The National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) commends the House and Senate negotiators on reaching agreement on final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) language which advances federal action on PFAS while respecting EPA’s scientific and regulatory processes.

In an important legislative achievement for NACWA and the clean water sector, House and Senate negotiators released their compromise Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA - the Full report and summary are viewable online) earlier this week and excluded the most problematic PFAS provisions.

NACWA helped spearhead a meeting of diverse stakeholders last week to discuss water affordability challenges. The group came together to discuss respective priorities around water affordability issues, potential areas for collaboration, and interest in advancing federal legislation.

EPA sent a proposed regulatory determination to establish a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for PFOA and PFOS, two of the most well-known PFAS constituents, to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on December 4. This is consistent with the Agency’s PFAS Action Plan, which envisioned EPA beginning this regulatory process.

NACWA’s Water Quality Committee held its last committee call of 2019 on December 4 and discussed a myriad of recent developments on the water quality front that will spill over into 2020.

NACWA and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) hosted Part 2 last week of a 4-part webinar series Dealing with Disruption: Operationalizing Resilience in the Water Sector.

NACWA is pleased to welcome two new members to the Association’s staff.

NACWA released a new document, A Clean Water Utility’s Guide to Considering Source Identification, Pretreatment, and Sampling Protocols for PFAS, on November 25 designed to provide helpful information to utilities that are dealing with growing questions around PFAS chemicals in wastewater and biosolids.