Water
Coll.
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vvEPA
This is one of an ongoing series of Water Qualify
Management reports published from time to time
by the Water Planning Division of the US
Environmental Protection Agency. These reports
are intended to encourage wider public par-
ticipation in Water Quality Management by
providing information on a variety of relevant
problems, programs, and technologies. They are
intended 10 serve as educational tools and as
forums for discussion of issues and ideas related
to water quality. They are published to meet
requirements of the Clean Water Act of 1977
(Sections 101 e, 104, and 214) and Federal
regulations {40 CFR 25.4 and 35.1507).
Views expressed by authors herein do not .neces-
sarily reflect EPA policy No permission is
necessary to reproduce contents, except (or
copyrighted materials. Persons wishing to be
added to the mailing list for future reports may
write to: Mailing List Manager, WQM Reports,
(WH-554), Environmental Protection Agency,
401 M St., S.W., Washington, D.C 20460
Additional copies of this report are available
upon request from the above address Quantities
may be limited
Douglas M. Costle, Administrator
Eckardt C. Beck, Assistant Admini-
strator for Water and Waste
Management
Merna Nurd, Director, Water
Planning Division
Joseph A. Davis, Editor
Kenn Speicher, Associate Editor
Water Quality Management
Groundwater
Protection
Ground Zero For Groundwater 2
An overview of the problem: the availability of groundwater, our dependence on
it, and threats to its quality and quantity.
Putting a Lid on Solid and Hazardous Wastes 6
Communities across the nation are suffering from the impacts on groundwater of
improperly disposed solid and hazardous wastes.
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 8
RCRA is the primary tool for managing solid and hazardous wastes, but enforcing
the regulations will require EF»A to address issues of siting and monitoring
TCE: The Story of One Groundwater Pollutant 11
TCE's story points out the difficulties in controlling even known sources of pol-
lution.
Septic and Onslte Wastewater Systems 12
Malfunctioning onsite wastewater disposal systems can pose a serious threat
to groundwater and to human health.
Other Groundwater Pollution Sources 14
The Groundwater We Drink 18
Many of us depend on groundwater for drinking water, but it can contain pol-
lutants shat threaten our healsh.
SDWA Protects Groundwater Users 20
SDWA is designed to protect the wafer we drink as well as our groundwater
sources
Pioneer Protection Programs 22
Several innovative groundwater projects are getting underway.
Piecing the Puzzle Together 26
The thornisst issue the nation facos in groundwater protection
is how to organize it.
Groundwater Outlook:: No Guarantees 33
What does the future hold with respect to the quality, quantity, and distribution
of the groundwater resource?
For More Information 36
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Foreword
40i -•' ': ••;•.'-. 3..V.
•asliliiKtoti. DC 204 RO
CD
John Grau
This Water Quality Management report
explores what is likely to be one of the
major environmental issues of the 1980s:
groundwater. Groundwater is one of the
Nation's most valuable national
resources—and one of the most over-
looked. The world beneath the Nation's
land surface has, in the public mind, been a
vast, uncharted terra incognita, a legal No
Man's Land, a chemical free-fire zone, and
it is today one of the last largely
unprotected frontiers of the environment.
In a publication of this length, we can
only begin to explore the subject. Our
purpose is to identify only the most
significant threats to the groundwater
and some of the major tools for meet-
ing them. We have tried to take a broad
look at the subject, but not an exhaus-
tive one. There was much we had to
leave out. Certainly, many groundwater
issues are far more complex than we
have been able to acknowledge in this
report.
We have taken pains to ensure that the
information in this report is accurate. Most
of it was drawn from authoritative govern-
ment reports based on the best scientific
studies available. Yet we want to caution
the reader that many of the figures are still
first-order estimates, and that much de-
tailed study remains to be done before a
truly accurate assessment of the Nation's
groundwater quality can be made. Some
useful sources of our information are listed
at the end of this issue under "For More
Information" (page 36).
Throughout this report, we will be
describing many examples of serious
groundwater contamination. They were
Ion Agency chosen to illustrate how serious ground-
_A water contamination can be. They are not
meant to imply that groundwater problems
are this serious everywhere. Fortunately,
the Nation still appears to have a vast
supply of usable groundwater, and there is
still time to protect much of it. Yet, until the
environmental laws now on the books are
fully enforced, these incidents will continue
to happen, and they can happen almost
anywhere. The cases of contamination we
will be recounting have happened. People's
lives have been affected. While we do not
want to encourage alarmism, we also do
not want to underplay the seriousness of
the problem.
To find out more about groundwater
conditions and protection programs in your
area, you can contact your local department
of health, local water supply utility, EPA
regional Office, or the appropriate State
agency (water quality, health, environ-
mental protection). Your awareness and
concern for groundwater protection, along
with that of your colleagues, neighbors,
fellow citizens, and elected officials, is the
essential first step in groundwater protec-
tion. You can help them learn more about
groundwater by distributing reprints of this
report which are available from EPA (See
inside front cover). •
The Editors
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Ground Zero
for Groundwater
An Important Environmental Issue for the 1980s
By EckardtC. Beck
Groundwater has many faces: a clear cold, pure, and delicious. Just ask anyone
glass of tapwater, a flowing stream in dry who's guzzled down a long wet drink of
weather, a watering trough for cattle on a spring water on a sweltering dog day in
windblown prairie, an arc of irrigation spray mid-August.
gliding across a field. At its best, it arrives
Out of sight, groundwater has too often
been out of mind. But try to keep the
neighbors' kids from swarming all over your
garden fence when a 50-foot drilling rig
rolls up to your door. Gears grind, pumps
rumble, pipes clang. You can almost feel it,
the whir of the machinery, the concentra-
tion of the drillers. Every kid knows there's
water down there.
Supporting farms, homes, and industries,
groundwater directly shapes our economy
and our environment. Clean, cheap, and
abundant, it makes up the forgotten other
half of the Nation's water picture. Below
ground lies a fascinating world we have yet
to fully discover, a world as remote as a
Jules Verne fantasy and as close as the
screech of children racing through the icy
spray of a lawn sprinkler.
A Groundwater Rich Nation
If you dig deep enough in the United
c States, you're likely to strike water. It's
g almost everywhere. Fully one-third of the
> Nation lies over aquifers (underground
water-bearing layers) capable of yielding at
least 100,000 gallons per day to a single
well. Less productive aquifers underlie still
more land. This abundance is the best-kept
secret of the water witch: nature has
stacked the deck in his favor. In fact, the
supply of usable fresh water stored within
the first half-mile of the surface is at least
20 times greater than the amount held in
all U.S. rivers, lakes, and streams. Most of
this water is still virtually pristine in quality.
The total amount is even higher if we count
all the water that is naturally salty,
brackish, mineralized, alkaline, bad-tasting,
or otherwise unfit to drink. Still more lies at
levels too deep to recover at today's prices.
This vast supply is not distributed equally.
Some parts of the country (especially in the
West) have very little, while others have
more than they will ever forseeably need.
Groundwater is being pumped out faster
than rain can replace it in areas such as the
Ogallala Aquifer, which stretches beneath
northwest Texas, the Oklahoma Panhandle,
Kansas, and most of Nebraska.
For the most part, however, the United
States is groundwater rich, supplied by the
world's largest solar-powered engine—the
hydrologic cycle. Each year, precipitation
puts back about ten times as much water
(300 trillion gallons) as we pump out of the
ground. Although most rainwater either
runs off into waterways or evaporates, as
much as 30 percent of it (this varies) seeps
into the upper layers of the soil. These
upper layers, called the unsaturated zone,
have both air and water in the spaces
between soil particles. Plants use some of
this water, and the rest percolates down to
the saturated zone below the water table,
where all the pore spaces are filled with
water.
Geologic formations vary widely in their
ability to store water or block its movement,
and several water-bearing layers are often
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found one beneath another. As recharge
water enters the saturated zone, it may
move sideways toward areas of lower
pressure. Some may move into deeper
aquifers where it is either stored perma-
nently or can again move laterally. Sooner
or later, a good portion of this recharge will
find its way to streams, lakes, and
wetlands. This is why rivers will flow for
weeks after the last rainfall. Groundwater
supplies at least 30 percent of the Nation's
base (dry weather) streamflows, and for
some areas estimates range as high as 80
percent As a result, groundwater contami-
nation can often have a significant impact
on surface water quality.
Groundwater generally moves very slow-
ly—on a scale of only tens or hundreds of
feet per year. This means that very little
dilution takes place, and contaminants may
remain at high concentrations. Once con-
taminated, groundwater is difficult if not
impossible to clean up. Natural cleaning
processes may take decades or even
centuries. The slow rate of movement,
however, can also leave some parts of an
aquifer safe for use while others remain
contaminated.
A Vulnerable Resource
Although hidden, groundwater affects
almost all of us. About half of all Americans
depend on it for drinking water. Its quality
and availability can determine where we
live, where we find jobs, and even where
our food is grown. Farmers, by far, use it
the most. Sixty-eight percent of the ground-
water withdrawn in the United States goes
to irrigate crops. Wells also supply indus-
trial plants, office buildings, schools, parks,
hospitals, and commercial establishments.
And we can thank natural springs for many
a cold, clear trout stream.
Nevertheless, groundwater has been
easier than surface water to forget and
neglect. Years of heedless waste disposal
and other human activities have built up
significant threats to groundwater supplies
in many areas. Today, the results of this
neglect are ever more difficult to ignore.
Consider the case of one Oklahoma
restaurant owner. (SEE INSET)
Over the years, we have used the
subsurface as a dumping ground for many
of our most dangerous wastes. We are
belatedly discovering that they do not stay
"buried."
