a strategy
against
water
pollution
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K >^f^^t
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A
sweeping Federal-State campaign
against water pollution was launched in late
1972 when Congress enacted the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act Amendments. This
law updated and strengthened earlier Federal
water pollution legislation. It was a mandate for
action.
This booklet explains the major elements of the
strategy used by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and the States in
their attack on water pollution. It discusses as
clearly and directly as possible the problems we
now face, and what we are doing about them.
September 1974
U S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY • WASHINGTON, D C. 20460
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the problem
Most Americans know quite a
lot about water pollution. Indi-
vidually we may not know too
much about chemistry, biology
or oceanography, but we do
know that our waters are in
serious trouble. We see and hear
evidence of water pollution
everywhere we go.
We see signs that tell us not to
drink the water, not to fish, and
not to swim. We see lakes
clogging from excessive weed
growth. We hear about fish and
shellfish that are unfit to eat. We
hear about contamination of the
underground water supplies on
which many of our cities and
rural areas depend.
Why? Our waters used to be
clean.
What happened?
Simply this: as our industry and
population grew, we produced
more and more industrial and
human waste. Soon we were
producing more than Nature's
own purification system could
handle, and our waters became
overloaded with impurities.
Now many of our lakes and
rivers, harbors and bays are a
national disgrace because they
are fouled with human and
animal wastes, chemicals and
oil, sludge, and debris of all
kinds.
Thousands of
industrial plants
discharge billions of
gallons of wastes into
our waterways each
day. Much of it is
inadequately treated;
some isn't treated at
all.
Public sewer systems
dump another 40
billion gallons daily,
including untreated
sewage from more
than 1,400 cities and
towns and inade-
quately treated sewage
from another 2,300
communities.
An additional 50
billion gallons a day—
most of it untreated—
comes from agri-
cultural sources. This
includes pesticides
and fertilizers from
farmlands as well as
bacteria and chemicals
from cattle and hog
feedlots.
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About 8,500 acci-
dental and deliberate
oil spills contaminate
our coastal and inland
waters each year.
Power plants and
industries use some
130 billion gallons of
water each day for
cooling purposes. In
the process they create
thermal pollution
by raising the water's
temperature as much
as 20 degrees before
returning it to streams,
lakes and coastal
waters.
A huge volume of
stormwater drains into
waterways every day,
bringing with it tons of
pollutants and eroded
soil.
More than 62 million
tons of garbage,
sludge, chemicals,
explosives, debris and
dirt are dumped off
our coasts each year.
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Where does all this waterborne
junk and garbage come from?
We still don't know all the facts,
but here are some significant
ones.
As a result of all this, a 1973
estimate held that one out of
every three miles of streams in
the United States was polluted.
Moreover, as much as 665,000
square miles of the western
Atlantic Ocean are now
contaminated with man-made
pollutants.
We all know that our waters are
polluted—but now we can do
something about it. The 1972
Act gives us the tools we need
to solve the problem. EPA, in
turn, has devised a national
water strategy to carry out the
requirements of the Act so that
these tools will be used to
everyone's advantage.
Pollution contaminates the
ocean and one of every three
miles of OUT streams.
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taking action
Congress intended the Act to
achieve one major goal: by July
1983, the Nation's waters would
be clean enough to protect fish,
shellfish and wildlife and to
permit swimming and other
recreational use. Achieving this
goal is an awesome and
ambitious task; however, EPA
and the States are waging an ag-
gressive campaign to do just that.
Because of the scope and diverse
nature of our problems,
however, not everything can be
done at once. We can't solve all
of these problems overnight
because the money and
manpower available for the
cleanup are limited, and the
severity of water pollution varies
from place to place. Those
resources that are available,
therefore, will have to be used
so that the major problems
receive the most emphasis. In
other words, "First Things
First."
For these reasons EPA devised
its national water strategy. Each
of the many water programs
now underway is a part of that
strategy; the emphasis given to
each one reflects the priorities
we must follow to get the most
out of the limited resources at
our disposal.
