United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Water
4101
EPA 800-F-93-001
October 1993
®EPA Office of Water
Introduction
Earth, as photographs taken from space clearly show, is the Water Planet. Water
covers two-thirds of the planet's surface, and some of its subsurface too. It is
essential to all forms of life and plays a vital role in the processes and functioning
of the Earth's ecosystems.
Water is the common element that links ecosystems. It links forest ecosystems of
the interior mountains with the bays and estuaries along the coasts. It transports
food, nutrients and other biologically important materials and organisms. It
dilutes, moves and removes wastes; it cools organisms and the land, maintaining
the climatic conditions that support and sustain life. Finally, water supplies
energy to ecosystems because, through cooling and its motion, water saves
energy that organisms and ecosystems would otherwise need to expend.
People all over the planet are dependent on water to grow food, generate power,
cool the machines of industry, carry wastes and much more. People use water in
their personal lives for bathing and cleaning, recreating, drinking, cooking,
gardening, and just for the pleasure of watching it. Water also provides habitat
for fresh and salt water living resources.
More than 97 percent of the Earth's water is saltwater in our oceans and salt
lakes; water in icecaps /glaciers adds about 2.0 percent more. Therefore, fresh
water is very limited — water in lakes, streams and rivers makes up less than 0.01
percent of the Earth's water. Ground water — fresh water under the planet's
surface — makes up another 0.6 percent. In the United States over 250 million
people depend on the freshwater in our rivers, lakes, streams and ground water
supplies for their drinking water.
Given the scarcity of freshwater supplies and the intrinsic value of all water
resources, it seems that water would be recognized as a precious commodity and
protected. But water is common property — it belongs to everyone and no one
— so it is subjected to exploitation and misuse.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of the primary governmental
organizations responsible for protecting human health and natural ecosystems.
As such EPA plays a major role in the regulation, protection and improvement of
water resources and supplies of the United States.
Mission
The Office of Water (OW) is responsible for implementing the Clean Water Act
and Safe Drinking Water Act, and portions of the Coastal Zone Act
Reauthorization Amendments of 1990, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act,
Ocean Dumping Ban Act, Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act,
Shore Protection Act, Marine Plastics Pollution Research and Control Act, Lon-
don Dumping Convention, the International Convention for the Prevention of
Pollution from Ships and several other statutes. Our activities are targeted to
prevent pollution wherever possible and to reduce risk for people and ecosys-
tems in the most cost-effective ways possible.
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The job is much too big to accomplish alone. OW
staff depend on many others, including the ten EPA
Regions, other federal agencies, state and local
governments, Indian tribes, the regulated commu-
nity, organized professional and interest groups,
land owners and managers, and the public-at-large.
OW often provides guidance, specifies scientific
methods and data collection requirements, per-
forms oversight and facilitates communication
among those involved. As soon as OW and Re-
gional staff have helped the states and Indian tribes
to build the capacity, many water programs are
delegated to them to implement.
Progress
Since EPA was established in 1970, the Agency and country have made great
progress in improving surface water quality and ensuring safe drinking
water. Under the provisions of the Clean Water Act the nation invested over
$75 billion to construct municipal sewage treatment facilities, nearly doubling
the number of people served with secondary treatment to almost 150 million.
Through federal and state actions issuing permits, we have controlled over
48,000 individual industrial facilities and controlled thousands more through
general permits. By establishing nationwide discharge standards for over 50
industrial categories, we have reduced industrial loadings by as much as 90
percent. Industrial waste and sewage sludge — at their peaks 5.9 million
tons and 8.7 million tons, respectively — are no longer dumped into our
coastal waters. Based on current water quality standards, over 70 percent of
our rivers, 68 percent of our estuaries and 60 percent of our lakes
now meet legislatively mandated goals. Fish are coming back,
the rate at which wetland habitats are lost has been slowed and
many miles of formerly contaminated beaches are now safe for
swimmers.