Jackson Township, New Jersey, found
out the hard way. The municipal landfill for
this community near Trenton lies next to a
branch of the Toms River and overlies the
Cohansey Aquifer, the principal source of
drinking water for the surrounding resi-
dential community. Until recently, over 160
families within a mile and a half of the site
could safely use the water from their wells.
Today water is trucked to the community.
In 1972, the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection licensed the land-
fill to accept sewage sludge and septic
Restaurant Owner
Steams over
Oklahoma Firewater
After setting fire to a pail of water
drawn from his tap. he decided the
customers were right—there
definitely was something odd about
the coffee. Gasoline had seeped into
his well, possibly from two nearby
gas stations and a marina. Business
fell off 75 percent when State
health officials closed the well.
tank wastes. An analysis of underlying
groundwater in late 1978, however, has
confirmed allegations of chemical dumping.
Approximately 100 water wells surround-
ing the landfill have since been closed
because of organic chemical contamina-
tion, Water samples have turned up chloro-
form, methylene chloride, benzene, tolu-
ene, trichloroethylene (TCE), ethylbenzene,
and acetone. The names may not mean
much to most people, but their effects can
be devastating. Residents blame the con-
tamination for premature deaths, kidney
malfunctions and removals, recurrent
rashes, infections, and other health-related
problems.
New Jersey is now taking legal action
against the Township, and the landfill was
recently closed. Residents, however, drank
the water until 1978 and bathed in it until
January of 1980. Even with the ban, some
continue using the water because no other
dependable supply exists. A $1.2 million
water system is planned for the affected
residents, but the Township anticipates
that these families will bear much of the
cost burden for it under a long-term State
loan. No action is being taken to restore
groundwater quality. None may even be
feasible.
Jackson Township is not unique. Toxic
chemicals, human and animal wastes,
landfill leachates, natural minerals, road
deicing salts, sea water, and other pollu-
tants threaten groundwater supplies in
many communities across the country.
Love Canal, Valley of the Drums, Rocky
Mountain Arsenal, the more infamous
cases have nearly become household
names. And many more instances of
serious contamination have occurred—
septic system pollution on Long Island,
nitrate pollution in Nebraska, well closings
from a landfill in Tennessee, and contami-
nation from copper mining in Arizona. The
list can go on and on.
Managing the Problem
The growing number of tragic ground-
water contamination stories that reach the
front pages speaks for itself. The day when
we could ignore groundwater problems has
passed. It's not hard to convince people
living in communities like Jackson Town-
ship that the stuff pouring from their
kitchen taps is an issue of real concern,
particularly when it's making some of them
sick.
The 1980s will offer a new glimmer of
hope. In the next few years, new Federal
regulations and State and local laws for
protecting groundwater will be enforced for
the first time. The three main Federal laws
are the Resources Conservation and Re-
covery Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act,
and the Clean Water Act. Under them, EPA
is working with State and local govern-
ments to control, manage, and contain
major sources of groundwater contamina-
tion: land disposal of liquid, solid, and
hazardous wastes; septic systems and
cesspools; saltwater intrusion from ground-
water depletion; and nondisposal activities
such as oil production, irrigation, accidental
spills, and mining. The rest of this report
will address many of these issues.
Finding solutions to our groundwater
problems will not mean shutting down our
factories, closing our mines, or discon-
necting all the septic systems. Nor does it
have to mean signs in every home reading
"Don't Drink the Water." Sound solutions
are available if we reach for them. As Lewis
Thomas wrote in The Medusa and the
Snail, "We cannot stop where we are, stuck
with today's level of understanding, nor can
we go back." The key to moving forward lies
in better knowledge, better management,
and that rarest of commodities, the "hope
of wisdom. "•
Eckardt C. (Chris) Beck is the Assistant
Administrator for EPA '$ Office of Water and
Waste Management. As such, he is
responsible for all of EPA's programs in
water pollution control, drinking water
standards, and solid and hazardous waste
management.
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"Could I have some water?" I said to
Fred. "I have a jerry can and I'd like to fill
it at the pump."
"Hell, yes," he said. "That isn't my
water. That's God's water. That's God's
water. That right. Bill?"
"I guess so," Bill said, without looking
up. "It's good water, I can tell you that."
"That's God's water/' Fred said again.
"Take all you want."
John GrMz
The
Pine
Barrens
By John McPhee
Outside, on the pump housing, was a
bright-blue coffee tin full of priming water. I
primed the pump and, before filling the
jerry can, cupped my hands and drank. The
water of the Pine Barrens is soft and pure,
and there is so much of it that, like the
forest above it, it is an incongruity in place
and time. In the sand under the pines is a
natural reservoir of pure water that, in
volume, is the equivalent of a lake seventy-
five feet deep with a surface of a thousand
square miles. If all the impounding reser-
voirs, storage reservoirs, and distribution
reservoirs in the New York City water
system were filled to capacity—from Never -
sink and Schoharie to the Croton basin and
Central Park—the Pine Barrens aquifer
would still contain thirty times as much
water. So little of this water is used that it
can be said to be untapped. Its constant
temperature is fifty-four degrees, and, in
the language of a hydrplogical report on the
Pine Barrens prepared in 1966 for the
United States Geological Survey, "it can be
expected to be bacterially sterile, odorless,
clear; its chemical purity approaches that of
uncontarninated rain-water or molted gla-
cier ice."
fn the United States as a whole only
about thirty per cent of the rainfall gets into
the ground; the rest is lost to surface runoff
or to evaporation, transpiration from leaves,
and similar interceptors. In the Pine
Barrens, fully half of all precipitat on makes
its way into the great aquifer, for HS the
government report put it, "the loose, sandy
soil can imbibe as much as six inches of
water per hour." The Pine Barrens rank as
one of the greatest natural recharging
areas in the world. Thus, the City of New
York, say, could take all its daily water
requirements out of the pines without fear
of diminishing the basic supply.. .
All of the major river systems in the
United States are polluted, and so are most
of the minor ones, but all the small rivers
and streams in the Pine Barrens are
potable. The pinelands have their own
divide. The Pine Barrens rivers risu in the
pines. Some flow west to the Delaware;
most flow southeast directly into the sea.
There are no through-flowing streams in
the pines—no waters coming in from cities
and towns on higher ground
One indication of the size of the water
resource below the Pine Barrens is that the
streams keep flowing without great de-
clines in volume even in prolonged times of
drought. When streams in other pnrts of
New Jersey were reduced to near ar total
dryness in recent years, the rivers in the
pines were virtually unaffected. The char-
acteristic color of the water in the streams
is the color of tea—a phenomenon, often
called "cedar water," that is familiar in the
Adirondacks, as in many other places
where tannins and other organic waste
from riparian cedar trees combine with iron
from the ground water to give the rivers a
deep color. In summer, the cedar water is
ordinarily so dark that the riverbeds are
obscured, and while drifting along one has
a feeling of being afloat on a river of fast-
moving potable ink. For a few days after a
long rain, however, the water is almost
colorless. At these times, one can look
down into it from a canoe and see the white
sand bottom, ten or twelve feet below, and
it is as clear as an image in the lens of a
camera, with sunken timbers now and
again coming into view and receding
rapidly, at the speed of the river. Every
strand of subsurface grass and every
contour of the bottom sand is so sharply
defined that the deep water above it seems,
and is, irresistably pure. Sea captains once
took the cedar water of the Pine Barrens
rivers with them on voyages, because cedar
water would remain sweet and potable
longer than any other water they could find.
According to the government report,
'The Pine Barrens have no equal in the
northeastern United States not only for
magnitude of water in storage and availa-
bility of recharge, but also for the ease and
economy with which a large volume of
water could be withdrawn." Typically, a
pipe less than two inches in diameter
driven thirty feet into the ground will
produce fifty-five gallons a minute, and a
twelve inch pipe could bring up a million
gallons a day. But, with all this, the
vulnerability of the Pine Barrens aquifer is
disturbing to contemplate. The water table
is shallow in the pines, and the aquifer is
extremely sensitive to contamination. The
sand soil, which is so superior as a catcher
of rain, is not good at filtering out or
immobilizing wastes. Pollutants, if they
happen to get into the water, can travel
long distances. Industry or even extensive
residential development in the central
pinelands could spread contaminants wide-
ly through the underground reservoir.
When I had finished filling the jerry can
from Fred Brown's pump, I took another
drink, and I said to him, "You're lucky to live
over such good water."
"You're telling me," he said. "You can
put this water in a jug and put it away for a
year and it will still be the same. Water
from outside of these woods would stink."•
Selected and adapted from THE PINE BARRENS
by John McPhee. Copyright © 1967, 1968 by
John McPhee. Reprinted by permission of far tar.
Straus, and Giroux, Inc. This material originally
appeared in The New Yorker.
4
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A Vital
National
Resource
Almost anywhere in the United States
that you live, chances are that you depend
on graundwater to a greater extent than
you may realize. Consider these statistics.
Setting aside the 94% of the earth's water
that rests in oceans and seas at high levels
of salinity, groundwater accounts for about
two-thirds of the freshwater resources of
the world. If we only consider the portion
that can be used (minus icecaps and
glaciers), then groundwater accounts for
almost the total volume. Even if we only
consider the most "active" groundwater
regimes, the breakdown comes to: ground-
water, 95%; lakes, swamps, reservoirs, and
river channels, 3.5%; and soil moisture,
1.5%.
The following shows the distribution of
major aquifers across the country.
