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Frederic A. Eidsness, Jr.
Biography
[EPA press release - January 18, 1982]
President Ronald Reagan has announced his intention to nominate Frederic A. "Eric" Eidsness, Jr., a civil engineer and experienced water pollution-control professional, to be the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's assistant administrator for water. The actual nomination is expected to occur when the U.S. Senate reconvenes on January 25.
"Eric Eidsness knows the water cleanup field from several perspectives--as a former EPA employee, as a local planning official, and as a consultant to government and industry on various water pollution control problems," said EPA Administrator Anne M. Gorsuch. "This broad experience will be particularly valuable to the agency as Congress considers reauthorization of the Clean Water Act this year."
As assistant administrator for water, Eidsness, 37, would be responsible for administering not only the Clean Water Act, which includes a multibillion-dollar sewage treatment program, but also the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Marine Protection Act, which controls the dumping of wastes into the ocean.
Since September 1981, Eidsness, a native of Jacksonville, Fla., has served as a consultant to the EPA Administrator of water issues. Since 1978, he has been a partner in the management consulting firm of BMML Inc., in Boulder, Colo. He specialized in advising state and local governments and industry on the institutional and financial requirements involved in carrying out the federal water laws.
From 1975 to 1978, Eidsness served as director of water and air quality planning of the Larimer-Weld Regional Council of Governments in Loveland, Colo. In this capacity, he directed development of an areawide plan for curbing wastewater discharges.
From 1973 to 1975, Eidsness was a staff consultant for the Biomedical and Environmental Systems section of Arthur D. Little Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. He took part in major environmental impact studies for industrial and government clients. He also co-authored a study on the management and economic benefits of the New York State/EPA construction grants program for sewage treatment.
Eidsness also is a former EPA employee. During 1970 to 1973, he worked in the construction grants program at EPA's regional office in Atlanta. He helped prepare one of the agency's first environmental impact statements (on a regional sewage treatment project in the metropolitan Atlanta area). While working on another impact statement, Eidsness, a diver, made several ocean-bottom dives off Florida's Atlantic coast to supervise a survey of pipes discharging sewage into the ocean.
Eidsness served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy from 1968 to 1970, 13 months of which were spent with an underwater salvage unit in South Vietnam.
In 1967, Eidsness received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. He has written articles and given speeches on numerous environmental subjects.
Eidsness is married and the father of two children. He and his family now reside in Washington, D.C., and also own an irrigated farm near Ft. Collins, Colo.
Eidsness's appointment is subject to approval by the U.S. Senate.