Since 1986, we have more than tripled the number of contami-
nants for which we have drinking water standards, bringing the
total to 94. Once implemented, The Surface Water Treatment Rule
is expected to prevent 83,000 cases of illness due to waterborne
diseases. By implementing the Lead and Copper Rule of 1991 we
expect to prevent over 600,000 children from having dangerously
elevated levels of lead in their blood. Through the Safe Drinking
Water Act and parts of other laws, we are regulating many high
risk sources of ground water contamination, including pesticides,
underground storage tanks, underground injection wells and
landfills, helping to ensure the safety of drinking water supplies.
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Remaining Though there has been general success in achieving national industrial and
rh II municipal point source compliance, we still have not achieved ambient water
Challenges ^^y objectives in many of our waters. Nationwide command and control
regulatory patterns (i.e. set standards, put them in discharge permits, enforce
against violators) have led to great improvements, but not fully solved the
problems.
Significant risks to our waters remain. Some of the risks include difficult and
controversial regulatory problems such as pollutant runoff from agricultural
kinds and stormwater flows from cities, seepage into ground water from
nonpoint sources, and the loss of habitats such as wetlands. Though fisheries
have come back, we cannot always eat what we catch because fish flesh is
contaminated by the remaining discharges and sources of toxic substances.
Microbial contamination of drinking water still
presents problems in many communities.
/mother risk concerns water availability. Water
conservation is important only to those who have
grown up in places or during times of severe
drought; it is not part of our culture. In terms of
that culture, ours is not yet an environmentally
literate society. Without improved science and
environmental education, future decisions may
continue to compound risks.
Finally, we are still working with laws and regula-
tions that treat land, air, water and living resources
as separate entities instead of as interrelated sys-
tems. This regulatory pattern makes comprehen-
sive solutions and their implementation problem-
atic, and complicates protection of ecosystems and
habitat. The traditional command and control
approach, combined with single media laws,
precludes flexibility and deflects attention from
developing and applying alternative solutions that
include market mechanisms, economic incentives,
voluntary approaches, alternative enforcement
penalties, prevention, negotiation, education and land use planning.
The Future
The Office of Water will continue to build the capacity of states, local govern-
ments and Tribes to manage water programs. We will continue to provide
nationwide baseline controls and standards as well as science leadership. OW
is committed to developing science, methods, models and other tools to better
identify, assess and quantify risks caused from exposure, chemical and biologi-
cal changes, fate and transport of contaminants.
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Structure
Robert Perciasepe
Assistant Administrator
In the short term OW will
rely on the command and
control approach to meet
legal requirements and to
ensure we do not lose the
gains in water quality made
over the last two decades.
However, we will supple-
ment that approach with
alternative techniques.
Whenever possible, we will
implement programs on an
integrated watershed basis, including air, land and ecosystem relationships and
related regulatory tools in water initiatives. We will work extensively with other
agencies at all levels in cooperative projects. We will use geographic targeting to
involve all the stakeholders in characterizing problems and in determining and
implementing solutions guided by local priorities (as has been done with the Great
Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico and the National Estuary Program). To
provide a broad and balanced approach, we will mix enforcement with education,
voluntary compliance and volunteer initiatives, especially those that prevent rather
than remedy pollution.
Since we cannot proceed to do everything at once because of the costs involved, the
Office of Water will make policy choices by selecting opportunities for the greatest
risk reduction at the least cost. Our choices will be based on good data to characterize
and compare risks, and good science that leads to and underpins the choices. Fur-
ther, our choices will be made in consultation with the public and regulated commu-
nities. OW will involve stakeholders in the process of making equitable decisions
about the levels of risk and protection from harm to public health or the environment
and the costs of reducing those risks.
Several organizations make up the Office of Water: Office of Wetlands, Oceans and
Watersheds, Office of Science and Technology, Office of Wastewater Enforcement
and Compliance and the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. Separate fact
sheets are available on them. Policy, communications and budget staff support the
overaU operation of the Office of Water. In addition, Water Divisions in all ten
regional offices work with stakeholders to implement all programs.
For more information:
Write to USEPA,
Water Resource Center
RC-4100
401 M Street SW
Washington, DC 20460
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