Groundwater Resources
Explanation
I \J ! Watercourse related aquifers
I I Areas of extensive aquifers that yield more
I I than 50 gallons per minute of freshwater
I' Areas of less extensive aquifers having
smaller yields
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John Gratz
Putting a Lid on
Solid and
Hazardous Wastes
By Steffen W. Plehn
In July of 1978, the future showed itself.
Heavy rains in a tiny New York State
community lifted buried, corroded drums up
to the surface, afloat on a sea of forgotten
wastes. The chemicals—82 toxic wastes,
11 of them suspected carcinogens—oozed
into backyards, soils, and groundwater. On
August 2. New York State Health Commis-
sioner Robert Whalen cited the Love Canal
as a "great and imminent peril to the
health of the general public." Five days
later, the President declared a national
emergency in the area. From that moment,
everything changed.
For local residents. Love Canal has meant
abandoned homes, miscarriages, birth de-
fects, potential cancer, and intense frustra-
tion—for New York State a $25 million
drain on the public treasury to repurchase
homes and clean up the site. Ironically,
while cleanup costs may run as high as $45
million, a $2 million investment in contain-
ment when the wastes were first du uped
could have prevented the problem.
Love Canal has become a symbol of the
latent menace in our ill-managed wastes. It
has signalled an end to our easy ac-
ceptance of hazardous waste production.
Contamination cases, particularly ground-
water contamination, have turned up in
state after state.
• In Gray, Maine, municipal water lines
were extended at a cost of $500,000 to
relieve residential wells contaminated with
trichloroethylene (TCE) and other toxic
chemicals from a waste solvent and oil
processing plant.
• Seepage from tailing ponds at a uranium
processing plant near Carson City, Nevada,
contaminated groundwater with excessive
amounts of molybdenum. Cattle suffered
health problems from high concentrations
of the metal in forage crops. Until the
problem was contained, farming operations
in the area had to be curtailed.
• In 1978, groundwater supplies in "oone
and league, Tennessee were polluted with
organic chemicals from a nearby landfill
which had been closed 6 years earlier.
Cleanup costs may run anywhere frcm $6
to $165 million, and the two towns must
now pipe water in from other locations.
• In Southington, Connecticut, hazardous
wastes from a solvent handling, storage,
and disposal operation contaminated the
area's groundwater with toxic chemicals
such as chloroform, TCE, and carbon
tetrachloride. The city has closed three of
its six wells.
• Since the 1960s, nearly 500.000 gallons
of radioactive wastes have leaked into the
soil at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in
Washington. In 1973, one leak alone spilled
115,000 gallons before it was detected. The
facility lies ten miles from the Columbia
River.
• In Hemlock, Michigan, first animals, then
people became ill, possibly from drinking
contaminated water. Although the causes
remain unproven, various tests have turned
up a vicious stew of toxic chemicals—
toluene, carbon tetrachloride, phthalates,
TCE, PCB, PBB, and others. Suspected
sources are the many industrial wells
which dot the area.
These examples typify the growing threat
to groundwater facing communities across
the United States.
How Much is There?
In legal terms, "solid waste" is any
garbage, refuse, sludge, or other discarded
material. Though seemingly misnamed,
liquid wastes, particularly those placed in
land disposal sites, can also fall under the
definition. Solid or dissolved materials in
domestic sewage and irrigation return
flows are excluded along with such mate-
rials in industrial effluents covered by
discharge permits.
As a nation, we throw away hundreds of
millions of tons of these wastes every year,
ranging from newsprint and kitchen scraps
to municipal sludge, toxic chemicals, and
the pathogenic discards of hospitals and
laboratories. Between 10 and 15 percent of
all solid wastes are considered hazardous
to human health, life, and the environment.
The pile is growing. More people, more
goods and services, more new chemicals,
more urban areas: all contribute. Latest
estimates show that 150 million tons of
municipal solid waste (from residential,
commercial, and institutional sources) are
6
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produced each year, more than enough to
fill the New Orleans Superdome twice daily
from floor to ceiling.
Industry adds even more to the total.
Another 240 million tons (dry weight) of
industrial wastes are placed in land
disposal sites each year. Industries also
pour an estimated 10 trillion gallons of
liquid wastes into pits, ponds, lagoons
annually (which amount to 45,000 gallons
for each man, woman, and child in the
country). Other non-municipal sources of
solid wastes include brines from oil
exploration and development, mine tailings,
and animal feed-lot wastes.
The sheer volume of these wastes
reflects levels of urban and industrial
growth previously unimaginable. And with
tougher regulations on air and water
pollution, increasingly more dangerous
types of wastes are finding their way to
land sites. Even so, existing controls on
their handling and disposal have been
neither adequate nor well-coordinated. It
seems as if more effort has gone into
regulating barbershops and tatoo parlors
than into establishing a safe network of
waste disposal.
Effects of Solid and Hazardous
Wastes on Groundwater
Waterborne contaminants from waste
disposal facilities pose a serious and effec-
tive threat to groundwater. Rain, high water
tables, wet wastes such as sludges, and
occasionally surface flooding can all send
water percolating through landfills where it
can pick up dangerous contaminants and
seep into the groundwater. Unlined or
improperly lined pits, ponds, and lagoons
for liquid wastes can leak toxic concoctions
directly into groundwater supplies.
Because groundwater moves sluggishly,
dilution takes place very slowly, if at all.
Pollutants may remain in high concentra-
tions in relatively small areas or move as a
concentrated slug of contamination with
the groundwater flow and toward wells or
streams. In Lathrop, California, for ex-
ample, chemical and radiological wastes
from an Occidental Chemical Company
facility have reached groundwater supply-
Wasteivater Impoundments-
How Many? How Dangerous?
A Surface Impoundment Assessment (SIA) was conducted by EPA to gather
information on the potential effects of surface wastewater impoundments on
groundwater quality. States participating in the program were to explore all
reasonable avenues of locating surface impoundments and to spend the remaining
funds assessing as many sites as possible with respect to factors such as perme-
ability and thickness of the earth material above the water table. Some preliminary
findings are outlined below.
Sites
Category Located
Industrial 10.819
Municipal 19,116
Agricultural 14,677
Mining 7,100
Oil/Gas Brine Pits 24,527
Other 1,500
Totals 77,739
Impoundments
Located
25,749
36,179
19,167
24,451
64,951
5.745
176,242
Sites
Assessed
8,193
10,675
6,597
1,448
3,304
327
30,544
The SIA also released a preliminary analysis based on data from the assessed
industrial sites.
* Almost 70% of the industrial impoundments are unlined.
e Only 5% are known to be monitored for groundwater quality.
• About 1 /3 of the impoundments contain liquid wastes with potentially hazardous
constituents.
• One-third of the sites may be within a mile of a water supply well.
• Analysis of sites for the chemical and allied products industry reveals similar
findings with the exception that over 68% of the sites may contain liquid wastes with
potentially hazardous constituents.
ing the Lathrop County Water District's
wells. Less than 1.5 miles from the
Occidental site, these wells serve nearly
3000 people. Wastes have been dumped at
the site since 1953.
Because groundwater is out of sight and
slow moving, and because incidents in-
volving groundwater do not affect a large
number of people at a time, the threat to
this resource is the kind of problem that
traditionally eludes government programs.
For years we have treated contamination
cases as isolated incidents, aberrations
from the norm requiring relief but not
general concern.
Time, however, is catching up with us.
Right now, nearly 200,000 landfills and
unauthorized "dumps" are operated in the
United States. This doesn't include the
large number of abandoned sites nation-
wide. Producing tens of billions of gallons
of leachate every year, most of these
landfills are probably contaminating
groundwater, according to EPA studies. At
latest count, 176,000 liquid waste disposal
pits, ponds, and lagoons could be found on
sites throughout the country. The number
of gallons of wastewater leaking from these
surface impoundments has been estimated
in the hundreds of billions. (See Box)
Why all the leakage? Historically, ground-
water contamination has not been well
understood by the public, and this has led to
a lax attitude toward waste disposal. Large
numbers of pits, ponds, and lagoons have
been constructed without liners or other
adequate safety measures. Landfills have
been improperly sited and operated.
Wastes have been indiscriminately ac-
cepted and dumped.
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Landfills and dumps are often located on
low-value lands such as marshes, aban-
doned sand and gravel pits, old strip mines,
and limestone sinkholes. These are often
permeable and thus vulnerable to ground-
water contamination problems. In one
eastern State, an EPA report noted, 85
percent of existing landfills were originally
designed as reclamation projects to fill
marshlands and abandoned sand and
gravel pits. No groundwater protection
measures were taken.
Hazardous wastes complicate disposal
issues even further. This year alone, 57
million metric tons of the stuff will be
discarded. Legally, these wastes are de-
fined as any solid waste that may cause or
significantly contribute to serious illness or
death, or that poses a substantial threat to
human health or the environment when
improperly managed. Under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA),
four tests will be used to assess this. If a
substance is flammable, corrosive, explo-
sive, or toxic, it's hazardous. EPA has
published a list of wastes already deter-
mined to be hazardous.
Tackling the Problem
Love Canal, Gray, Southington, Toone,
and Lathrop are the legacy of leaving
hazardous waste management to chance.
Adequately managing these wastes is vital;
they threaten people right now. EPA has
found that 90 percent of all hazardous
wastes are discarded in environmentally
unsound or dangerous ways. Sound regula-
tion and monitoring is a huge task involving
many actors. Over 750,000 businesses
generate hazardous wastes, and over
10,000 transporters move them to treat-
ment or disposal at over 30.000 sites. Up to
50,000 sites have been used at some time
for hazardous waste disposal, and a recent
survey projected that between 1200 and
2000 of these pose potentially imminent
threats to health and the environment.
