News
FY2027 President’s Budget Request
Last week, the White House released the FY2027 President’s Budget Request. The FY2027 President’s Budget Request for EPA totals $4.203 billion. Many of the categorical grants were reduced to zero, including Wetland Program Development Grants, Section 319 Grants, and Section 106 Grants. Similar to the FY2026 President’s Budget Request, the largest cuts appear to target funds for state environmental programs and state revolving funds.
ACWA’s updated funding chart reflecting the FY2027 President’s Budget Request can be found here. The FY2027 EPA Budget in Brief can be found here.
EPA, FBI, CISA, NSA Issue Joint Cybersecurity Advisory to Water System Regarding Iranian-Affiliated Cyber Attacks
EPA, FBI, CISA, and NSA issued a joint advisory warning to U.S. organizations, including those in the water sector, for an urgent and ongoing Iranian-affiliated cybersecurity threat. U.S. organizations are experiencing exploitation and, in some cases, disruption of commonly used operational technology at drinking water and wastewater systems that are diligently working to ensure that Americans can rely on clean and safe water. The joint cybersecurity advisory includes information to help water systems identify specific vulnerabilities that are being exploited and take concrete steps to strengthen cyber resilience. It also underscores that the water sector remains an attractive target and continues to face threats from groups seeking to disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure. As a result of the recent cybersecurity exploitation, organizations from multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors have reported disruptions, including configuration wiping, software-based mechanical sensor tampering, and disruption of human-machine interfaces (HMIs). This activity has resulted in operational disruption and financial loss. EPA, as the federal lead responsible for enhancing the cybersecurity posture of the water sector, supports water system utilities in identifying cybersecurity gaps and developing risk mitigation plans to address those gaps by providing free cybersecurity assessments, technical assistance, tools, and training. Importantly, these cybersecurity improvements often entail procedural changes rather than expensive hardware and software upgrades, and therefore, even those water systems with limited technical resources have the ability to greatly improve their cyber defenses. These resources, and more, are readily accessible at www.epa.gov/cyberwater. EPA encourages water systems that need technical support or additional information on cybersecurity best practices to use EPA’s RealWaterTA resources and submit a request to EPA’s Cybersecurity Technical Assistance Program for the Water Sector. Organizations are encouraged to report information concerning suspicious or criminal activity to FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at IC3.gov or to CISA via CISA’s Incident Reporting System.
NPRM: Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals from Electric Utilities; Legacy/CCRMU Amendment
EPA announced a proposal to amend several provisions of the federal regulations governing the disposal of CCR in landfills and surface impoundments and the beneficial use for CCR in Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations in Part 257. Specifically, EPA is proposing to:
- Create an additional option for facilities to certify closure of legacy CCR surface impoundments by removal of CCR, provided they completed these closures prior to November 8, 2024, and under the oversight of regulatory authorities.
- Modify or remove three of the criteria that facilities with legacy surface impoundments closed prior to November 8, 2024, must currently meet to be eligible for the deferral from complying with the CCR unit closure standards until site-specific decisions are made by permit authorities.
- Exempt from the CCR regulations in Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 257 certain structures primarily used to dewater CCR waste that facilitate disposal of the CCR elsewhere.
- Rescind all CCR management unit requirements and accept comments on alternative approaches that would include revisions to the existing CCR management unit regulations.
Additionally, this proposal would establish an alternative compliance pathway for CCR units complying with groundwater monitoring, corrective action, and closure requirements under federal or approved-state CCR permits. Specifically, these provisions would allow a permit authority to make site-specific determinations regarding the appropriate point-of-compliance for the groundwater monitoring system, site-specific cleanup levels during corrective action for constituents without a federal maximum contaminant level, and appropriateness of certain closure requirements while still requiring the owner or operator to ensure that no reasonable probability of adverse effects on human health and the environment are posed by the unit.
Lastly, EPA is proposing to revise the definition of beneficial use by eliminating the requirement for an environmental demonstration for the non-roadway use of more than 12,400 tons of unencapsulated CCR on land. The proposal would add definitions of CCR storage pile and temporary accumulation and exclude the following beneficial uses from federal CCR regulations:
- CCR used in cement manufacturing at cement kilns.
- Flue gas desulfurization gypsum used in agriculture.
- FGD gypsum used in wallboard.
Finally, in this proposal, EPA is providing notice that in a future separate action, EPA will reopen the public comment period for the Federal CCR permit program proposed rule entitled Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals From Electric Utilities; Federal CCR Permit Program (85 FR 9940) for a period of 30 days. EPA will accept comments on this proposal for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. In addition to accepting written comments, EPA will hold an online public hearing. EPA will hold two public webinars to provide an overview and answer any clarifying questions regarding this proposal. Registration information for the April 15th and April 16th public hearings will be available on EPA’s website shortly.