EPA's water strategy has
developed from two main
principles: (1) we must move
first to combat pollution where
it is most serious; and (2) we
must prevent clean waters from
becoming polluted. The primary
targets, therefore, are the two
major sources of water pollution
—industries and communities.
Factories and sewage treat-
ment plants are specific sources
that can be readily identified;
for this reason, they are
commonly called "point"
sources. The pollution they
produce, therefore, can be
defined and dealt with in a
systematic way. The present
strategy emphasizes the need to
regulate these specific sources
first, since they are the single
most significant cause of water
pollution and can be easily
identified in most cases.*
•Some sources of pollution
can't be recognized or defined
so easily: for example, some
cases involve the seepage of
chemicals into lakes, streams
and groundwater, or the
washing of pesticides and
fertilizers from farms into
waterways. Since these "area"
sources are hard to pinpoint,
they are more difficult to
regulate and control. EPA
and the States are working on
ways to control these sources,
too—see pages 13-15.
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EPA's strategy
These are the elements of EPA's
sequential strategy for dealing
with water pollution:
The States inventory and assess
the present quality of their
waters to define their most
severe problems. This helps
EPA and the States decide
where to take action first. The
severity of pollution in a
particular body of water also
dictates what method or
combination of methods should
be used to improve the water's
quality.
EPA establishes national
effluent limitations on what a
"point" source can discharge
into the water. These are
developed for factories, power
plants, sewage treatment plants,
animal feedlots and other
specific sources. The limitations
reflect the degree of cleanup we
can expect to achieve using the
latest technology for controlling
wastes. Depending on the
pollutant in question, an effluent
limitation may permit some
discharge or no discharge at all.
Treatment plants, industries and
other "point" sources must
comply with an initial set of
effluent limitations by 1977.
Then they must work to
implement a second, even more
strict set of limitations by 1983.
The limitations, therefore, call
on each specific source of
pollutants to reduce its
discharge over a period of time
to meet the Act's 1983
deadline.
Consider a specific industry.
EPA's guidelines on effluent
limitations for the beet sugar
industry call for no discharge of
pollutants by July 1,1977,
provided that suitable land
owned by the company is
available for land disposal of
waste products. If such land isn't
available, some discharges into
the water will be allowed; but all
beet sugar plants will have to
meet the "no-discharge"
requirement by July 1, 1983.
Such limitations will do a lot to
protect both the environment
and human health and welfare.
They are based on scientific and
technical analysis and, since
they apply equally to all plants
within a particular industrial
category, they introduce an
element of economic equity
between individual competitors
in that industry. They are not
intended to place a heavy
financial burden on industries;
in fact, they represent goals
that are technologically
achievable at economically
realistic costs. This is
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demonstrated by the fact that,
of the 52 beet sugar plants in
operation in mid-197 3, 11 have
already met the "no-discharge"
requirement. Similar gains are
being made in other industries,
too.
To make sure that all effluent
limitations and other
requirements are met, EPA and
the States issue discharge
permits to all specific "point"
sources of pollution. The 1972
Act makes it illegal to discharge
any pollutant without a permit.
This isn't a "license to pollute;"
instead, a permit sets up a
systematic time schedule that a
plant must follow in reducing
the pollution it produces. By
following that schedule, the
plant will cut its pollutant
discharge to comply with the
effluent limitations for 1977 and
1983. In effect, a permit is an
agreement between a discharger
and the government that sets
specific limits on the content,
volume and temperature of what
may be discharged into the
water. If a power plant, factory
or treatment plant is unable to
comply immediately with
applicable effluent limitations,
the permit sets a series of firm,
intermediate targets through
which the final goal can be
reached by a specified date. A
first round of permits is aimed
at attaining a certain level of
improvement by 1977; a second
round will follow to insure
compliance with the tighter
requirements of 1983.
In keeping with the strategy of
hitting pollution where it's most
serious and keeping clean waters
clean, EPA is giving priority
to issuing permits to the major
and most significant dischargers
and to new sources of pollution.
This puts the biggest polluters
on clean-up schedules and
eliminates the possibility that
discharges from new sources will
lower existing water quality.
