Government Relations

Senate Jobs Bill Focus May Be Narrowed

The Senate Finance Committee leadership, Sens. Baucus (D-Mont.) and Grassley (R-Iowa) have produced a bipartisan jobs bill, the drafting of which was reported in the last issue of NewsFlow. However, shortly after the bill’s release, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signaled his opposition to the package.

Instead, Reid intends to turn the Senate’s attention this week to a smaller jobs package that includes a one-year extension of the Highway Act, several provisions to expand the Build America Bond program and small-business tax provisions.

Reid and the Senate Leadership moved away from the bipartisan Finance Committee “Baucus-Grassley” bill feeling it was too large and too “pro-business.” Whatever the Senate eventually produces will have to be reconciled with a House bill passed late last year, before being sent to the president. This is only the beginning of a busy legislative agenda on the taxation front, with many expiring tax provisions that Congress will likely address one way or another.

Rep. Moran likely to Take House EPA Funding Gavel

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) is poised to take the chairmanship of the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, as current Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) is expected to move over to the coveted Defense subpanel. The opening on the Defense subcommittee is due to the death of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.). The final decision on chairmanships has not yet been made but is expected by the House Democratic caucus and the Appropriations Committee soon.

The subcommittee that Moran is expected to take shapes the budgets of the Interior Department, U.S. EPA and Forest Service. While the possibility of Moran’s new role in environmental issues is generally being praised by environmental groups, his stance on issues of specific concern to NAWC will likely not be known until he formally takes the position and begins work on the appropriations process.

States Scrambled to Meet Feb. 17 Stimulus Deadline for SRF Funds

On Feb. 9, 2010, an EPA official reported that 94 percent of the $4 billion in Clean Water SRF monies and 95 percent of the $2 billion Drinking Water SRF ARRA monies were under contract. Under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), states were required to have the SRF funds “under contract” or EPA would be required to reallocate the funds to other states.

The influx of additional SRF funds provided to states by the 2009 ARRA package was difficult for many states to appropriate. The level of funds was double that of what most states had the existing capacity to manage. Additionally, the ARRA included several instructions for the SRF that took administrative rulings and timely new procedures to properly manage including “Buy American” procurement rules, a “green” infrastructure set-aside and Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rules.

NAWC members were reported to have helped many states deploy ARRA funding for water infrastructure investments.

ICS and NIMS Announce Training Webinars

WaterISAC has teamed up with U.S. EPA to offer free, water sector-centric webinar-based training on the Incident Command System (ICS) and National Incident Management System (NIMS). All water utility employees who may be required to respond during an emergency must possess a minimum level of ICS and NIMS training. In the last few years, the U.S. EPA has sponsored dozens of ICS and NIMS classes for the water sector around the country. Now, the content of those classes will be transformed into an interactive web-based experience that you can enjoy from your own office.

The training, divided into four parts, will take place on April 2, 9, 23 and 30. The webinars on April 2 and 9 will cover the history, features, principles and organizational structure of the Incident Command System (ICS). The second set of webinars, on April 23 and 30, will cover the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the National Response Framework (NRF). Upon completing the training, participants will be prepared to receive credit from the applicable online FEMA ICS/NIMS courses.

Registration for ICS and NIMS training will begin in the next few days. Please check the News and Events section on WaterISAC for more information and start times.

USGS Studies Reveal Why Drinking Water Wells are Vulnerable to Contamination

More than 100 million people in the United States receive their drinking water from public groundwater systems, which can be vulnerable to naturally occurring contaminants such as radon, uranium, arsenic and man-made compounds, including fertilizers, septic-tank leachate, solvents and gasoline hydrocarbons. All wells, however, are not equally vulnerable to contamination because of differences in three factors: the general chemistry of the aquifer, groundwater age, and direct paths within aquifer systems that allow water and contaminants to reach a well.

In recent studies, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tracked the movement of contaminants in groundwater and in public-supply wells in four aquifers in California, Connecticut, Nebraska and Florida. The importance of each factor differs among the various aquifer settings, depending upon natural geology and local aquifer conditions, as well as human activities related to land use and well construction and operation. Findings in the four different aquifer systems can be applied to similar aquifer settings and wells throughout the nation.

Complete findings, fact sheets, maps and decision support tools are available here.