EPA Invites Public Feedback on Key Tool that Supports Water Affordability, Strengthens Practical Clean Water Act Implementation
EPA is seeking public input on its Clean Water Act Financial Capability Assessment (FCA) guidance. This effort will revise, as needed, the Clean Water Act FCA guidance. The most recent Final FCA guidance was published in March 2023 and had minor revisions in March 2024. The FCA guidance is not legally binding and is intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies. EPA will accept comments through May 26, 2026, via the Federal eRulemaking portal, referencing Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2026-1090. EPA also plans to hold two virtual meetings to discuss the guidance before the public comment period close.
EPA Proposes Amendments to Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) Requirements
This week EPA announced a proposed rule that will modify several revisions to the federal regulations governing the disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCR). EPA says this update will “promote resource recovery, allow for site-specific considerations in permitting, provide regulatory relief, continuing to protect human health and the environment, and ensure continued transparency.” For more details on this rule proposal: 2026 Proposed CCR Amendments webpage.
Association Updates
2026 National Industrial Permitting Workshop
ACWA facilitated the 2026 National Industrial Permitting Workshop, which was held April 7-9, 2026 in Washington, DC. This year’s permitting workshop had 267 participants, of which 75 participated in person and 196 participated virtually. Participants represented 42 states, the District of Columbia, all 10 EPA Regions, and several from EPA HQs. Topics discussed included: permit renewal and immediate noncompliance; an overview of the Permit Writer’s Clearinghouse; drafting complex permits, successful implementation of mixing zones; reasonable potential analysis; cooling water intake structures; Best Practicable Control Technology vs Best Available Technology Economically Achievable; Battery Plants and Data Centers; PFAS TBELs and monitoring; antibacksliding provisions; using human health criteria – fish tissue; thermal pollution industries; and whole effluent toxicity testing. Presentations and meeting materials can be found here.
2026 Water Quality Standards Workshop – View the Final Agenda!
Dates: April 21-23, 2026
Location: Little Rock, AR
This workshop will take place April 21-23, at the DoubleTree by Hilton Little Rock in Little Rock, AR. This workshop is a national meeting organized by ACWA for state staff involved in state water quality standards programs, as well as for both Regional and Headquarters-based U.S. Environmental Protection Agency managers and staff.
Registration is available here.
View the agenda here.
More information can be found on ACWA’s events page.
ACWA 2026 Annual Meeting – Save The Date!
Dates: August 5, 2026 at 8:00 am – August 7, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Board of Directors will meet August 4, 2026.
Venue: The Eldorado Hotel and Spa, Santa Fe, NM
Check back here for more information regarding registration, lodging, and agenda.
Meetings and Webinars
EPA Tools & Resources Webinar: Virtual Beach
Date and Time: April 15, 2026, 3-4 p.m. ET
REGISTER HERE
To protect public health, beach managers need to continually assess the level of potentially harmful microbes in the water. However, traditional culture-based testing methods take about 24 hours to get results. This lag time prevents same-day, proactive decisions on beach closures, which could leave recreational swimmers susceptible to sickness or infection, or lead to unwarranted beach closures, thus incurring economic losses. EPA’s Virtual Beach (VB) software offers a solution. VB is a decision support tool that facilitates the development of statistical models of water quality at site-specific locations. It allows users to estimate any general response variable, such as microbial or blue-green algae concentrations, using commonly measured environmental data. Modeled water quality estimates can then be used to inform site-based management decisions, such as issuing swimming or shellfish harvesting advisories. This webinar will feature a live demonstration of the new version of Virtual Beach – ShinyVB – a browser-based application developed using the R-Shiny package. We will discuss how VB has been used to assist in advisory issuances in the Great Lakes states and to forecast water conditions using other recent case study examples.
Cybersecurity Refresher
Date and Time: April 15, 2026, 1-2 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
EPA’s Office of Water Emergency Response and Cybersecurity (OWERC) offers this refresher training to water and wastewater utilities to reinforce their foundational understanding of cybersecurity and how it applies to the water sector.
NNCR Advanced Training: Effluent Exceedance Violations
Date and Time: April 16, 2026, 2:00-3:30 PM EST
Register for this training on ZoomGov
This training focuses on effluent exceedance violations on the quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), which provides a comprehensive list of Clean Water Act violations and their resolutions to the public. It will provide an overview of when effluent exceedance violations are generated, criteria for assigning Category I versus II noncompliance, resolution of effluent exceedance violations, and a demonstration of searching and filtering effluent exceedance violations on the quarterly NNCR.
