On Jan. 14, President Donald Trump signed the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act into law.
This bill codifies the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Integrated Planning (IP) approach into law, providing local communities with critical new flexibilities in meeting their Clean Water Act (CWA) obligations. IP will allow clean water agencies to do even more to protect public health and the environment by targeting limited ratepayer dollars to achieve CWA compliance as effectively as possible.
“As public clean water utilities and the communities they serve continue to face increasing water quality and affordability challenges each day, codifying Integrated Planning helps communities better sequence and prioritize, in a holistic fashion, how they comply with their clean water permit obligations,” said Adam Krantz, National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) CEO. “Enactment of this legislation is a major win for clean water utilities large and small across the country, enabling them to better provide their residents with safer, more reliable and affordable public clean water services.”
Since 2012, EPA’s IP Framework has been an important tool that has provided public clean water utilities and the communities they serve the opportunity to develop integrated management plans to better sequence and prioritize their specific CWA obligations and investments. Allowing communities to have better control over how they meet their permit obligations based on specific local infrastructure and environmental factors, as well as the needs of their ratepayers, is critical, stated NACWA.