water Quality Standards, 401 Certification, and Nonpoint Source Program Management.

For more information, click here.

Watershed Management Section Senior Planner | Washington Department of Ecology

Location: Lacey, WA
Closing Date: June 5, 2022

In this position, you will work with technical and policy experts on an ever-changing set of topics related to implementing new legislative directives, federal Clean Water Act Programs, as well as Washington State programs related to Washington’s Water Pollution Control Act:

• Water Clean Up Plans- Total Maximum Daily Loads
• List of Polluted waters (303 d list)
• Development of Water Quality Standards
• Implementation of the State Nonpoint Pollution Control Program

For more information, click here.