This is an advanced training and assumes you have attended or watched a recording of the quarterly NNCR training before attending.
NNCR Advanced Training: DMR Reporting Violations
Date and Time: April 21, 2026, 2:00-3:00 PM EST
Register for this training on ZoomGov
This training focuses on DMR reporting violations on the quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), which provides a comprehensive list of Clean Water Act violations and their resolutions to the public. It will provide an overview of when DMR reporting violations are generated, criteria for assigning Category I versus II noncompliance, resolution of DMR reporting violations, and a demonstration of searching and filtering DMR reporting violations on the quarterly NNCR.
This is an advanced training and assumes you have attended or watched a recording of the quarterly NNCR training before attending.
The Safe Drinking Water and Clean Water Acts: Connecting Water Regulations to Laboratory Practice
Date and Time: April 22, 2026, 2-3 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA) are two landmark federal statutes that protect water supplies from naturally occurring and man-made contaminants. These regulations are essential for safeguarding public health by preventing waterborne illnesses and ensuring communities have access to safe, clean water. Environmental laboratories play a critical role in enforcing the SDWA and CWA to protect communities from contaminated water, as they conduct testing and monitoring required for maintaining water quality standards and detecting pathogens. This webinar will provide information about the history of the SDWA and CWA, associated regulations and the relationship to the work of environmental laboratories.
Contact Nikita Kheni for more information.
Building Coastal Flooding and Hurricane Resilience for Water Sector Utilities: Technical Assistance and Resources from EPA SWIFT
Date and Time: April 22, 2026, 1:00 – 2:00pm ET
REGISTER HERE
Get ahead of hurricane season! Learn how SWIFT’s experts can provide customized technical assistance to help your utility build resilience to coastal flooding and hurricane hazards through risk-informed project planning and investment. Review this year’s hurricane season outlook, learn about the SWIFT technical assistance process, and explore tools that can help your utility better understand and assess system impacts and identify resilient solutions.
Wastewater Treatment Primary Sedimentation and Solids Removal
Date and Time: April 23, 2026, 1-2 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
This session is ideal for wastewater operators and operators in training, municipal and county officials, community leaders, and others interested in understanding primary sedimentation and solids removal operations.
Cybersecurity Procurement Checklist Tool Training
Date and Time: April 29, 2026, 1-2:30 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
EPA’s Office of Water Emergency Response and Cybersecurity (OWERC) will demonstrate how to use EPA’s Cybersecurity Procurement Evaluation Checklist for Drinking Water and Wastewater Systems to assess and compare cybersecurity-related vendors.
EPA FCA Guidance Stakeholder Calls
Date and Time: April 29, 2026, May 7, 2026, 1- 2:30pm ET
EPA invites you to Clean Water Act (CWA) Financial Capability Assessment (FCA) Guidance public stakeholder engagement webinars. These webinars will provide opportunities to contribute or listen to feedback about the FCA Guidance. Interested parties can sign up to give oral comments through the webinar registration links, no later than April 24 and May 1, respectively. Due to anticipated interest, comments will be limited to 3-5 minutes. All public commenters are encouraged to also submit their comments in writing via the Federal eRulemaking portal.
Building Cyber Resilience Using EPA’s Water and Wastewater Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan Template
Date and Time: April 30, 2026, 1-2:30 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
EPA invites water sector professionals to learn about its new Drinking Water and Wastewater Systems Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan Template. This fully customizable template is designed to help all utilities prepare for, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity incidents affecting both information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems.
SWC and SPFW Webinar on Tools and Resources to Advance Landscape Partnerships for Drinking Water Protection
Date and Time: April 30, 2026, 2-3:30 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
On Thursday, April 30, 2026, from 2:00–3:30 pm ET, the Source Water Collaborative (SWC) and Southeastern Partnership for Forests & Water (SPFW) will host a webinar entitled, “Stronger Together: Landscape Partnerships for Drinking Water Protection.” During the webinar, participants will learn about tools and resources to assist new and established collaborations with identifying needs, communicating issues, and finding funding to protect drinking water sources on a landscape scale. Speakers will provide information from the Source Water Collaborative, Southeastern Partnership for Forests & Water, and Northeast Mid-Atlantic Partnership for Forests & Water. Presentations will be followed with a breakout discussion—your chance to connect with peers and explore how these strategies could benefit partnerships in your own region. For more information, view the webinar flyer and register for the webinar here.
