News
EPA Releases Final PFAS Aquatic Life Criteria and Benchmarks
EPA finalized science-based water quality concentrations for 10 PFAS that will help states and Tribes protect fish and other aquatic life from these chemicals. The levels, referred to as water quality criteria and benchmarks, are not regulatory and are not required. States and Tribes can consider using them to develop water quality standards which inform the implementation of other Clean Water Act programs, like wastewater discharge permits.
The EPA’s final PFOA and PFOS aquatic-life criteria recommendations, published under Clean Water Act Section 304(a)(1), are based on the latest scientific knowledge about protecting freshwater fish and other organisms from the effects of short-term and long-term exposure to PFOA or PFOS. The best available science indicates that PFAS levels in the environment appear to be significantly below levels that would affect aquatic life, except in areas where there is known contamination such as Superfund sites. This is reflected in the EPA’s final aquatic life criteria.
Like criteria, aquatic life benchmarks are science-based concentrations above which exposure to certain pollutants negatively impact aquatic life. However, the EPA develops informational benchmarks under Clean Water Act Section 304(a)(2) when there are limited data on pollutants in freshwater or saltwater and the agency isn’t able to recommend water quality criteria. The agency derived benchmarks to protect aquatic life from short-term exposures to eight individual PFAS in freshwaters (PFBA, PFHxA, PFNA, PFDA, PFBS, PFHxS, 8:2 FTUCA, and 7:3 FTCA). The agency also developed aquatic life benchmarks for short-term exposure to PFOA and PFOS in saltwater environments.
View the EPA’s final PFAS aquatic life criteria and benchmarks.
$49 million in Technical Assistance to Help Communities Address Wastewater Challenges
EPA announced the availability of $49 million in new technical assistance funding under the Clean Water Act to help communities address critical wastewater and water quality challenges. The new funding will be awarded to technical assistance providers who will help mostly rural, small and Tribal communities identify their water infrastructure needs and guide them toward appropriate funding channels, as well as support them with compliance issues.
Many rural, small, and Tribal systems face unique financial and operational challenges, including aging infrastructure, workforce shortages, increasing costs, and declining rate bases. EPA’s grant funding will be used to assess communities most pressing challenges, provide training on water infrastructure and management best practices, help communities navigate the federal funding application process, and strategically invest in reliable infrastructure solutions.
Selections for the Rural, Small, and Tribal Wastewater Technical Assistance Grant Program will be made in:
Priority Area 1: Acquisition of Financing and Funding: These applicants will help rural, small, and Tribal communities plan for and access funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and other sources.
Priority Area 2: Protection of Water Quality and Compliance Assistance: This funding will help rural, small, and Tribal communities improve their technical, managerial, and financial capacity and maintain compliance.
Priority Area 3: Tribal Wastewater Systems: This area provides training and technical assistance to tribes across all areas of their Clean Water Infrastructure.
Priority Area 4: Decentralized Wastewater Systems: More than 1-in-5 households in the United States rely on septic systems and other decentralized systems, and this priority area focuses on assistance to those communities.
EPA is accepting applications until November 25, 2024. Information about how to apply is available at our website.
EPA Issues National Requirements to Protect U.S. Waterways from Pollutants Discharged by Vessels
finalization of national discharge standards to control the release of pollutants and invasive species from approximately 85,000 vessels operating in U.S. waters.
These standards, issued through EPA’s Vessel Incidental Discharge National Standards of Performance final rule, address discharges that occur with normal operation of large vessels. EPA’s final rule will help address harmful pollutants, including bacteria, pathogens, oil, grease, and metals while reducing the spread of invasive species that can damage ecosystems and infrastructure.
EPA’s Vessel Incidental Discharge National Standards of Performance final rule applies primarily to non-recreational, non-Armed Forces vessels 79 feet or longer (such as commercial, research and emergency rescue vessels) and ballast water from fishing vessels and non-recreational, non-Armed Forces vessels less than 79 feet long.
Discharges can happen during normal operation of these vessels while operating equipment and systems onboard, such as oil from machinery and wastewater from showers and sinks. Through best management practices and treatment standards, the EPA’s final rule addresses 20 discharges and their associated pollutants.
