Chemical storage facilities would be required to establish procedures for “immediately” notifying nearby water systems after discovering a spill that could harm water supplies, under legislation approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee this month.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) introduced S. 1961, the “Chemical Safety and Drinking Water Protection Act,” in January following the chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water supplies of Charleston, West Virginia. As approved by the committee on April 3, the measure would direct states to establish new oversight and inspection programs for chemical storage facilities that could threaten water systems, and require these facilities to meet minimum leak detection, spill control, and employee training standards.
AMWA’s Legislative Committee reviewed the original version of the bill in February, and since that time association staff has met with various Senate offices to recommend several improvements. In addition to the requirement that downstream utilities be quickly notified following a potentially harmful spill, other AMWA suggestions incorporated by the EPW Committee include streamlining procedures for how chemical inventory information would be made available to nearby water systems, and clarifying that water utilities would be under no requirement to use newly-granted authority to commence a SDWA civil action against an upstream chemical facility which it believes could pose a threat to water supplies.
Speaking during the April 3 markup, EPW Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Ranking Republican David Vitter (R-La.) each said senators worked hard to craft a bipartisan compromise on S. 1961. Sen. Vitter went on to say Republicans would continue to work on several remaining issues of concern, though he did not explain them in detail. Committee leaders did not announce any potential timeframe for the measure to move on to the Senate floor, though Sen. Manchin said in an April 23 statement that he “will fight to pass [S. 1961 to] help prevent similar incidents from happening again.”
Despite the improvements, AMWA is continuing to seek several additional modifications to S. 1961. These include more clearly defining chemical storage facilities subject to the new state regulations (so as not to inadvertently capture drinking water treatment plants whose chemical inventories pose no surface water contamination risks), and explicitly allowing local water systems to recover costs associated with spill response activities from the owners and operators of responsible chemical plants.