If a discharger violates the
conditions of a permit, or
discharges pollutants without a
permit, he may be fined up to
$10,000 a day. Repeated
intentional violations could
bring fines of $50,000 a day and
imprisonment for up to two
years. These provisions put
some real "teeth" into the law.
EPA establishes performance
standards for new plants in a
wide variety of industrial
categories. These standards
are, in effect, strict effluent
limitations. They insure that
new plants have the best
practicable pollution controls
built in from the very
beginning. In the case of the
beet sugar industry, this means
that all new plants must meet a
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"no-discharge" requirement as
soon as production begins.
EPA also sets standards to
regulate the discharging of toxic
substances, such as cadmium and
mercury. The 1977 and 1983
deadlines for limiting pollutant
discharges do not apply in the
case of toxic substances; steps
to meet these standards must be
taken more quickly, since public
health and welfare might
otherwise be severely affected.
billion! EPA, therefore, has to
dispense its grants on a priority
basis. Each State maintains a
current priority list which ranks
proposed projects in terms of
their anticipated effect on raising
the quality of waters within the
State. These priorities insure
that the money available for
grants is used in the most
effective way.
Communities may apply for
Federal grants for the planning
and construction of sewage
treatment faculties.
Municipalities must insure that
the sewage they produce is
adequately treated. At the
present time, untreated and
improperly treated sewage
accounts for 20 percent of the
pollutant load dumped into the
Nation's waters. To help them
solve this problem, communities
can apply for Federal grants to
cover 75 percent of the costs of
planning and building publicly-
owned sewage treatment facili-
ties. A total of $9 billion has
been allocated for this purpose
through 1975.
Although $9 billion is a
substantial amount, it won't be
enough to solve the problem
entirely. In fact, the States have
estimated that their total needs
in this category will exceed $60
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Existing publicly-owned
treatment plants must, if
necessary, modify their
treatment techniques to enable
them to apply biological
processes, or secondary
treatment, to wastes by July 1,
1977. They may have to
improve their treatment even
further, since they must apply
the best practicable treatment
techniques by July 1, 1983.
These requirements are denned
by each plant's discharge permit.
Again, communities can apply
for Federal grants to help cover
the cost of making these
modifications.
EPA requires industries that
discharge their wastes to
municipal treatment plants to
pretreat those wastes to remove
any substances that might
either harm the treatment plant's
processes or pass through the
plant untreated. This
requirement applies to both new
and previously existing sources.
In some cases, the States apply
even more stringent controls to
regulate pollutants. All of the
discharge limitations discussed
up to this point affect the
content and volume of what is
dumped into the waterways.
Sometimes, however, the purity
of the receiving waters serves as
a standard for controlling
pollution. For example, the
States set minimum water
quality standards for each body
of water. If effluent limitations
aren't enough to bring the
quality of a particular river or
stream up to meet those
standards, industries and
treatment plants will be
compelled to comply with even
tighter controls on what they
discharge.
EPA seeks to involve the States
as much as possible in carrying
out water programs. In fact, the
Act clearly notes that the States
have the primary responsibility
for controlling water pollution.
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This is logical because the
States—through local
governments—know exactly
what their specific problems
are; they're also in the best
position to develop and
implement solutions that are
tailored to local conditions. A
campaign as complex as this
nationwide fight against water
pollution can succeed only if
State and local governments use
their expertise to the fullest
advantage.
As EPA continues to plan and
improve programs needed to
implement the Act, the States
are assuming an ever-greater
role in administering them. The
States can, and should, seek
increasing responsibility in
planning, reviewing grant
applications, issuing discharge
permits and seeing that the Act
is strictly enforced. EPA, of
course, will continue to provide
assistance in the form of
guidance, grants and planning
on a national scale.
Planning will continue to serve
as the basis for action against
water pollution. A great deal of
planning has already been done.