For example, the final rule requires “Lakers” – large vessels operating in the Great Lakes – that are constructed in the future, to operate ballast water management systems. This new federal requirement addresses known ballast-water management challenges aboard Lakers and will help reduce the spread of invasive species throughout the Great Lakes.
EPA’s new standards will not be implemented for up to two years while the U.S. Coast Guard develops and issues corresponding regulations. Until the U.S. Coast Guard regulations are final, effective and enforceable, vessels continue to be subject to the existing discharge requirements established in the EPA’s 2013 Vessel General Permit (pdf) and the U.S. Coast Guard’s ballast water regulations, as well as any other applicable state and local government requirements.
For more information, see EPA’s Commercial Vessel Discharge Standards website.
EPA Launches Resource Website for Communities Affected by Hurricane Helene
This week EPA launched a dedicated website to provide resources and information about EPA’s efforts to assist communities affected by Hurricane Helene. The EPA website will be updated in the coming days and weeks with real-time information on EPA response and recovery efforts for communities most at risk, including those in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. EPA has deployed teams from its regional and national operations centers to support efforts and coordinate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as part of the federal response. EPA personnel are stationed at FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center and Regional Response Coordination Centers, providing essential support for Emergency Support Functions (ESF). EPA activities in response to Hurricane Helene thus far include:
- Damage assessment: EPA is evaluating the impact on drinking water and wastewater systems, ensuring that critical infrastructure is restored promptly.
- Debris removal: EPA teams are assisting in disaster debris management, prioritizing public health and environmental protection.
- Hazardous materials management: Experts are identifying and managing hazardous materials in affected areas to safeguard residents and the environment.
Additionally, mobile drinking water labs and emergency generators have been deployed to assist communities in need. More details for affected communities can be found at EPA’s Hurricane Helene website.
EPA Seeks Input on Perchlorate Regulation
This week EPA invited nonprofits, small businesses, and local governments to provide advice and recommendations to a Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) Panel. This panel will focus on the agency’s development of a National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR) that will regulate perchlorate in drinking water to protect public health. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires federal agencies to establish an SBAR Panel for rules that may have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The SBAR Panel will also include federal representatives from the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the EPA. The panel members ask a selected group of Small Entity Representatives (SER) to provide advice and recommendations on behalf of their company, government, or organization to help inform the panel members about potential impacts of the proposed rule on small entities. Self-nominations as an SER may be submitted through the link below and must be received by October 7, 2024. Nominate yourself as a SER. EPA has committed to issuing a proposed NPDWR for perchlorate by November 2025 and a final regulation by May 2027. For more information on perchlorate in drinking water, see EPA’s webpage.
EPA Announced Funding Opportunities to Support Farmworker Communities
This week EPA announced three new funding opportunities to support pesticide safety education for farmworkers, training for health care providers to better address pesticide-related illness, and technical assistance to support managing these grants. A total of almost $10 million will be awarded to at least four grantees to carry out this work over five years.
Farmworker Training and Education Program for Pesticide Safety
EPA anticipates awarding two cooperative agreements to community-based farmworker organizations. A total of up to $6.3 million will be awarded to these five-year agreements beginning in 2025.
Farmworker Training and Education Program for Pesticide Safety
Pesticides Health Care Initiative
EPA is soliciting applications from nonprofit organizations with experience training health care providers who serve farmworker populations for a five-year cooperative agreement of up to $2.1 million to improve health care providers’ ability to prevent, recognize, treat, manage and report pesticide-related illness.
Pesticides Health Care Initiative
Pesticide Safety Grants Technical Assistance
EPA is soliciting applications for a cooperative agreement of up to $1.47 million to provide technical assistance with grants administration and compliance for grantees of the Farmworker Training and Education Program for Pesticide Safety and Pesticides Health Care Initiative agreements described above.
