View CWEA’s PFAS resources page, support by Carollo. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is seeking public comment on its proposal to address environmental justice, climate change, and PFAS contamination in its National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives (NECIs).  Every four years, EPA selects national initiatives to focus resources on serious and widespread...

From SFEI’s 2022, The Pulse of the Bay: 50 Years After the Clean Water Act. Reposted with permission. The Clean Water Act serves as the legal framework for how the clean water community views our mission. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program established by the Clean Water Act provides the regulatory structure for...

Just in time for the Clean Water Act at 50 celebration, the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), on behalf of the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay, has released an in-depth retrospective on clean water regulations, strategies, studies and achievements within the Bay Area. Download The Pulse of the Bay 2022...

With the enactment of the Clean Water Act in 1972, Congress provided billions of dollars in grants to local communities to construct or upgrade wastewater treatment facilities to meet secondary treatment standards. This investment allowed communities to reverse the impacts created by discharge of untreated wastewater, responding to what was then a significant threat to...

House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee hearing chaired by Congresswoman Grace F. Napolitano from California’s 32nd District. Streamed live on Sep 20, 2022, a hearing on “The Clean Water Act at Fifty: Highlights and Lessons Learned from a Half Century of Transformative Legislation.”

The purpose of the Facility of the Year (FOTY) Award is to create incentive on the part of industrial users taking proactive steps to meet current environmental pollution control standards. The FOTY Award gives an opportunity for CWEA members to provide positive publicity and recognition of the industrial user’s efforts and successes with protecting the...

Anaergia announced that its Rialto Bioenergy Facility in Rialto, California, received the Distinction Award for Wastewater Project of the Year at the Global Water Awards 2022, one of the water industry’s most prominent international awards programs. The award was presented at a ceremony in Madrid, Spain, on Tuesday evening. The Rialto Bioenergy Facility is a $185 million...

Today, Congresswoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) and Congressman Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) introduced the Protecting Infrastructure and Promoting Environmental Stewardship (PIPES) Act, which would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish standards for the flushability of disposable wipes and would impose civil penalties on companies who are knowingly incompliant with these standards. “The PIPES Act would...

The Water Environment Federation (WEF), in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has launched the NutrientSmart (NSmart) program to help reduce nutrient loadings in waterways and recognize the water utilities that are leaders and innovators.  NSmart will begin as a pilot program and encourage the adoption of enhanced nutrient management practices by water...

Ms. Morgan is Guest Editor of the Clean Water magazine’s special edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. View the online edition here. When the Clean Water Act was passed, rivers were catching on fire and there was little in the way of Federal regulations in place to protect the environment for...

The mission of the US Environmental Protection Agency is to protect human health and the environment. An excellent example of an EPA program that achieves this goal is the Clean Water Act’s National Pretreatment Program. Established in the 1980s, Federal Pretreatment Requirements were established to prevent harmful industrial pollutants from being discharged into municipal wastewater...

With a tweet on January 4th, the City of Oceanside officially announced its brand-new advanced water purification facility was operational. Kicking off 2022 with another large-scale water reuse facility serving California. The project, called Pure Water Oceanside, is the first AWTF to become operational in the San Diego region and will purify recycled water to...

EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region announced approval of an innovative, quick turn-around DNA-based method to evaluate bacteria in San Diego County beach water. The San Diego County rapid test is the first demonstration of the use of this method for routine beach monitoring in the world. This method was developed for beach use by the Southern...

On Friday, November 5, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (H.R. 3684). This bill will provide nearly $1.2 trillion in funding for the nation’s infrastructure. Approximately, $550 billion of the total is new funding to be spent during the next five years, and almost $51 billion is allocated to...

For member Tony Pollak, the pandemic and sudden chlorine shortage that hit this spring have pushed his operations team to redouble their efforts. Tony is the Assistant Deputy Director of Operations for Western Municipal Water District in Riverside County. In late May, the District’s chlorine supplier informed them a west coast shortage would delay deliveries....

Note: This advisory uses the MITRE Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK®) framework, version 9. See the ATT&CK for Enterprise for all referenced threat actor tactics and techniques. This joint advisory is the result of analytic efforts between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the...

Christopher Young, 45, of El Dorado Hills, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller to 18 months in prison and a $50,000 fine for tampering with monitoring equipment, unlawful discharge of industrial wastewater, and conspiracy, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced. Young was Director of Operations for Community Fuels from 2010...

  Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael S. Regan joined Silicon Valley Clean Water Commission Chair Alicia Aguirre, Oro Loma Board President Rita Duncan, and other local officials to announce Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loans totaling $168 million for water system upgrades in Redwood City and Alameda County, California. “Investing...



This update comes from the Water Environment Federation (WEF) This Week in Washington… The bill includes almost $55 billion in water infrastructure funding and several policy provisions that will benefit the nation’s water infrastructure. The water infrastructure section in the Senate package is fairly similar to what was passed by the Senate in April in...