Representative Albert Gore noted,
"America has been pockmarked with
thousands of cancer cesspools." Congress
passed RCRA in 1977 to prevent future
waste problems. The job will be neither
easy nor cheap; nor can it be done without
vigorous public debate. Cleaning up all the
abandoned sites nationwide is already
expected to cost between $28 and $55
billion, considerably more than prevention
programs are expected to cost. The costs of
yesterday's mistakes are too high. Action is
needed now to prevent today's wastes from
returning, relentlessly, to haunt us in a few
decades.•
Steffen P/ehn currently serves as the EPA
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Solid
Waste.
The
Conservation
and Recovery
Act
CORROSIVE
glFLAMMABLE
The Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act of 1976 (RCRA) is EPA's main tool for
managing solid and hazardous waste. This
law's primary objectives are:
• to improve solid waste disposal practices
to protect environmental health and quality
• to regulate hazardous wastes from
generation through disposal ("cradle-to-
grave")
• to establish resource conservation as the
preferred solid waste management ap-
proach.
For solid waste management, RCRA
authorizes grants and technical assistance
to State and local governments developing
solid waste management plans that meet
Federal guidelines.
A much stricter program has been
developed to control hazardous wastes
since they pose a more immediate and
dangerous threat than non-hazardous
wastes. Management options include re-
ducing the amount of hazardous waste
generated, separating out such wastes and
concentrating them, reusing them, incin-
erating or detoxifying them, and finally,
discarding them in secure landfills.
Of particular importance to groundwater
protection are the management of land
disposal sites and the strict regulation of
hazardous wastes. EPA has prepared
performance criteria that will apply to most
forms of land disposal, including dumps,
landfills, pits, ponds, lagoons, and land-
spreading of sludge. With Federal financial
and technical aid, the States will evaluate
all disposal sites against these criteria.
Those sites not meeting the criteria will be
inventoried as open dumps and are to be
closed or upgraded within a specified
period of time after the evaluation. States
failing to do this will lose their eligibility for
Federal financial aid to support their solid
waste management programs. RCRA also
gives private citizens the right to bring suit
in Federal court against sites that are not
operating properly, and the EPA Administa-
tor can intervene in cases of "imminent
hazard."
EPA recently released final regulations
for implementing RCRA, which will go into
effect in November 1980.
8
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To implement RCRA, most States will
manage their own solid and hazardous
waste programs. EPA will track each
State's solid waste management program
and will directly administer hazardous
waste programs in those States without
them. Right now, EPA expects up to 40
States to apply for "interim authorization"
to run their own hazardous waste pro-
grams. Interim authorization would give
them two years to attain "full authoriza-
tion" by upgrading their programs to
Federal standards.
Hazardous Wastes
Under RCRA, EPA is required to identify
and list all hazardous wastes and to set
standards for hazardous waste generators,
transporters, and receiving facilities. The
keystone of the program is cradle-to-grave
control through an effective manifest
system. Once hazardous wastes are gen-
erated, their whereabouts will be tracked
until they reach a final elimination or
disposal site. This pathways approach was
chosen because hazardous wastes are
mobile and can be dumped at locations far
from where they were produced.
EPA hopes the program will reduce the
amount of hazardous waste requiring
disposal, but at a minimum only sites with
permits designating them as "secure" may
receive such wastes. The permit standards
will cover the containment, testing, and
destroying of wastes so that contamination
of groundwater, surface water, or the air is
minimized. The standards also address
safety and emergency measures for acci-
dental discharges and personnel training
for handling emergencies. Owners and
operators of facilities are also required to
demonstrate financial responsibility for
their operations. EPA expects 25,000
permit applications to be filed nationwide.
Some concern has been raised over the
possibility that tighter regulations will push
hazardous waste producers to rely more
and more on midnight dumpers, and that
covert dumping will increase. A good
manifest system, however, should tip off
authorities when hazardous wastes sud-
denly vanish after they have been
produced. By documenting who is respon-
sible at each step, this system increases the
likelihood of catching illegal dumpers.
The costs of RCRA activities will not be
small. An estimated $4.1 billion will be
needed to properly manage the disposal of
solid waste to protect groundwater. The
benefits in reduced damage and admini-
strative, avoidance, and corrective costs
have been conservatively projected at $3.7
to $4.3 billion. Hazardous waste programs
are where the big savings will occur. Even
though the price affected industries must
pay for increased waste management may
amount to $600 million annually (these
industries now spend only $155 million for
such programs against $154 billion in gross
annual sales), and even though State and
Federal implementation costs are expected
to run $20 million per year, the benefits are
likely to be far greater. We need only
consider the $28 to $55 billion now needed
to treat abandoned sites alone.
More important than dollars spent or
saved, however, is that these laws and
programs will help protect life and health as
well as the ecological well-being of the
planet. Going beyond costs and benefits,
we need to remind ourselves of the
potential effects our actions have on
people. There is still no satisfactory way to
determine the value of a life, nor should
there be.
Remaining Issues
The threat to groundwater is clear. We
know what needs to be done, and RCRA
will make many of the necessary tools
available. As EPA gains experience with
implementing this law, the various
programs will require adjustments to better
protect the environment from solid and
hazardous wastes and to better serve those
persons, governments, and industries
being regulated. Several areas may become
problems.
Monitoring. Enforcing the RCRA regula-
tions requires an accurate assessment of
site-specific changes in groundwater qual-
ity to make sure that the containment
measures are working. Groundwater moni-
toring, however, is not an easy task. Unlike
surface-water monitoring, groundwater
monitoring means digging a well often
hundreds of even thousands of feet deep. In
addition, some geologic formations require
many wells in relatively small areas of land.
Because groundwater moves so slowly, it is
quite possible for samples to indicate pure
water when contamination lies only a few
feet away. More wells mean more samples
to check, more time, and more staff. And
samples must be checked for an increasing
number of contaminants, some of which
have yet to be discovered. AN of this adds
up to high costs.
In the past, groundwater monitoring has
not been a routine part of waste manage-
ment in most States. Often the cost has
seemed prohibitive, and serious contami-
nation has only come to light after
consumers complained to Health Depart- •
ments about the smell or taste of their
water.
Under the RCRA regulations, owners and
operators of all authorized sites for storing,
treating, or disposing of hazardous wastes
will be required to monitor the I each ate
from their sites and the adjacent ground-
water below. For sites which only accept
solid wastes not considered hazardous,
groundwater monitoring is not required.
The decision of whether or not to require
monitoring in these cases is left to the
individual State, municipality, or owner,
and the discovery of contamination from
tastes, odors, or mild health problems may
continue to depend upon consumer com-
plaints. In addition, routine monitoring is
not required for the thousands of operating
or abandoned sites which already contain
hazardous wastes. Thus, while future
hazardous wastes can be safely managed,
present sites may continue to threaten
groundwater. Because of the costs and
difficulty involved in monitoring ground-
water, State Health Department data on
polluted wells and related health problems
are of great value to other State agencies
with groundwater protection respon-
sibilities.
Another question is whether we can
depend on industries and other land
disposal site owners to monitor them-
selves. Contrary to popular belief, such an
approach has its advantages. Bringing
-------
industries and private owners into the
monitoring process focuses both their staff
and their expertise on the problem—major
assets, given the difficulties of extensive
monitoring just described. It also brings
them into the planning and implementation
process, and thereby promotes cooperation
and a shared sense of credibility between
the regulators and the regulated. Periodic
checks as well as surprise ones by public
agencies can provide safeguards against
failures to cooperate—and at a much
reduced overall cost to the public. Perhaps
even more important, the potentially high
costs of lawsuits related to damages from
improper waste disposal and increasingly
bad publicity may make industries and
private owners eager to cooperate in good
faith.
Who Wants A Landfill Next Door? Not
surprisingly, the opposition to siting and
operating landfills, even secure ones, has
grown in the past few years as hazardous
waste disasters began appearing on the
evening news. Never the most popular of
neighbors, landfills which were once con-
sidered a mild annoyance are now greeted
with active hostility.
In Wilsonville, Illinois, residents threat-
ened to dynamite a hazardous waste
landfill in 1977 to prevent trucks carrying
PCBs from entering. Both the State and the
U.S. EPA found the underlying sot) to be
highly impermeable with very little chance
for leakage. Citizens later shut the site
down by digging a trench across the access
road during the night. In Minnesota, a $3.7
million EPA grant to set up a model
chemical landfill site had to be returned.
Citizen opposition blocked the project even
though 44 sites were found which were
technically acceptable to the State and
EPA.
Although public fears are understand-
able, misinformed citizen action can be
counterproductive. For this reason, RCRA
emphasizes public involvement as a regular
part of policy making. There are no final
guarantees when hazardous wastes are
involved. Nevertheless, actions by citizens
against construction of secure sites may
intensify the danger to groundwater and to
themselves. The unfortunate alternative to
secure landfills may be continued stock-
piling at industrial sites, illegal storage at
covert sites, and midnight dumping. In
addition, public opposition to hazardous
waste disposal has carried over to tradi-
tional solid wastes. Finding locations for
any landfill has become difficult.
About 120 sites currently accept hazard-
ous wastes undW some type of official
permit, but another 100 are needed to
legally and adequately handle all the
wastes expected to be produced this year.
As Chris Beck, EPA's Assistant Admini-
strator for Water and Waste Management,
recently noted, "Right now, everyone
wants it picked up, but no one wants it put
down. As a consuming nation, we have no
choice but to deal with the stuff."