Pesticides Grant Technical Assistance Program
EPA Announces New Lagoon Tools for Small, Rural and Tribal Communities
On September 27, EPA released new resource tools to help protect public health and local water bodies in communities that rely on lagoons for wastewater management. Lagoon wastewater treatment systems are typically used in communities that are smaller than 3,000 people and can lack the necessary financial and technical resources to comply with the Clean Water Act. EPA’s new tools are intended to help local decisionmakers effectively and efficiently protect public health and the environment, address compliance challenges, and improve asset-management planning. The new resources include:
- The “First Stop Toolbox for Lagoons” identifies technical, financial, and regulatory support resources in a user-friendly web tool. This tool will help lagoon operators and technical assistance providers assess operations and compliance challenges in their lagoons, and in turn, help communities resolve these challenges on their own; and
- The “Small Lagoon Communities Economic Streamlining Tool” and the “Individual Lagoon Tool” help states, authorized Tribes, and communities determine whether a water quality standards (WQS) variance is an appropriate step to take when a small community is experiencing compliance challenges related to ammonia. Both tools are accompanied by an implementation document: “Applying the EPA’s Economic Analysis Tools to a WQS Variance for Ammonia for Small Lagoon Communities.”
These tools were developed as priority actions under the EPA’s 2022-2026 Lagoon Wastewater Treatment Action Plan, and respond to needs identified by state co-regulators and lagoon communities. Read the press release and access the new tools.
Association Updates
ACWA Legal Affairs Committee – October 29 Meeting
ACWA’s Legal Affairs Committee will host a call on October 29, at 1:00 pm ET to discuss the recent decision in Northwest Environmental Advocates v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, et al., from the U.S. District Court in Oregon. The discussion will be led by Diane Lloyd, Assistant Attorney General with the Oregon Department of Justice. Please contact Ward Scott (wscott@acwa-us.org) to register for the call.
Meetings and Webinars
Upcoming Intro to ECHO Webinar – October 17
Join U.S. EPA for its next Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) webinar on Thursday, October 17, 2024, 1:30-2:30 PM Eastern Time. This webinar will provide an overview of the data in ECHO and guide users through how to use ECHO to answer environmental enforcement and compliance questions. The focus of this webinar is a collection of short, step-by-step demonstrations geared toward new and infrequent users. We will demonstrate the capabilities of the ECHO Facility Search and Enforcement Case Search to answer questions such as:
- How do I search for a specific facility?
- How do I search for a specific enforcement case?
- How do I search for facilities releasing a pollutant?
- How do I search for facilities in my community?
Register at https://echo.epa.gov/help/training#upcoming to save your spot.
If you can’t make it, don’t worry, ECHO tutorials and recorded webinars are available at any time.
Webinar: Microfibers are a Macro Issue: Interagency Report on Microfiber Pollution– October 17, 2024 1:00-2:30 ET
EPA’s Trash Free Waters program is hosting its latest webinar, entitled Microfibers are a Macro Issue: Interagency Report on Microfiber Pollution. This webinar will cover the details in the report as well as some of the ongoing efforts in the United States and beyond addressing microfiber pollution. The speakers for this webinar will be: Carlie Herring, NOAA Marine Debris Program Nizanna Bathersfield, EPA Trash Free Waters Program Krystle Moody Wood, Materevolve. Register here.
EPA WCAT Training —October 3, 2024 2:00 – 4:00 PM ET
Join EPA’s free training on our Water Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (WCAT). This training is designed to help utilities efficiently utilize our WCAT tool to perform a successful assessment of your utilities cyber resilience. Register Here
EPA Cyber Phishing Drill —October 22, 2024 1:00 – 2:00 PM ET
Sign up for EPA’s free phishing drill for drinking water and wastewater systems. The drill will allow utilities to simulate one of the most common types of cyber attacks. This operational exercise is designed to help utilities understand, test your responses to this threat, and learn about resources to improve your preparedness. Register Here.
Job Opportunities
WA DOE: Municipal Facility Management Engineer (Enviro. Engineer 2)
Location: Shoreline, WA
Closing Date: October 13, 2024
Working under the direct supervision of a licensed Professional Engineer, you will make vital contributions to
the regulation, planning, design, and construction of wastewater treatment and water reclamation
facilities in northwest Washington (King, Snohomish, Kitsap, Skagit, Island, Whatcom, and San Juan
counties). You will help to protect water quality in the region by developing wastewater discharge permits,
reviewing engineering documents for domestic wastewater facilities, providing engineering
oversight of infrastructure projects that receive financial assistance, and participating in
inspections and enforcement activities.
To request the full position description, email: careers@ecy.wa.gov.
