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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />Western States Water counbil <br />. . . I <br />Executive CommIttee Mmutes <br />I <br />I <br />process water and permitting processes. Colorado is in the midst of their ongoing water quality standards, <br />Idaho is passing rules for urtderground storage tanks, and Arizona is in litigation with the Navajo Tribe <br />with respect to snowmaking activities in Snowbowl. <br />I <br />As far as the dialogue with EP A is concerned, it came in two forms. One was an ongoing <br />discussion with EPA tryinglto sort out how to establish water quality standards on waters that are either <br />wholly dependent or stronglY dominated by wastewater that would otherwise be ephemeral, if not for some <br />facility discharging wastew~ter dominance, and converted them into an intermittent or perennial streams. <br />What are the applicable water quality conditions and standards that ought to apply to such a water. We've <br />gone through three to four years of this ongoing discussion. EPA is evolving from what initially was trying <br />to just establish a set of que~tions and answers regarding how the Clean Water Act should be applied to <br />these types of situations whbre they are now probably going to take a step and try to draft an initiate a new <br />policy regarding this. This beans that OMB and its process will be fully engaged in it as well. EPA seems <br />I <br />to have recognized some o~the low-hanging fruit issues that are fairly easy to answer. Most of the other <br />questions are deeply rooted I in the need for some new policy. What complicates this issue is that the parties <br />of interest are still pretty wiClely spread in terms of what is the relative level of protection for these effluent <br />dependent waters. I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />Regarding our discussion with Ben Grumbles, the Assistant Administrator for Water with EPA, <br />his remarks ranged from wJtlands and wetland mitigation to how do we now handle the scope of the Clean <br />Water Act given the Rapanbs decision out of the Supreme Court. The water transfer rule, in whic.h many <br />many of the western states 4himed in and supported EPA's proposal to exempt water transfers from <br />NPDES permitting... which~ is counterbalanced typically by a lot ofthe eastern states who favor that type of <br />permitting... that whole issue continues to be up in the air, and hopefully something will come out by the <br />end of this calendar year. i <br /> <br />A week or two ago! the Supreme Court heard arguments relative to the case from Arizona where <br />they were denied delegatiort of their NPDES permitting program because as the plaintiff agrees in doing <br />so, EP A didn't fully abide by the Endangered Species Act and look at the repercussions of delegating the <br />permitting authority to the ~tate relative to jeopardy to endangered species. That ongoing argument has <br />reached the Supreme Courtlon about April 17. The Court heard arguments, and I haven't heard how that <br />came out. i <br />I <br />I <br />Shaun reviewed the Good Sam efforts and the progress that has been made there. WGA and the <br />representative states from t~e Council are pretty close to agreement with EP A on the relative scope and <br />changes needed for Good Sam with EP A. There was a meeting on March 14 specific to Good Sam that <br />identified where their alliarlces were and where there are still parties lying in wait, and that the chance of <br />walking onto the Hill with Jonsensus was probably not going to happen. However, they will continue to <br />push for proponents, partic~larly on the House side, to introduce the legislation, and then ferret out those <br />various perspectives and pJsitions by the other groups, and let the legislation sort out in the end. <br /> <br />Tom thought that tt approach that Joan and Paul introduced, where we piggyback on to the <br />meetings of ASIWPCA, reJlly paid dividends. I understand what Duane was saying about the Council as a <br />whole not tying into the othfr groups like lCWP or ASIWPCA. However, from the water quality side, we <br />had a very dynamic dialogue with some states that typically don't make the Council meetings, and we were <br />in EPA's backyard. Thus, ~e had a lot more time to engage them in discussion. That is not to say that we <br />don't appreciate Roger com1ing to the Council meetings and interacting with us. But, we had basically the <br />I <br />whole plate of EP A officials at our hand to carry on a dialogue, so it was very successful. Although this <br /> <br />Sioux Falls, South Dakota <br />May 3, 2007 <br /> <br />9 <br />