The first question which must be raised
is: "How much hazardous waste are we
willing to live with?" Are wrinkle-free
blouses, vinyl seat covers, and cellophane-
wrapped burgers worth the risks their
availability may create? Although the
answer may be yes, the public must be
given the choice. The benefits and risks
involved must be understood and carelully
weighed.
Once such decisions have been made,
solutions for safely dealing with hazardous
wastes must be found. There are many
answers. At the technical tevel, more
research is needed in landfill, impound-
ment, and land-spreading technologies,
and we still have far to go toward
understanding the dynamics of ground-
water. At the implementation level, poten-
tial land disposal sites must undergo
precise hydrogeologic evaluations for suita-
bility. Strictquality control must be maint-
tained during site construction, operation,
and maintenance. Effective monitoring is
also essential, and safe transport mus-: be
ensured.
Workable solutions require public sup-
port. This, in turn, means accurate, timely,
and understandable information delivered
in good faith. Given this country's recent
waste management history, however, good
faith will probably not be enough. Mora
creative steps, in fact, are already being
considered. One recommendation involves
incentives to promote public acceptance of
hazardous waste facilities. Possibilities
include job guarantees, direct cash pay-
ments to municipalities plus percentages of
the disposal fees, and arrangements to deal
with future liability. While these steps will
mean higher costs, they may also mean
lower waste production. More recycling will
also help relieve the problem. In St. Louis
and sixteen other areas, waste exchanges
have been created to make one factory's
waste another's raw material. Re-refining
lubricating oil could be another important
conservation area. Right now, the United
States reuses only 10 percent of its waste
lube oil, compared to 50 percent in the
European Economic Community.
Conservation and recycling measures
can also take some of the pressure off the
demand for traditional land disposal sites.
Denmark, for example, uses 60 percent of
its municipal waste to produce energy.
Action Needed Now
As with any program at almost any stage,
there always seems to be room for more
research and more planning. But if we wait
until every issue is resolved and every
criticism satisfied, nothing will every get
done. As one of the many variations of
Murphy's Law states: "Every solution
breeds new problems."
We don't have the time. Each day, over
1,000,000 tons of garbage and assorted
junk are dumped all across the country.
Each day 142,000 more tons of hazardous
waste oozes into the environment. Effec-
tive action is needed now. Otherwise, some
midnight dumper, truck barreling down the
highway in the dead of night, will be only
too glad to take it for us.0
10
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TCE: The Story
of One Groundwater
Pollutant
Trtchloroethylene Contamination
Is Turning Up In Hundreds of Domestic Wells
Protecting our groundwater supplies
means dealing with toxic chemicals. With
tens of thousands of chemicals in com-
mercial production, and hundreds of new
ones manufactured every year, the poten-
tial for trouble is tremendous. The follow*
ing story is about a single chemical, trich-
loroethylene (TCE). It may just be the tip
the iceberg.
Rahns, Pennsylvania is a quiet rural town
not far from Philadelphia. Mary Malischew-
ski lives there with her husband Al and
their six children. One night last year,
according to the Los Angeles Times, she
finished a shower but her back continued to
tingle—as if the hot water were still
spraying against her skin.
"Al, for goodness sake, what's wrong
with my back? Look at it and tell me what's
happening," she recalled asking her hus-
band urgently several times that evening.
"He kept telling me there was nothing
there, but I knew something was going on."
Something was going on. TCE had
contaminated the groundwater supplying
their well, so much so that State officials
warned them not to drink it, wash dishes, or
bathe in it.
A short time later. TCE turned up in
nearby Worcester Township. Families have
had to ship in water and were forced to take
showers with the bathroom window and
the shower curtain open, because of TCE
fumes escaping from the shower water.
"We're freezing our behinds off," reported
one resident last September.
Says Al Malischewski, who must now
drive a quarter mile for drinking water, "We
moved out to the country to find clean air,
clean water, to have a healthy environment
for our children."
Since that time, contamination has
turned up in at least 20 communities
throughout Montgomery and Bucks Coun-
ties in what has been called the nation's
worst case of TCE pollution. Their problem
is far from unique, however. Arizona,
California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachu-
setts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, and New York have all found TCE at
levels exceeding EPA's suggested levels. In
several areas, well closings have become
almost commonplace.
A member of the halogenated hydro-
carbon family, TCE is a heavy, colorless
liquid that smells like chloroform. An
industrial solvent, it is commonly used in
degreasing metals, cleaning septic sys-
tems, dry cleaning, and dyeing. Ingestion or
inhalation of TCE in relatively large
amounts (one and a third ounces have
produced dangerous symptoms) can cause
abnormal fatigue, gastric irritability and
problems, followed by kidney and liver
problems, psychic disturbances, convul-
sions, or even cardiac arrest. Skin contact
can cause persistent rashes. High levels of
exposure to TCE have produced cancer in
mice, although the risks from exposures in
drinking water remain unknown.
There are several methods for estimating
risks from low-level exposure to potential
carcinogens by mathematical extrapolation
from animal test results. According to the
National Academy of Science's (NAS)
approach in Drinking Water and Health
(1977), if a population of one million people
drinks two liters of water with 4.5 parts per
billion (ppb) TCE every day for 70 years,
chances are that one additional person will
get cancer. At 45 ppb, the risk would be one
person per hundred thousand population.
These limits have not yet led to a set
standard, and further work is being done.
These suggested levels however, are not
always simple to meet. To test for TCE in
amounts as small as parts per billion
requires expensive technology only recent-
ly available. Some States are not equipped
to make such tests, and those that are may
have long backlogs. Connecticut, for exam-
ple, has only five labs with the necessary
equipment.
Furthermore, routine water tests have
usually not included checks for TCE or other
organics. Routine testing now required for
the new trihalomethane regulations (1979)
can also detect similar organohalogen
compounds like TCE. As a result of these
difficulties, interest has been developing at
the State level to create a national program
that would supply States with the expertise
needed to deal with toxics.
Once TCE has been identified, finding its
source may create an even bigger enforce-
ment problem. The fact that it doesn't take
much TCE to create a problem complicates
the issue further. Two glassfuls (one pound)
can contaminate 27 million gallons of
water. Concern about such small amounts,
together with the high number of potential
sources, makes tracing TCE contamination
difficult.*
11
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Septic and Onsite
Wastcwater Systems
Onlot Disposal Is High on the List of
Potential Threats to Public Health
Through Groundwatei Contamination
SCUM BUILDUP
EFFLUENT TO
TILE FIELD
WASTEWATER
SLUDGE
THE SEPTIC TANK
Failing septic tanks and cesspools are a
frequently reported source of ground water
contamination. Since onlot and onsite
systems discharge over 2 trillion gallons of
wastewater annually to the subsurface,
they are a tremendous potential source of
groundwater pollution. One EPA report has
ranked onlot disposal high on a list of
thirteen ground water pollution problems in
terms of threat to public health and
potential for public exposure.
Onsite wastewater disposal systems are
the most common alternatives to the
conventional central treatment plant and
sewage collection system. The three meth-
ods of onlot disposal in widest use today
are the septic tank, the cesspool—no longer
approved for new installation in most
areas—and the pit privy. Of these, the
septic tank and soil absorption system are
the most common and the most effective.
Other alternatives include aerobic treat-
ment tanks, evapotranspiration systems,
and off-lot systems, whereby wastewater
from a cluster of households or commercial
users is conveyed to a common disposal
and treatment site, such as a soil absorp-
tion field. The increasing national need and
desire to conserve water, energy, and
materials has stimulated the development
of a number of new alternatives, such as
composting, low-flush, incinerating, or
recycling toilet systems and dual treatment
systems which separate "blackwater"
(human body wastes) from "graywater"
(other domestic wastewater).
Centralized treatment plants may be
undesirable where sparse population or
geography make sewers economically un-
feasible. In these cases, small alternative
systems can be an effective and inex-
pensive means of treating and disposing of
wastewater. However, the choice of treat-
ment method has social, economic, and
environmental impacts. Community plan-
ners should consider soil characteristics,
the hydrogeologic flow system, climate,
topography, cost, and impacts on the total
water resource in order to determine
whether onlot disposal is feasible and if so,
what quantity and density are allowable.
Since septics ultimately discharge waste-
water into the subsurface, State and local
governments must make careful, educated
12
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decisions if they are to avoid undesirable
impacts on groundwater quality.
The social and economic ramifications of
either centralized or onsite treatment are
far reaching. Both can encourage growth
and determine the distribution of that
growth. Centralized treatment plants
promote high density growth in the imme-
diate area served by sewers. Sewers can be
a remedial measure in developing areas
where high-density septics significantly
threaten sensitive aquifers, but sewers
alone may not provide all the protection
needed—and in fact may further encourage
and focus more "dirty" development. Small
alternative systems promote more
scattered, low-density sprawl. The direct
short-term and long-term cost for the
homeowner may be less for onlot disposal,
but sprawl increases the costs of other
public services. Community planning must
be coordinated with wastewater manage-
ment planning, so that the treatment
method chosen suits the long-range goals
of the community.
Percolation systems, such as septic
systems, have two basic components: the
settling tank and the soil absorption field.
Wastewater flows from the house to the
settling tank and then to the soil absorption
field. Percolation systems rely on three
natural processes:
• Filtration—removal of suspended solids'
as wastewater passes through the settling
tank and the absorption field.
• Biological Degradation—bacterial de-
composition occurring in settling tank and
soil absorption field.
• Adsorption—undissolved solids cling to
soil particles and become available to
plants.