NNCR Advanced Training: Schedule Violations
Date and Time: April 30, 2026, 1:30-2:30 PM EST
Register for this training on ZoomGov
This training focuses on schedule violations on the quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), which provides a comprehensive list of Clean Water Act violations and their resolutions to the public. It will provide an overview of when schedule violations are generated, criteria for assigning Category I versus II noncompliance, resolution of schedule violations, and a demonstration of searching and filtering schedule violations on the quarterly NNCR.
This is an advanced training and assumes you have attended or watched a recording of the quarterly NNCR training before attending.
NNCR Advanced Training: Single Event/Other Violations
Date and Time: May 5, 2026, 3:00-4:00 PM EST
Register for this training on ZoomGov
This training focuses on single event/other violations on the quarterly National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Noncompliance Report (NNCR), which provides a comprehensive list of Clean Water Act violations and their resolutions to the public. It provides an overview of when single event/other violations are generated, criteria for assigning Category I versus II noncompliance, resolution of single event/other violations, and a demonstration of searching and filtering single event/other violations on the quarterly NNCR.
This is an advanced training and assumes you have attended or watched a recording of the quarterly NNCR training before attending.
Water Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (WCAT) Webinar
Date and Time: May 13, 2026, 1-2:30 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
EPA’s Office of Water Emergency Response and Cybersecurity (OWERC) will demonstrate how to use EPA’s Water Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (WCAT) to conduct cybersecurity assessments at water and wastewater systems.
How Water Sector Utilities are Building Resilience to Natural Hazards: Utilities Recount their Engagement with EPA SWIFT Technical Assistance
Date and Time: May 20, 2026, 1-2 pm ET
REGISTER HERE
Join US EPA’s Strengthening Water Infrastructure for Tomorrow (SWIFT) initiative to learn how water sector utilities are benefitting from natural hazard risk assessment technical assistance. The technical assistance provided by SWIFT’s experts is tailored to meet the needs of each utility request, from improving the understanding of natural hazard impacts to their system to quantifying the potential reductions in risk that specific projects can deliver. Hear directly from utility representatives across the country that have engaged in the process to build system resilience to various natural hazards.
State Revolving Fund (SRF) Technical Assistance & Open Office Hours
Environmental Finance Center Network [external with federal funding] provides State Revolving Funds (SRFs) Office Hours. These sessions are designed to help state agencies, utility operators, and stakeholders navigate SRFs with practical insights and strategies. Each session begins with a theme to provide clarity on managing SRF-funded projects, followed by an open “Ask Me Anything” Q&A
- April 13: Single Audit Prep and Compliance
- May 6: What is the best way to calculate rates?
- May 18: Federal award compliance, part 1
- June 3: Federal award compliance, part 2
Job Opportunities
Hudson River Stewardship Seasonal Intern
Location: Staatsburg, NY
Closing Date: April 16, 2026
To apply, submit a cover letter, resume, and writing sample by email to jobs@neiwpcc.org by April 16, 2026. Please reference #26-HRNERR-002 in the email subject line. Accepting applications until the position is filled. A full position description can be viewed at: https://neiwpcc.org/about-us/careers.
Wastewater Enforcement Coordinator – Analyst 3
Location: Boise, ID
Closing Date: April 19, 2026
For more information and to apply, click here.
Environmental Engineer Supervisor
Location: Montgomery, AL
Closing Date: April 22, 2026
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management is seeking a qualified individual to serve as Environmental Engineer Supervisor. This career involves advanced professional and technical supervisory work in environmental or public health engineering. To qualify, you will need a bachelor’s degree in engineering, preferably civil, chemical, mechanical, or biosystems, and four years of experience. Other qualifications apply. This is also a great promotional opportunity for those in current Environmental Engineering Specialist, Senior or Environmental Engineer, Licensed classification.
For more information and to apply, visit Alabama Jobs.
Environmental Analyst or Engineer – Training and Technical Assistance Specialist
Location: Lowell, MA
Closing Date: Open until filled
To apply, email your cover letter, resume, and a brief writing sample to jobs@neiwpcc.org. Please reference #26-Lowell-001 in the email subject line. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, accepting applications until the position is filled. A full position description and benefits may be viewed at: https://neiwpcc.org/about-us/careers.
Watershed Management Section Manager
Location: Thurston County – Lacey, WA
Closing Date: Continuous
If you’re interested in applying for this position or reading additional information, please follow this link:
Watershed Management Section Manager (WMS2)
Be sure to check out other opportunities on ACWA’s Job Opportunities page.
