Underground Construction - July 2017 - 8

WASHINGTONWATCH
House
Committee
Considers
Drinking
Water
Spending

The House committee with authority
for approving drinking water infrastructure funding has begun a legislative effort to reauthorize the 1996
law which created the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF).
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman
of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee, said both Republicans
and Democrats support making
newer and larger investments in
the nation's infrastructure. But he
did not specifically endorse higher
funding for either the DWSRF or the
Public Water System Supervision
(PWSS) grants, the two federal funding programs that help cities, towns
and villages repair underground water pipes in order to address lead and
other water contamination issues.
For the past four years, state
PWSS programs have been flat funded at $101.9 million. The DWSRF
has seen decreased funding. In fiscal
years 2014 and 15, $906.8 million
was awarded for the infrastructure
loan program, but FYS 16 and 17
saw the appropriation decrease to
$863.2 million.
"These essential public health
programs with well-documented
needs and successes must be fully
supported, even in these economically challenged times," Lisa Daniels,
director, Bureau of Safe Drinking
Water, Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection, told the
committee's energy subcommittee
on May 19. She was testifying on
behalf of the Association of State
Drinking Water Administrators
(ASDWA), which wants the PWSS
program funded at $200 million and
the DWSRF at $1 billion.
The subcommittee hearing featured airing of a "discussion draft"
- a step short of an actual bill -
called the Drinking Water System

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Improvement Act. It reauthorizes
the DWSRF and PWSS for five years
between fiscal 2018 and 2022. Reauthorization sets the upper dollar limit on what Congress can appropriate,
although appropriations are often
short of authorization ceilings.
When the DWSRF was first authorized in 1996, the Safe Drinking
Water Act amendments, in which it
was included, set the authorization
at $1 billion per year for FY 1995
through FY 2003. It has not been
reauthorized subsequent to FY 2003.
A reauthorization would allow Congress to both raise the authorization
level and make legal changes to the
program. However, in the absence
of a reauthorization during the past
14 years, congressional appropriations have not necessarily been constrained. For example, the highest
DWSRF appropriation was in fiscal
2010 for $1.387 billion.
Although the discussion draft
reauthorizes the DWSRF - which, in
terms of funding for underground
construction of water piping is more
important than the PWSS - it does
not include a dollar figure. Walden
justified that absence by saying the
committee had not received "specific recommendations about what
a realistic number is" for a DWSRF
authorization level in the last hearings. Those were on March 16, 2017.
Numbers were definitely suggested by those testifying on May 19.
Walden cautioned, however, that
whatever authorization was finally
established, depending on how high
the dollar figure, it might have to be
offset by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.
The discussion draft is a little
more specific on other issues. For
example, it would allow contractual
agreements between a water system
and another entity to receive a twoyear enforcement reprieve, which
must address significant management or administrative functions
that correct identified violations,
and be approved by either the state
or EPA. Another provision allows
states to give public water systems
more leeway on asset management.
Martin Kropelnicki, president
and CEO, California Water Service
Group, said the provision on asset
management is an important step,
but the committee needs to consider a more robust approach. He was

By Stephen Barlas, Washington Editor

testifying on behalf of the National
Association of Water Companies
(NAWC).
"In this regard, NAWC has been
working closely with other water
groups to promote legislation that
would encourage partnerships, ranging from peer-to-peer support and
public-private partnerships, to transfer and consolidation," he explained.
Kropelnicki took a somewhat
contrarian position to other witnesses arguing for higher DWSRF
and PWSS congressional funding.
"While many communities continue
to clamor for more federal funding,
more funding is not going to solve
this growing crisis," he said. "In
many cases, water system failures
- be they related to water quality,
reliability or both - are not solely
due to the absence of funding, but
rather are directly attributable to the
failure of proper governance, poor
decision-making, and lack of stringent oversight."
He cited, for example, a 2015 California law that authorized the State
Water Board to require systems that
consistently failed to meet public
health standards to consolidate with
other systems through physical or
managerial consolidation. He acknowledged, however, that small
and rural communities have few viable partnership options, advocating
for Congress to reprioritize federal
funding and technical assistance toward those systems and communities where partnerships and consolidation are not viable.

EPA Agrees To Reconsider Elements
Of Methane Emissions Controls
The Environmental Protection Agency has delayed implementation of its
2016 methane leak rule for 90 days
beyond the original June 3, 2017,
start date, as a first step in reconsideration of parts of that rule. Both
the American Petroleum Institute
(API) and the Interstate Natural Gas
Association of America (INGAA) criticized various provisions in the final
rule, issued in May 2016, with the
API submitting an August 2016 request for reconsideration of numerous provisions, a request the Obama
administration ignored.
But on April 18, 2017, Trump
Administration EPA Administrator
Scott Pruitt sent a letter to the API
pushing the compliance deadline

back 90 days and conceding that at
least one of the provisions in the
final rule, related to fugitive emissions monitoring, did not get the full
consideration by the agency that it
should have prior to the final rule
being published. Pruitt specifically
mentioned the provisions on requesting and receiving an alternative
means of emissions limitations and
inclusion of low-production wells.
Because those provisions were not
included in the proposed rule, industry did not have an opportunity to
comment on them. Pruitt said that
his letter does not address other requests for reconsideration in the API
or other petitions.
"It is INGAA's understanding that
EPA's announcement of its intent to
reconsider the new source methane
rule includes all of the fugitive emissions monitoring requirements,"
said Cathy Landry, spokeswoman for
the INGAA. "As a result, this would
encompass INGAA's concerns."
INGAA was unhappy with the
rule's provisions dictating quarterly
monitoring requirements at compressor stations and timeframes for
repairs there. INGAA CEO Don Santa also complained about the leak detection and repair approach (LDRA),
which, he said, is more costly and
less effective than Directed Inspection and Maintenance, which is what
INGAA proposed.
The API petition objected to many
of the LDAR provisions, too. In his
May 3 letter thanking Pruitt for
the 90-day delay, Howard Feldman,
senior director, Regulatory and
Scientific Affairs, API, commented,
"API's members look forward to EPA
moving expeditiously with this temporary relief. API's members would
benefit from additional guidance,
either in the notice of the stay or in
supplemental documents, concerning the scope of the stay and how it
affects inter-related leak monitoring
and repair requirements."
That May 2016 final rule was
issued under the Clean Air Act and
represented the Obama administration's next step in limiting
greenhouse gas emissions, of which
methane is the most environmentally hazardous. Natural gas pipeline companies will have to both
reduce methane emissions and plug
equipment leaks when they become
apparent.
Underground Construction July 2017

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Underground Construction - July 2017

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