Malfunctioning systems can cause
wastewater to back up into the home, to
rise to the surface in the form of surface
breakout, or to short circuit and move
directly into groundwater without adequate
purification. Even a properly functioning
system will add dissolved solids to the
groundwater. When a system fails, bac-
teria, viruses, degradable organic com-
pounds, synthetic detergents, and chlorides
may contaminate groundwater. Of these,
the greatest hazards are bacteria and
nitrates. Nitrates accumulate over time and
can result in relatively high concentrations
in the groundwater.
Systems can fail for a number of reasons.
The initial siting, design, or construction
could have been faulty. Another possibility
Is that the necessary maintenance, for
example periodic pumping of septagefrom
the settling tanks, could have been neg-
lected. The siting involves careful analysis
to determine the permeability of the soil,
the vertical distance between the absorp-
tion field and the water table, and hydro-
geology, the soil drainage class, and slope
conditions. The absorption field must be
below the frost line, within a biologically
active zone and above the seasonal high
water table. A suitable infiltration rate will
not occur when permeability is either too
low or too high, when the infiltration
surface becomes clogged or compacted, or
when soils have lost their cleansing
capacity over time.
The best solution to groundwater con-
tamination is prevention. However, where
systems have failed near urban areas, the
usual solution is to abandon the onlot
system and extend sewers to an existing,
expanded, or new treatment plant. This is
an expensive mitigation measure which
does not necessarily improve the quality of
the groundwater, and may actually worsen
the problem by reducing aquifer recharge.
Prevention requires comprehensive waste-
water management planning and proper
siting, design, construction, and main-
tenance of all small alternative systems.
State and local governments have estab-
lished regulatory control programs which
may require permits for onsite systems.
They usually require a preliminary site
inspection and system design evaluation
and permitting, compliance evaluation, and
monitoring. Some also require renewable
operating permits. They may also provide
public education, technical assistance and
professional training, and licensing of
septic tank installers and septage haulers.
Unfortunately, because of a lack of re-
sources, technical expertise, and coordina-
tion with land-use planning, these pro-
grams have not always been stringent or
comprehensive enough to effectively
protect the groundwater. Maintenance of
the systems is usually not required, and
regulations and enforcement have fre-
quently been inadequate.
Many States, through their WQM plans,
are working to improve this situation. They
are identifying problem areas, evaluating
control programs and recommending im-
provements, and developing institutional
arrangements to improve their manage-
ment capability so that the goal of com-
prehensive groundwater protection may be
achieved. Several offices in EPA are
currently developing a small alternative
wastewater systems strategy to better
direct Federal funds to assisting States in
effective program management.
If small and alternative systems are to be
an effective alternative to the conventional
treatment plant, they must be installed only
after careful consideration of the impacts
and after appropriate precautionary
measures have been taken to ensure
protection of the groundwater. Innovative
alternatives and more comprehensive
management should be encouraged and
inlcuded in water quality planning options.
Homeowners can affect this process by
participating in the community's decision
concerning the most suitable wastewater
treatment system, and if small systems are
chosen, by assuming some responsibility
for their proper installation and mainte-
nance. •
13
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Other
Groundwater
Pollution
Sources
Underground Injection Wells Accidental Spills and Leaks
Groundwater pollution from the
improper disposal of solid and
hazardous wastes can have
spectacular and tragic conse-
quences, as in the case of the Love
Canal disaster. These types of
stories grab the front-page headlines
and are etched into our conscious-
ness. But even as we read these
stories, other less well-publicized
threats to the groundwater are
occurring each day. We have not
ordinarily associated irrigation with
groundwater pollution, but in fact it
can contribute to increased salinity
of the groundwater. Improperly
constructed or abandoned wells can
provide a direct conduit for pol-
lutants to enter the groundwater
system. Although not as dramatic,
these and other sources of pollution
need to be considered, and are dis-
cussed on the pages that follow.
Use of underground injection wells to
dispose of industrial, municipal, nuclear,
and hazardous wastes, as well as tho brine
resulting from oil and gas production, has
become an increasingly common tech-
nique. An injection well can be defined as a
more or less vertical shaft used to introduce
waste fluids into the subsurface (The legal
definition is more complex). In general,
deep injection wells can be relatively safe
when properly designed and operated,
especially compared to the shallow wells
used to inject wastes directly into fresh-
water aquifers. However, there is reason
for concern due to the extremely hazardous
nature of some of the wastes injected,
particularly those from chemical, petro-
chemical, and pharmaceutical industries.
Contamination of groundwater related to
injection wells can occur through leakage
of pollutants from the wellhead, through
the casing, or through fractures in the rock
layers confining the receiving aquifer. (See
Safe Drinking Water Act article, p. 20, for
further discussion of Underground Injection
Control Program.)
Accidental spills of liquid wastes, toxic
fluids, gasoline, and oil can occur at many
locations: industrial sites, city streets,
highway and railroad rights-of-way, and
airports. The danger of spills is that the
contaminant—in most cases, hydro-
carbons—can percolate down to the water
table and then move with the groundwater.
A serious case of groundwater contami-
nation from a spill occurred in the
Northeast in 1957, when 30,000 gallons of
jet fuel were spilled on the ground at an Air
Force base, The aquifer was so badly
contaminated that the original wells
supplying the base could not be used again
until 15 years after the incident.
Leaks from underground storage tanks
and pipelines can also contribute to hydro-
carbon contamination of groundwater.
Hydrocarbons have leaked from gas station
and home fuel-oil storage tanks, industrial
plants, and petroleum pipelines. One of the
most serious consequences of pipeline and
tank leakage is that petroleum products
render potable water objectionable because
of taste and odor.
14
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Abandoned and Leaky Wells Agricultural Activities
There are so many abandoned wells in
the United States that they will never be
fully accounted for. There are probably at
least several million if domestic wells are
included. Unfortunately, there are a num-
ber of ways in which abandoned or
improperly constructed wells can con-
tribute to groundwater pollution. Wells that
served houses being demolished are often
simply run over by bulldozers, breaking the
surface casings and seals. The old wells
then become a direct route for pollutants on
the surface to enter the underlying aquifer.
Abandoned oil and gas wells can continue
to discharge brine, contaminating shallow
freshwater aquifers. This can occur where
the oil or gas reserve has been depleted and
salt water has migrated to the well. In
addition, abandoned wells are often a
convenient site for illegal disposal of
wastes, particularly hazardous wastes.
Proper methods of siting, constructing,
operating, and plugging wells can prevent
these problems from getting worse or
occurring in the first place.
The problem is important enough that in
some Southeastern States, improperly con-
structed and abandoned wells are con-
sidered by health officials to be the most
significant source of groundwater contami-
nation. In the Northeast, corroded well
casings have aggravated the saltwater
intrusion problem.
Agriculture and groundwater are vitally
connected. Not only Is agriculture the
single largest user of groundwater in the
United States, but it is also a major source
of groundwater pollution in many areas.
Overapplication of fertilizers, pesticides,
and irrigation water, and improper manage-
ment of animal wastes are all potential
problems.
About two-thirds of the water used (with-
drawn) in the United States goes for
irrigation, and 61 percent of all water used
by livestock is groundwater. Irrigated agri-
culture is especially of concern in the West,
where soil and water salinity problems
have reduced crop yields on one-quarter of
the irrigated land.
Agriculture affects groundwater quality
in a number of ways. Irrigation can raise
the concentrations of salts and minerals in
groundwater by leaching them out of the
soil. Overapplication or improper manage-
ment of fertilizers can raise nitrate levels in
groundwater to the point where it is unsafe
for drinking. Animal feedlot operations are
also a potential problem when leachate
from large amounts of animal wastes
infiltrates into usable aquifers. Misuse of
pesticides and changes in natural vegeta-
tion may also have an impact on ground-
water quality.
Mining Wastes
Both surface and underground mining
operations can contaminate groundwater.
One of the main routes of contamination is
the slurry ponds and lagoons used to
dispose of liquid wastes and the tailing
piles used to dispose of solid wastes. The
ponds often contain fluids with high
concentration of nitrates, chlorides, heavy
metals, and radioactive substances. Be-
cause they are usually unlined, fluids can
seep into the groundwater system. Tailing
piles contribute to contamination when
rainfall or runoff percolates down through
the uncovered pile, dissolving various
contaminants in the waste.
The formation and discharge of large
volumes of acid water are the most
prevalent contamination problems associ-
ated with coal mining. Dewatering of mines
(to allow work below the water table)
causes water levels to fall and may result in
oxidation of exposed sulfide-bearing
minerals. Oxidation may also occur when
these materials in waste piles are exposed
to the air. Sulfide minerals oxidize to a form
that combines easily with water to form
sulfuric acid.
Once a mine is abandoned and dewater-
ing discontinued, the mine refills with
water, and portions of the depleted aquifer
may be replenished with water contami-
nated by oxidized minerals. For this reason,
abandoned mines are a greater source of
groundwater contamination than are
operating mines.
15
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Saltwater Encroachment
Saltwater encroachment into freshwater
aquifers is a problem of national sig-
nificance. When too much water is taken
from a freshwater aquifer, saline water can
be drawn into it, either from the sea or from
saline aquifers. Once normal flows have
been reversed, the entire aquifer may be
polluted. Saline water contains a variety of
dissolved minerals and salts that can make
it unsuitable for drinking and irrigation
purposes.
Problems of saltwater intrusion in
coastal areas of the Northeast have been
severe enough to prompt several States to
establish strict controls over groundwater
diversions. Contamination of wells with
seawater is also a major problem on the
Gulf Coast and in California.
Equally critical problems can occur
inland. More than two-thirds of the United
States lies over aquifers containing at least
1,000 parts per million of dissolved solids-
just about the upper limit for desirable
drinking water. Many of these saline
aquifers are hydraulically connected to
freshwater aquifers. In some cases the
connection results from human activities
such as mining or improper well drilling.