Originally published in WEF’s Stormwater Report As the stormwater sector grows in complexity with new the rise of new contaminants, technologies, and practices, so too do stormwater management regulations. Because the regulatory landscape of the stormwater field tends to be more dynamic than other water management segments, it can be difficult for stormwater managers to...

AquaVitas, an HHS contractor, will be conducting SARS-CoV-2 testing in wastewater treatment plants, and requests assistance in identifying utilities interested in participating.  This opportunity is open to all wastewater treatment plants, whether they are currently submitting wastewater samples or not. Priority will be given to treatment plants that serve large populations. AquaVitas plans to begin...

 The CWEA-CASA free COVID-19 webinar series continues with an in-depth discussion from four prominent experts and moderated by CASA’s Greg Kester. Sponsored by GT Molecular Speakers and their topics include: Dr. Rose Kantor, with the University of California, Berkeley speaking on their project to conduct wastewater Based Epidemiology (WBE) for the San Francisco Bay...

Today, at the virtual 2020 WEFTEC conference, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the next step in EPA’s effort to help address workforce challenges that are facing America’s drinking water and wastewater utilities. The new America’s Water Sector Workforce Initiative outlines actions that the public and private sector are committing to that...

From NACWA… NACWA has asked EPA to consider the risks associated with pet flea control products containing fipronil, a pesticide with high aquatic toxicity that can pass through wastewater treatment processes. In August 5 comments on EPA’s draft risk assessment for fipronil, NACWA explained that fipronil has been found in the effluent of publicly owned treatment works...

From the Water Environment Federation… Studying concentrations of pathogens in wastewater — a practice known as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) — is a time-honored approach to gathering crucial public health data that traditional approaches might miss. During the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are partnering with the U.S. Environmental Protection...

From the US EPA… The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced an agreement with Pacific Seafood-Eureka, LLC over violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The settlement requires the company to pay a $74,500 penalty after an EPA inspection found the company was discharging wastewater in violation of local and federal standards into the...

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $196 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan to the Inland Empire Utilities Agency in San Bernardino County, California. The loan will help finance expanded wastewater treatment capacity to support public health and the environment in this growing community. “Through WIFIA, EPA is playing...

Temporary Advisory for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Reporting in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic On March 26, 2020, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, issued a Temporary Policy titled “COVID-19 Implications for EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Program” . This EPA Temporary Policy applies retroactively beginning on March 13, 2020 and until...

View CWEA’s round-up of Coronavirus (COVID-19) worker safety information here > Message from the US EPA… Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler sent a letter to Governors in all 50 states, territories and Washington, D.C. urging them to ensure that drinking water and wastewater employees are considered essential workers by state authorities...

View CWEA’s round-up of Coronavirus (COVID-19) worker safety information here > The US EPA is taking further action to help ease the production and availability of EPA-registered disinfectants. EPA will temporarily allow manufacturers of certain already-registered EPA disinfectants to obtain certain active ingredients from any source of suppliers without checking with the agency first. This...

View CWEA’s round-up of Coronavirus (COVID-19) worker safety information here > COVID-19 Enforcement Policy As all of us at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adjust to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, we are first and foremost mindful of the health and safety of the public, as well as our staff, and those of Federal Agencies, State...

AC20 HOT TOPIC PREVIEW THURSDAY TRACK: Winning the Fight Against “Flushable” Wipes! November 21, 2019 The Honorable Alan Lowenthal United States House of Representatives The Honorable Tom Udall United States Senate Dear Senator Udall and Representative Lowenthal: On behalf of the undersigned coalition of public agencies providing wastewater, water recycling and biosolids management services in...

Now it’s official – No Drugs Down the Drain and We Mean All Drugs Effective August 21, 2019 the EPA has now banned healthcare facilities from flushing (“sewering”) any and all drugs including the hazardous waste drugs previously on on a flush list for healthcare providers. Finally! EPA’s website with details on the new no-flush...

The Orange County Water District (OCWD; the District) Board of Directors voted to award the contract to construct the 30 million gallon per day (MGD) Final Expansion of the world-renowned Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS) to Shimmick Construction Company, Inc. The overall project cost is $310 million with the construction portion being approximately $200 million. The...

City of Los Angeles, LA Sanitation (LASAN) case study. The EPA’s CRET system can assist drinking water and wastewater utilities in identifying potential vulnerabilities, as well as strategies for implementing adaptation measures that can reduce infrastructure risk and enhance overall utility resilience.

From Scientific American and Environmental Health News… “A DDT deposit in the ocean off Los Angeles County has rapidly shrunk, shocking experts and casting doubt on the need to mount a controversial $60-million Superfund cleanup, according to new data. What has happened to the DDT off Palos Verdes Peninsula is, for now, a scientific mystery....