Our present strategy, for
example, could only be devised
after each State inventoried and
categorized its water quality
problems. This provided a basis
for deciding where initial
pollution control efforts should
be directed. In addition, the
systematic approach that is
characteristic of careful
WATER PLANNING
PROGRAMS
Planning is an essential part of
any effort to improve water qual-
ity. Several distinct planning proc-
esses have been established; each
of these has its own scope and pur-
pose and depends upon the others
for its ultimate effectiveness. Here
briefly are the major planning ac-
tivities that are helping us win the
fight against water pollution:
One basic planning mechanism
is the River Basin Plan. It's pre-
pared under Section 303 of the Act
and is primarily a State effort. The
plan sets up procedures to manage
the water quality of a river basin,
which is the area drained by a river
and its tributaries. The Basin Plan
identifies and measures the pollu-
tants found in waters within the
basin and sets limits on what can
be dumped into those waters. It
also establishes priorities for build-
ing sewage treatment facilities in
the basin.
The Facilities Plan (Section 201
of the Act) reflects the detailed
planning that goes into the build-
ing of waste treatment facilities.
It considers a multitude of tech-
nical and environmental data and
serves as the basis for a commu-
10
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planning will insure that we get
the most for our money in the
years ahead.
Planning will proceed on
several levels. Local
nity's application for a Federal
grant to cover the costs of building
or modifying its treatment facili-
ties. To insure that the maximum
benefit is gained from a given ex-
penditure, facilities planning pro-
cedures call for a detailed compari-
son of all possible courses of
action. In this way planners can
choose the best alternative in a
systematic way.
The Areawide Waste Treatment
Management Plan (Section 208)
deals with the serious water pollu-
tion problems that often plague
built-up or highly industralized
areas. These are usually urban
areas where water quality problems
are so serious that special manage-
ment and control techniques are
needed. For this reason, areawide
planning considers a lot more than
just the technology of waste treat-
ment—it is also concerned with
such related issues as land use,
zoning, development, transporta-
tion strategies, air quality and solid
waste management. It also deals
specifically with the problem of
"non-point" sources of water pollu-
tion, such as urban run-off and
erosion at construction sites. All of
these things contribute to a com-
prehensive plan for managing and
controlling quality in areas that
need special attention.
governments, working closely
with the States, will conduct the
detailed facilities planning that
will enable them to meet their
communities' individual waste
treatment needs. The States will
continue their present planning
efforts to manage the overall
water quality of each river basin.
They will also try to find
solutions to the special problems
associated with built-up and
highly industrialized areas.
These activities will be part of
each State's annual water
pollution program.
EPA will keep its responsibility
for maintaining and revising the
national water strategy. It will
also give guidance whenever it is
requested and, in some cases,
will provide grants to cover
planning costs. However,
primary responsibility for
devising concrete solutions to
local problems will remain with
the States.
EPA does whatever is needed to
insure that the public has the
opportunity to participate in all
aspects of the water program.
This requirement is spelled out
in the Act itself. In general, this
involves building effective
public participation
requirements into EPA's
regulations that define
11
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procedures for implementing
the various provisions of the
Act.
Public participation in water
programs should be guided by
one overriding principle: the
earlier people get involved, the
better. If opinions and ideas
from citizens are received early
—during the initial planning
stage of a particular project, for
example—the outcome of the
project will reflect the
community's preferences and
goals. The individual citizen can
thereby have a definite voice in
deciding how his tax dollars are
used. In addition to contributing
to the planning process,
concerned individuals and
groups can carry out their own
projects, limited only by their
resources and imagination. For
example, they can work on a
particular problem of
importance to their community.
They can check on the progress
made by local industries and
treatment plants in cleaning up
their discharges. And they can
pass their knowledge on to other
people who are less well
informed.
EPA and State and local
planning agencies, as well as
individual citizens, will benefit
from this policy of encouraging
public participation. But most
important of all, everyone must
cooperate and do his part if our
Some sources of pollution
are difficult to pinpoint
and are hard to measure and
regulate. Examples are acid
drainage from mines (below);
seepage of pesticides and
fertilizers into waterways
(right); and sedimentation
caused by soil erosion
(below right).
^a A"
12
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national campaign against water
pollution is to succeed.
