New York Rural Water Association

March was a very busy month as it is every year. EPA was busy passing more regulations, so New York and many other states across the nation began doing what they deem right to fight back for the rural systems throughout the United States. I will give you the short version on what took place for some of my colleagues from New York and myself. On February 21, 2001, Pat Scalera sent letters to key Congressional Representatives to request a face-to-face meeting with us on March 14, 2001, to discuss the continuation of our programs and the importance of the USDA Rural Development Loans & Grants program funding. As we waited for a scheduled appointment, we made contact with those NYRWA members that would join us on our journey to Washington, DC. These selected individuals are dedicated to our cause and volunteer to give up a full day of their time, which we all realize is becoming more difficult each year. We are very appreciative to those that joined us on March 14th. On our trip down to Washington, DC, our strategy is laid out one more time for the half hour meetings with each representative we will meet with. These meetings give the Mayors and Superintendents that are attending, a great opportunity to bring their Village or Towns concerns to their Congressmen. All the preparation for these meetings; phone calls, faxes, preparation of materials to hand deliver, contacts with the NYRWA member volunteers, etc. typically takes about two weeks for our one-hour message delivery, a lot of work, but well worth it. On March 15, 2001, the National Rural Water Association requested that I testify in front of the EPA Appropriations Committee on the rural water issues. I was hoping that this year someone else would get this honor, as I have done this for the past two years, but on March 21st, I flew back to Washington and faced four congressmen to plead our case. As I was about to find out, this meeting was much different from previous testimonies. These Representatives were full of questions and they wanted answers. This testimony turned into a debate on the EPA arsenic rule action. I witnessed AWWA testify just before I did, and they were very precise with these representatives. AWWA was fine with the limit at 10 ppb and we (NRWA) wanted the rule at 50 ppb. This caused many questions since the day before EPA had announced they would withdraw the arsenic rule due to the impact this rule would have on small rural systems.

For those of you that have never been through this, it's one week to prepare and five minutes to deliver your message - anyone out there willing to do it next year, give Pat a call. That's all for now.