This type of saline intrusion has occurred in
New Mexico and the Red River Valley of
North Dakota.
Artificial Recharge
Artificial recharge is the replenishing of
an aquifer by one of several means crher
than direct precipitation and natural drain-
age. All result from more or less deliberate
human actions. Injection wells, seepage
ponds, irrigation, and land spreading are all
forms of artificial recharge. Each of these
practices can be beneficial under the right
conditions. Each can pollute groundwater
under the wrong conditions. Urban storm-
water runoff, municipal and industrial
wastewater, and irrigation tailwater are
among the kinds of water used for
recharge. Proper management can remove
some of the most hazardous pollutants
from recharge water—or keep them from
getting into it in the first place.
The pollutants in recharge water are not
all filtered out by the earth. Urban
stormwater runoff may contain deicing
salts, automobile petrochemicals, spilled
industrial chemicals, heavy metals, and
bacteria. Effluent from municipal and
industrial wastewater systems (depending
on the level of treatment or pretreatnvsnt)
may contain nitrates, and other salts, as
well as a wide range of toxic chemicals.
Irrigation tailwater may contain nitrates,
salts, and pesticides.
Highway Deicing Salts
In northern parts of the country, the use
of large amounts of salts to melt snow and
ice on roads has created significant ground
and surface water pollution. The United
States uses about 4.5 million tons of
sodium or calcium chloride for deicing
every year. Salt-laden runoff can percolate
into soils alongside highways and even-
tually reach the water table. Efficient use of
salt, in combination with other road safety
measures like snowplowing and sanding,
can help reduce this form of pollution.
Proper management of urban and highway
stormwater runoff can also reduce the
damage.
Contamination may also result when rain
falls on uncovered storage piles at highway
maintenance yards. The rainfall can dis-
solve the salts, which then seep into
shallow aquifers. This route of contamina-
tion is especially serious because of the
very high concentrations of salt entering
the groundwater in a single "slug." Proper
management of salt supply, storage
methods, and site runoff can help minimize
the problem.
16
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1 Evaporation
2 Transpiration
3 Septic System
4 Landfill
5 Holding Ponds
6 Pesticides and Fertilizers
7 Abandoned Well
8 Municipal Waste
9 Aquifer
10 Aquifer
11 Aquifer
12 Industrial Discharge
13 Saltwater Encroachment
14 Injection Well
15 Contamination
The
Hidden
Hydrologic
Hook-up
Because the connections are often
hidden, it is difficult to see how surface
pollution sources can impact underground
aquifers. The following diagram illustrates
only a few types of hydrologic connec-
tions between the surface and the sub-
surface.
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Is it Safe to Drink
the Groundwater?
Good well water seems to taste special:
clear, cold, sweet, and as refreshing as a
week in the country. City dwellers often auy
bottled spring or well water because they
think It is cleaner, more healthful, and more
natural than the water coming out of their
taps.
What they may not realize is that almost
half of all Americans today are drinking
tapwater that comes from a well or
spring. In many parts of the country,
groundwater is the highest quality, cheap-
est, and most readily available source of
drinking water. In others, it is the only
source.
Groundwater:
A Major Drinking Supply
Groundwater is an important source of
drinking supply in the United States
because it is more plentiful than surface
water. It is often more reliable as a source
because it is less vulnerable to drought end
because its quantity and temperature vary
less from season to season. More im-
portantly, the chemical and bacteriological
quality of groundwater is generally more
consistent and often better than that of
surface water in a given place. Most well
water can still be drunk with little or no
purification.
Still, groundwater is quite vulnerable to
pollution, and groundwater pollution hits
many Americans where they live: their
drinking supply. At the time of the 1970
Census, 48 percent of the U.S. population
depended on groundwater lor some or all of
their drinking supply—29 percent through
public supplies, and 19 percent through
private wells. Some part of every State's
population depends on groundwater,
ranging from 30 percent of the people in
Maryland and Pennsylvania to 92 percent
in New Mexico. This dependence is heavier
in rural areas, where it is almost always
simpler and cheaper to drill a small well
than to pipe and treat water from the
nearest lake or stream. Forty-one million
people relied on their own nonpublic
supplies of water, and almost 96 percent of
their water came from underground.
Most other Americans get drinking water
from public supply systems. In 1970,
groundwater supplied roughly 34 percent
of all water pumped by public water works.
In addition, there are many kinds of small,
nonpublic drinking water systems—for
factories, schools, restaurants, motels,
highway rest stops, camping and recreation
areas, trailer parks, and shopping centers—
and nearly all are supplied by wells. The
U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there
are around 200,000 of these systems.
In all, the Nation used approximately 9.4
billion gallons of groundwater every day in
1970 for domestic purposes including
drinking.
Is All Groundwater Safe?
Given this critical reliance on ground-
water, it is important to ask the question:
How safe is the groundwater we drink?
Clearly, not all of it is safe.
• Drinking supplies in at least one-third of
the communities in Massachusetts have
been affected by chemical contamination to
some degree, according to a State report.
By September 1979, wells had been closed
in 22 communities, with losses averaging
40 percent of supply and ranging as high as
100 percent.
• During 1962-63, there were 150 cases
of hepatitis in one small rural community in
Lincoln County, Montana, where almost
every home had its own well and septic
system. The community is on a flood plain,
and when the water table rises every
spring, domestic sewage contaminates the
wells.
• Near Denver, almost 30 square miles of a
shallow aquifer were contaminated by
aldrin, dieldrin, and other toxic substances.
During the 1950s, these substances had
seeped from an unlined holding pond at the
Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where pesticides
and chemical warfare agents were being
manufactured. Some 64 wells used for
household supply, livestock, and irrigation
had to be shut down.
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• Poorly stored industrial wastes in north-
eastern Ohio polluted the Tuscarawas and
Muskingum Rivers with calcium chloride.
Not only were the rivers degraded, but so
were some nearby aquifers in the same
drainage basin. Municipal wells at Barber-
ton, Massillon, and Coshocton had to be
abandoned because of high chloride levels
in the water.
• In Northwestern Illinois, a lead and zinc
mine discharged processing wastes into an
abandoned mine during the late 1960s.
Moving underground, the wastes contami-
nated a number of farm wells with heavy
metals and cyanide.
To simplify the question of groundwater
safety, it is worth considering three broad
classes of pollutants that can pose health
hazards: bacteria, viruses, and parasites;
toxic organic chemicals; and minerals,
salts, and metals.
Bacteria, Viruses, and Parasites
From a global perspective, infectious and
parasitical diseases are the most imme-
diate threat to human health from drinking
water. Worldwide, waterborne diseases are
estimated to kill more than 25,000 people
every day. Among the more common
diseases that can be transmitted by micro-
organisms in water are cholera, typhoid,
amoebic dysentery, hepatitis, giardiasis,
schistosomiasis, andfilariasis. Compared
to the world situation, the quality of
drinking water in the United States is
excellent, and the health hazards are very
low. The Center for Disease Control
estimates that only about 4,000 cases of
infectious or parasitical waterborne disease
are reported every year, only a tiny fraction
of which are likely to be fatal. Around the
turn of the century, diseases such as
cholera and typhoid were still a significant
problem in parts of the United States.
Modern sewage treatment and drinking
water purification have now virtually wiped
them out.
Bacteria, viruses, and other micro-
organisms can enter the groundwater from
septic systems, landfills, feedlots, manure-
covered fields, and other sources. Under
proper conditions, the upper layers of earth
can filter out many bacteria. If, however,
the well is shallow or poorly sited and built
if the water table is close to the surface, or
if the flow of contaminated water is greater
than that which the soil can assimilate, the
well-user may not be protected from
bacteria. Viruses are far less likely to be
filtered out by the soil, and viral diseases
have been transmitted through ground-
water. Scientists do not yet know enough
about how viruses survive and travel in
groundwater to assess the risk they
present.
Toxic Organic Chemicals
There are a large number of man made
chemicals that can do serious harm to
human health. In recent years, increasing
numbers and amounts of them have been
showing up in groundwater. Some of the
more dangerous chemicals, including the
insecticide DDT, have already been banned
by Federal law. Others, such as the fire-
retardant PCB family, are not as easily
purged from the environment. Tens of
millions of pounds of PCBs have been
manufactured in the United States since
the 1940s, and products containing them
can be expected to show up in waste
disposal sites for years to come.
Toxic chemicals can be harmful when
ingested either in large doses over a short
time or in small doses over a long time.
Incidents of acute chemical contamination
are easy to detect. Well water may look,
taste, or smell unusual, and physical
symptoms may appear quickly in many of
the people drinking it. Once the problem is
discovered, a well can be shut down and
further immediate danger to human health
avoided or limited.
The effects of chronic, long-term ex-
posure to low amounts of toxics are harder
to detect, and thus harder to protect
against. They are no less real. A victim's
drinking water may look and taste normal.
The victim's symptoms (for example, head-
ache, rash, fatigue) may be hard to
diagnose. A high rate of cancer, birth
defects, growth abnormalities, infertility,
and nerve damage in a population of water
users may not be noticed for decades.
These health problems are not included in
the Center for Disease Control estimates of
waterborne disease.
Conventional water purification methods
do not reliably remove trace amounts of
toxic organic chemicals from drinking
water. As yet, EPA has issued national
standards for only some of the many trace
toxic substances known to contaminate
finished drinking water. EPA has proposed
regulations requiring granular activated
carbon or equivalent treatment in systems
subject to a broad spectrum of organic
chemical contamination. The proposal is
still under debate.