EPA is continuing its
preliminary work on several
other problems affecting water
quality. Because we need to
budget our time and resources
to deal with water pollution
systematically, these problems
haven't received major emphasis
so far. But as progress is made
in the areas that are being
emphasized, these issues will
assume greater importance in
terms of planning for action in
the future. Briefly, these
problems are:
Area Sources of Pollution.
These are sources that are
difficult to pinpoint; therefore,
it's hard to measure and regulate
the pollution they produce.
They are often called "non-
point" sources, to distinguish
them from the more specific
"point" sources. There are
many kinds of area sources, but
here are some common exam-
ples : farms and orchards use
pesticides and fertilizers
that eventually wash into
waterways; farms, construction
sites and burned-out or
improperly managed forests
cause sedimentation through
erosion of the soil; mining and
oilfield operations contribute
acids and other chemical
compounds; and areas that rely
13
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Annually some 7,000 oil
spills contaminate coastal
waters, while another
1,500 oil spills occur in
inland lakes and rivers.
More than 62 million
tons of wastes are
dumped into our oceans
each year. As yet, the
long-range effects of this
practice cannot be
determined.
All photographs in this publication from EPA's Documerica collection
14
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on home septic tank systems
yield plant nutrients which see
into lakes and streams.
Any effort to deal with these
"non-point" sources is
weakened by our lack of
knowledge in this field. So, the
States are now in the process of
determining the seriousness of
their area source problems.
Once this is done and substantial
progress is made toward our
preliminary goal of controlling
pollution from specific "point"
sources, we will turn our
attention to solving these area
source problems. We must
eventually control them due to
the effect they can have in
contaminating groundwater
supplies and in clogging lakes
with excessive plant growth due
to high levels of nutrients in the
water. EPA is now researching
different techniques of restoring
lakes and preserving essential
groundwater supplies.
Oil Spills. About 7,000 oil spills
—both large and small—occur
annually in our coastal waters;
another 1,500 spills contaminate
inland lakes and rivers. EPA
and other Federal agencies are
exploring new techniques for
both removing oil spills and
lessening their adverse effects.
This research, in conjunction
with improvements in the design
of oil tankers, should greatly
reduce this danger to aquatic
life.
ean Dumping. Over 62
lillion tons of assorted wastes
ewage sludge, dredge spoil,
instruction debris, explosives
and toxic chemicals, to name a
few—are dumped off our
seacoasts each year. We still
don't have enough data to
determine with certainty what
the long-term effects of this
practice will be.
EPA has recently started
issuing permits to ocean
dumpers and plans to continue
issuing them at the rate of 1,000
each year. At the present time,
though, special attention is being
given to regulating—and,
where appropriate, prohibiting
—the dumping of hazardous or
toxic materials. Additional
research is also underway to
help us project more accurately
the long-term effects of dumping
our wastes at sea.
15
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•jsion
s strategy for dealing with
water pollution is a
comprehensive statement of
what we have to accomplish
and how we will go about it.
We need to follow this strategy
because we must use our limited
money and manpower wisely
and efficiently to accomplish
our long-term goal of cleaning
up the Nation's waters.
&U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1974 0—551-507
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want more information?
Copies of the complete Water
Quality Strategy Paper can be
obtained at no charge from:
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WATER PLANNING DIVISION (WH-454)
ROOM 815, EAST TOWER, WASHNIG-
TON, D.C. 20460
Other publications can be obtained
from EPA, Office of Public Affairs
(A-107), Washington, D.C. 20460.
Items for sale are available from the
Superintendent of Documents, U.S.
Government Printing Office, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20402.
Federal Water Pollution Control Act
Amendments of 1972, Public Law
92-500, 92nd Congress. Free.
The Federal Water Pollution Control
Act Amendments of 1972: Highlights.
Free.
Toward Cleaner Water: the New
Permit Program to Control Water
Pollution. For sale by GPO (Stock
number 1973 546-312/140), 50 cents.
A Citizen's Guide to Clean Water.
Free.
A Primer on Waste Water Treatment.
For sale by GPO (Stock number
1971 0-419-407), 55 cents.
Common Environmental Terms: a
Glossary. Free.
The reader is free to quote or reproduce any part
of this publication without further permission.
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