EPA Hosts National Associations Outreach Meeting
On November 9th, ASDWA staff attended a quarterly National Associations Outreach Meeting hosted by EPA’s Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations (OCIR) for representatives of state and local organizations. Representatives of EPA’s Office of Water and OCIR provided the following updates:
Drinking Water Action Plan (DWAP): Joel Beauvais, EPA’s Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water, explained that the DWSP plan is expected to be released by the end of the calendar year (if not before) and will address the six priority areas listed below.
- Promote Equity and Build Capacity for Water Infrastructure Financing and Management in Disadvantaged, Small, and Environmental Justice Communities
- Advance Next Generation Oversight for the Safe Drinking Water Act
- Strengthen Source Water Protection and Resilience of Drinking Water Supplies
- Take Action to Address Unregulated Contaminants
- Improve Transparency, Public Education, and Risk Communication on Drinking Water Safety
- Reduce Lead Risks through the Lead and Copper Rule
Each of the areas will discuss initiatives and approaches for an array of stakeholders to take, in partnership. The time frames associated with actions in each of the priority areas also vary – some are relatively short term in nature, while others will take much longer to accomplish. Please stay tuned for updates on the DWAP.
EPA’s Urban Stormwater Long Term Planning Initiative: Deborah Nagle and Chris Kloss of EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management explained that a draft long term planning guide for managing urban stormwater has just been posted on their website. It contains an online tool and is designed to complement other, green infrastructure planning efforts.
EPA’s Environmental Justice (EJ) Action Agenda: Charles Lee of EPA’s EJ Office explained that the recently released final agenda covers the period 2016-2020 and is intended to facilitate integration of EJ considerations into all EPA programs and achieve measurable progress. ECOS will shortly be collecting and sharing a series of EJ best practices used in various environmental permitting programs administered by states.
Transition to New Administration: Mark Rupp of OCIR noted that the Agency is planning to work closely and cooperatively with the President-Elect’s transition team. That team is expected to being work very shortly. Separately, ASDWA has learned that the head of the EPA portion of the President-Elect’s transition team is Myron Ebell; currently, Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
