January 17, 2008

Water Utility Council

John Hardwick, Valparaiso City Utilities, 219-462-8412
Todd Taylor, LaPorte Water, 219-326-9540
Jack Wittman, WHPA, 812-333-9399
Scott Bell, OUCC, 317-233-1084
Curt Gassert, IURC, 317-232-2749
Jerry Webb, IURC, 317-232-2765
Terry Atherton, Indiana American Water, 219-880-2367
Joe Woodward, Indiana American Water, 812-218-1501
Jim Reid, IPW News, 317-403-0798
Odetta Cadwell, IRWA, 317-402-7349
Vince Griffin, Indiana Chamber of Commerce
Larry Landis, IURC, 317-232-2706
Nick Stanley, Water Solutions Unlimited, 317-736-6868
Mark Basch, IDNR/DOW, 317-232-0154
Phil Smith, Smith Group Consulting, 317-788-8534
Mark Nye, DLZ, 574-236-4400
Doug Perry, Utilities, Goshen, 574-534-5701
John Stancati, City of South Bend, 574-235-5646
Jim Williams, Peerless-Midwest, 574-254-9050
Martha Clark Mettler, IDEM, 317-232-8402
Pat Carroll, IDEM, 317-308-3281
Beth Millett, Borshoff, 317-631-6400

Meeting called to order; minutes from last meeting reviewed and approved

Senator Gard was unable to attend, due to committee hearings.

Vince Griffin, Legislative update

•  This is a short legislative session, therefore an incredibly tight timeline.
•  See the 2008 Legislative Calendar for major deadlines.
•  Expects very little opposition to the Great Lakes Compact. But it still has a long way to go – all eight states and two Canadian provinces must adopt the same language, and then it goes to the U.S. Congress for ratification. It will be interesting, since 20% of the water in the U.S. comes from the Great Lakes, and this bill seeks to limit use of this water outside the states/provinces that touch it.
•  See the status on other bills of interest to the WUC.

Larry Landis, IURC

•  Larry participates in a monthly conference call with the Financial Resources Institute at the University of Missouri. If you are interested in joining the call, Larry usually has a conference room where people can meet and join in – please contact him. (Notifications of these calls are usually distributed to all WUC members.)

•  Water shortage task force Web site is updated with reports, meeting agendas and minutes, etc.

•  Focusing next year on stage 2 disinfection of byproducts
•  Bigger one is groundwater rule; trying to use what information we have to target the systems that might be impacted by the rule and work with them to do what we can ahead of the rule. Finding systems that are highly susceptible to sourcewater contamination.
•  The alternative technical standards were presented to the technical committee yesterday; we’ve taken a different approach; have people do a one-time, case by case demonstration of what they’d like to do and from that day forward they can use that alt tech standard. Could work with AWWA to use e-mail system to remind everyone in the sate that the alt tech standards are available.
• Martha: the groundwater quality standards rule will be sunsetting this year. There might be a push to just let them go away, but she thinks that would be a bad idea.

Pat Carroll, INWARN

• 14 members now
• Web site not up yet; funding should be finalized soon; IACT is working on Web site.
• Looking to get an Outlook distribution group for e-mail communications; emergency preparedness; presentations at AWWA section conference.
•  Odetta: Education committee has established either April 15 or 17 as dates for an emergency preparedness seminar.

Jerry Webb, IURC

•  A lot of northern Indiana utility company cases have been resolved recently
•  Trying to schedule a WUC/IURC subcommittee meeting for the Monday of conference. If you are interested please let Jerry or John Hardwick know.

Scott Bell, OUCC

•  Fort Wayne Utility Center came to an agreement an send out a press release; acquisition of northern system by Fort Wayne. The Utility Center will operate that facility for three to six months before the transfer of assets/operations; there may be a change in the water source from utility center water to the Fort Wayne water. Utility Center is probably going to lose one-third of customers and part of its facility as well
•  Senate bill 93 changes the definition of a public utility – addresses the sub-metering issue

Odetta Cadwell, IRWA

• We are in last year of joint AWWA/IRWA grandparented operator training contract. Still have about 280 people who have not yet attended a workshop. We are sending letters, etc., to get them to attend a workshop before June 30 deadline.
•  Long awaited IRWA utility manual is now in draft stage
•  Odetta has been attending the Rural Wastewater Task Force, a group that is headed up by Jamie Palmer at The Center for Urban Policy and the Environment. They deal with wastewater issues that also impact water side. Topics and issues have exceeded Odetta’s technical knowledge and she recommends that someone else from WUC join this committee and provide that insight. Contact Odetta for more information.

Other issues:

•  John Hardwick reminded the WUC that we would have two participants in Water Matters, the D.C. Fly-In. AWWA National covers the cost for one person, and the WUC budget will cover the second. John and Art Umble will represent Indiana this April. If you have a national issue you would like them to discuss with legislators, please let them know.
•  Some of our chemical suppliers may be contacting larger utilities and stating that, due to chemical security regulations, you may need to deal with chemical security assessment tool to give DHS some information about those. These suppliers are incorrect -- DHS says water utilities are exempt and do not have to complete the tox screen.
•  Odetta voiced concerns about having a separate standard for small systems – it would be a double-edged sword. We need to set a standard that is safe for the public and makes sense for everyone, whether it is a large or small system. National continues to wrestle with that. About 100 systems in Indiana quality as small and had arsenic problems. IDEM worked to develop a grant system to help resolve the problem and also allowed point of use devices to test for this.
•  Just before Christmas, the U.S. Senate passed a farm bill which includes mandatory conservation measures. Past farm bills have included this, but for some reason the Agri department has not been supportive. This bill requires that 10 pecent of all funding for conservation programs be set aside for partnership measures. Some of us may have some interest in that.
•  Beth Millett reminded the WUC that the Indiana Section Web site contained a WUC section with lots of useful links and legislative tracking information.
•  John Hardwick announced that the WUC budget will support some public relations efforts about the 100^th year with Borshoff.
•  Jim Williams announced that he will be attending the national directors meeting; if you have any ideas about how national can better support our efforts in legislative matters, he would be happy to relay at the national board meeting.
•  John Hardwick announced that WUC is sponsoring the breakfast on the last morning of the annual conference. It will include a town hall meeting looking for feedback on how national can work more effectively with section.