“Our findings can help public-supply well managers protect drinking water sources by prioritizing their monitoring programs and improving decisions related to land use planning, well modifications or changes in pumping scenarios that might help to reduce movement of contaminants to wells,” said Sandra Eberts, USGS groundwater study team leader.

Research on the vulnerability of public-supply wells began in 2001. The USGS has also been working since 1991 to study the occurrence of more than 600 naturally occurring and man-made chemicals from more than 1,100 wells used for public supply across the nation. Scientists found that chemicals are frequently detected, often in mixtures, but seldom at concentrations likely to affect human health.

The quality of drinking water from the nation’s public-water systems is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Related links to sources of information on public-supply wells are available here. USGS studies are intended to complement drinking water monitoring required by federal, state and local programs, which focus primarily on post-treatment compliance monitoring.

Highlights on the four studies:

In the Central Valley aquifer system near Modesto, Calif., the USGS found that agricultural and urban development have enabled uranium to move from sediments to water in the upper part of the aquifer. This water can drain down the well when it is not pumping and enter the lower aquifer. When pumping resumes, contaminant concentrations can be temporarily elevated in water pumped from the well. As a result of USGS findings, public-supply well managers have changed their pumping schedule, which has reduced the amount of contaminated water pumped from the well. Learn more about the California study.

In the glacial aquifer system in Woodbury, Conn., the USGS found that the young age of the water throughout the aquifer makes it vulnerable to contamination from man-made compounds. The USGS also found that dry wells used in Woodbury to capture storm water runoff reroute the potentially contaminated water directly into the aquifer used as a drinking water source. This direct transfer prevents soil and unsaturated sediments near the land surface from filtering out some of the contaminants. Learn more about the Connecticut study.

In the High Plains aquifer near York, Neb., the USGS found some contaminants in a public-supply well that seems protected by overlying clay. Nearby irrigation wells have allowed water containing nitrate and volatile organic compounds to leak down from an overlying shallow aquifer into the aquifer that serves as the drinking water source for the public-supply well. Learn more about the Nebraska study.

In the Floridan aquifer system near Tampa, Fla., the USGS found that a large percentage of young water and contaminants from a shallow sand aquifer travels quickly along natural conduits until it reaches a supply well in a lower rock aquifer that serves as a drinking water source. Because of these natural conduits, the supply well is vulnerable to the man-made contaminants in the upper aquifer, and the mixing of waters from the two aquifers has caused arsenic concentrations to increase in water reaching the supply well. Learn more about the Florida study.

EPA Announces New Support for Sustainable Communities

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced three steps to support communities’ efforts to provide their citizens with economic opportunity while reducing impacts on the environment. The actions will encourage state and local government to make their communities more sustainable by strategically aligning their environmental, transportation and housing investments.

The steps EPA announced are:

• The creation of a new Office of Sustainable Communities to encourage communities to take an integrated approach in making environmental, housing and transportation decisions.
• A new pilot grant program designed to help three states — New York, Maryland and California — use their clean water funding programs to support efforts to make communities more sustainable.
• A pilot program to clean up and redevelop contaminated sites, known as brownfield sites, in coordination with communities’ efforts to develop public transportation and affordable housing.

According to the EPA, the announcements build on the work it is doing with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation through the Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The partnership is focused on ensuring that housing and transportation goals are met while simultaneously protecting the environment, promoting equitable development, and helping to address the challenges of climate change.

The brownfields pilot program represents a key step in that partnership. Together, EPA, HUD, and DOT have selected five pilot sites across the country where there is a convergence of public transit and the need for affordable housing. Cleaning and reusing this land and providing new housing choices will create jobs and new economic opportunities. The five sites selected for the Sustainable Communities Partnership Pilots are the Fairmount Line in Boston; the Smart Growth Redevelopment District in Indianapolis; the La Alma/South Lincoln Park neighborhood in Denver; the Riverfront Crossings District in Iowa City, Iowa; and the Westside Affordable Housing Transit-Oriented Development in National City, Calif.

The Office of Sustainable Communities announced by the EPA will help create neighborhoods that offer good jobs, educational opportunities, safe and affordable homes, and transportation options while minimizing their impact on the environment. The Pilot Technical Assistance Program for Sustainable Communities will further that goal by encouraging states to use their Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan program to better support communities that adopt sustainable strategies, like transit-oriented, mixed-use development.