WASHINGTON — The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) urged the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to propose revisions to the federal Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for public comment as soon as possible.
In a letter yesterday to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, AMSA Executive Director Ken Kirk said the TMDL regulations the EPA plans to propose "would create a system to holistically address clean water issues, incorporating both point and non-point sources in a meaningful manner."
It also would provide a workable process for TMDL implementation and accountability for all parties, which is the only way to achieve any measurable water quality improvement, Kirk said.
AMSA personnel participated in EPA's public listening sessions, which Kirk said led to EPA's development of the proposed regulations, also known as the watershed rule.
"For this proposal to never see the light of day, for EPA to abandon a public stakeholder process in favor of a return to a broken rule — and for environmental organizations to support such an outcome — would be the most anti-environmental result possible," Kirk wrote.
In the letter, Kirk also said AMSA has heard "reliable and extremely troubling reports" that EPA is seriously considering not proposing for public review and comment revisions to the watershed rule.
EPA is considering continuing to operate the TMDL program under the existing 1992 rule, according to Kirk, who said that rule has been widely criticized by environmental activists, academia, scientists, and regulated sources as ineffective and unworkable.
EPA's contemplated watershed rule, Kirk said, directly responds to recommendations of the National Academy of Science's National Research Council in its Congressionally-mandated June 2001 Report to Congress on the TMDL program.
Kirk added that AMSA has also been told that environmental organizations support EPA's potential abandonment of the watershed rule in favor of a return to the broken 1992 rule.
These same organizations, Kirk wrote, coordinated the filing of more than 30 lawsuits against EPA and the states for failure to develop and implement TMDLs under the 1992 rule, leaving no question about their position on the 1992 rule's effectiveness.
Kirk also said academic and scientific communities have urged EPA to advance changes to the TMDL program.
AMSA represents more than 270 publicly owned treatment works that treat more than 18 billion gallons of wastewater and provide sewer service to more than 180 million Americans.
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