Water Sector News
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EPA water guidance roils industry, enviros
Environmental groups are clashing with some of the nation’s largest water lobbying groups over guidance EPA is finalizing that will determine the scope and pace at which communities — especially low-income areas — must pay for required upgrades to halt pollution.
At issue is EPA’s proposed 2022 Financial Capability Assessment Guidance, which the agency unveiled in February and sources say could be finalized in the coming months. The comment period for the guidance closed on April 25.
The assessment is essentially a tool that EPA uses to appraise water pollution control costs relative to a community’s overall economic resources. Doing so helps EPA evaluate a community’s ability to develop a plan for water infrastructure upgrades.
On one hand, the water sector is opposing the new guidance and calling for EPA to revert back to the guidance issued in 2021 under the Trump administration.
The National Association of Clean Water Agencies, or NACWA, the nation’s largest group of publicly owned wastewater treatment facilities, joined the American Water Works Association and the Water Environment Federation in April 25 comments to EPA in warning that the newest iteration of the guidance threatens to undermine Biden’s equity goals and put too much burden on low-income communities to pay for new upgrades.