Users of single-family wells, unregulated
under the Safe Drinking Water Act, are not
protected from such pollution in most
States. Local and State health authorities
may not get involved until after pollution
has occurred. Individual well-owners can,
of course, go to the expense of installing
their own purification equipment. Most do
not, nor do they need to. Their margin of
safety is the earth itself, which can trap and
hold many toxic pollutants, for example
most agricultural pesticides.
Minerals, Salts, and Metals
Because it travets through underground
mineral formations, groundwater is typi-
cally higher in minerals than is surface
water. Its mineral content can be both an
advantage and a disadvantage. The human
body needs certain amounts of specific
minerals to stay healthy (for example,
calcium, magnesium, chromium, manga-
nese, vanadium, and zinc). Some dissolved
minerals actually make water taste better.
But the reverse may be true as wetl.
Dissolved metals such as lead, cadmium,
mercury, and copper are considered harm-
ful to health in sufficient amounts. Other
minerals, such as sulfur, may make water
taste or smell unpleasant.
To complicate matters further, the same
minerals which are considered healthful in
small amounts (for example, chromium or
fluoride) may be harmful in larger amounts.
Every housekeeper knows what "hard"
water is. Among other things, it can mean
bathtub rings, low suds in the washing
machine, and pipes clogged with scale.
Calcium and magnesium, the two minerals
which most often cause hardness, are less
familiar to most people. Surprisingly, some
preliminary research now suggests that
communities with hard water show a lower
overall death rate from heart and circu-
latory diseases.
High concentrations of nitrates in drink-
ing water can cause methemoglobinemia in
infants, a sometimes fatal disease resulting
in the "blue baby" syndrome. High levels of
nitrates can also be toxic to certain kinds of
livestock. Typical sources of nitrate con-
tamination in groundwater include poorly
functioning septic systems, overapplied
agricultural fertilizers, and livestock
wastes.
The relationship between human health
and the minerals, metals, and salts in
drinking water is a complex one, and
researchers are still seeking a better
understanding of it. Based on what is
known today by State and Federal public
health authorities, EPA has placed limits on
a number of these substances in drinking
water: arsenic, barium, cadmium,
chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, silver,
fluoride, and nitrate.
19
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SDWA
Protects
Groundwater
Users
A Law Which Protects
Our Drinking Water and its
Groundwater Sources
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of
1974 is the primary law protecting th«
water most Americans drink—whethur it is
ground or surface water. The Act regulates
both public and private utilities supplying
anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds of
thousands of people.
Drinking water is piped to most Ameri-
cans from a treatment plant which chami-
cally cleans and disinfects it to some «xtent.
The Safe Drinking Water Act regulates
water quality primarily at the tap—at the
point of consumption—and only to a losser
extent at the point of pollution.
Under the Act, Congress directed EPA to
establish limits on the amounts of certain
substances allowed in drinking water
These limits are known as standards, or
maximum contaminant levels. Primary
standards are those aimed at protecting
human health. EPA may also recommend
secondary standards for substances mat do
not threaten public health but may ca jse
problems with the odor, appearance, or
usability of water.
Primary drinking water standards must
be met by every "community" water supply
system in the country, any that serves over
15 connections or 25 people, whether
publicly or privately owned. Even "non-
community" supply systems, such as those
for trailer parks, campsites, and roadside
motels, are covered by the primary stand-
ards. That still means that the nearly 41
million Americans drinking from small or
single-family private wells are not
protected by the standards.
The 1974 Act left the States with the
main responsibility for enforcing the drink-
ing water standards. To qualify for this
responsiblity, each State must adopt stand-
ards at least as strict as the national ones.
A State must also be able to monitor a nd
enforce compliance with the standarcs by
individual supply systems. If the State
cannot or does not carry out these respon-
sibilties, EPA will step in and conduct the
program itself.
A key provision of the Act requires your
local water supplier to periodically sample
and test the water pumped to your tap. If it
violates national standards, the supplier is
required to take corrective action and to
notify the responsible State agency, as well
as you, the consumer.
EPA issued the first set of national
standards only after extensive consultation
with health officials, technical experts.
State and local agencies, and representa-
tives of the general public. The standards
were published as the National Interim
Primary Drinking Water Regulations, which
went into effect in June 1977. These
regulations establish maximum contami-
nant levels for ten inorganic chemicals, six
pesticides, trihalomethanes, bacteria,
radioactivity, and turbidity (cloudiness}.
They are called interim standards because
Congress wanted EPA to quickly establish
national drinking water standards with the
knowledge that more research would be
needed to establish "safe" levels (if any) of
many other substances that find their way
into drinking water in small amounts.
Progress to date in implementing the
standards has been encouraging. Eighty-
one percent of the 61,000 community
systems are now meeting the chemical and
biological standards, compared to 64% of
the 19,200 systems in the 1969 survey.
This represents both a percentage increase
and a significant leap in the number of safe
systems and protected populations. Ten
years ago, less than 15% of the community
systems performed a regular analysis for
biological contamination. Now, however,
65% are monitoring on schedule. There has
also been a ten-fold increase in the
monitoring of non-community systems,
from 7 to 70%.
The SDWA does not concentrate solely
on water quality at the point of con-
sumption. It also established two programs
aimed specifically at protecting ground-
water: the Underground Injection Control
Program and the Sole Source Aquifer
Protection Program.
20
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Underground Injection
Control Program
Injection wells reverse the normal func-
tion of a well, pumping fluids downward
into underground formations porous
enough to absorb them. Such wells are
used to dispose of industrial, municipal,
nuclear, and hazardous liquid wastes. EPA
has estimated that more than 500.000
injection wells may be operating nation-
wide, although estimates vary widely
according to how injection wells are
defined. Some injection wells, such as
those recharging aquifers with reasonably
clean urban stormwater runoff, agricultural
runoff, and treated wastewater effluent,
may have environmental benefits. Many,
however, are intended to dispose of wastes
that would be considered a nuisance
anywhere else. Although disposal wells
can be safe when properly sited, designed,
constructed, operated, and monitored, they
can also seriously contaminate useful
groundwater unless properly managed.
Under the SOWA, Congress recognized
the primary responsibility of the States to
regulate injection wells for the protection of
actual or potential underground drinking
water sources. The Act requires EPA to list
those States that need Underground In-
jection Control (UIC) programs and to set
minimum national requirements for effec-
tive State programs. EPA can grant funds to
individual States for the development of
such programs and must approve the
adequacy of the programs proposed by the
States. Some States are already carrying
out effective injection control programs,
and the law stipulates that EPA require-
ments should not unnecessarily disrupt
State programs already being effectively
enforced. Where a State fails to carry out a
UIC program, however, EPA must carry out
such a program itself.
EPA's requirements for State UIC prog-
rams were issued this year. The regulations
would set different requirements for five
different types of wells: deep waste
disposal wells (or those below usable
aquifers), wells related to oil and gas
production, wells for special processes
such as solution mining and geothermal
energy, shallow wells (or those injecting
into usable aquifers) for hazardous waste
disposal, and all others.
The regulatory requirements for hazard-
ous waste disposal wells injecting into a
drinking water source are reserved at this
time until the Hazardous Waste Manage-
ment Regulations are promulgated in final
form. Other high-risk types of wells will
have to be authorized by permits before
they may be operated. Lower-risk wells
may be operated without individual permits
under general rules.Congress specifically
instructed EPA to develop regulations that
would not interfere with oil and gas
production unless necessary to protect
underground sources of drinking water
o
Where needed, UIC permits will impose
both technological and administrative re-
quirements on disposal well operators.
These requirements will cover construc-
tion, operation, monitoring, reporting,
special corrective actions, well abandon-
ment, government access to operator
records and facilities, and provisions for
permit review, modification, and termina-
tion.
Sole Source Aquifer Program
Another important provision of the Act is
known as the Gonzalez Amendment, or
Sole Source Aquifer provision. In essence,
it can prevent the use of Federal assistance
for purposes which could endanger irre-
placeable drinking water supplies. It applies
where EPA determines that an area has an
aquifer which is its sole or principal
drinking water source. EPA can make this
determination either on its own initiative or
upon receiving a petition from the commu-
nity. If EPA finds that contamination of such
an aquifer will cause a significant health
hazard, it may delay or stop commitment of
Federal assistance for any projects or
activities that could cause such contami-
nation.
Seven aquifers have been designated as
"sole source" to date. These are the
Edwards Aquifer in Texas; the groundwater
system of Guam in the Pacific; the aquifer
beneath Fresno, California; the Magothy
Aquifer underlying Long Island (Nassau and
Suffolk Counties), New York; the Spokane-
Rat hdrum Aquifer in Washington and
Idaho; the Biscayne Aquifer in south-
eastern Florida; and the Buried Valley
Aquifer system of western Essex and
Southeastern Morris Counties, New
Jersey. •
21
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Pioneer Protection
Programs
Several States Are
Already Moving Ahead
New York. New Jersey. Connecticut.
Michigan. Arizona. New Mexico. Kansas.
These and other States are already moving
on their own authority to set up ground-
water protection programs. Even small
towns such as East Lyme. Waterford,
Stonington, and Montville in Connecticut
are using zoning and other local govern-
ment powers to protect prime aquifers.
Federal grants to help States and local
governments develop such programs have
been made available under the Water
Quality Management Program. Oddly
enough, these pioneer efforts are
encouraged under a law that has tradi-
tionally been considered to deal only with
surface water.
The Clean Water Act applies to "the
waters of the United States." While the law
in its present form certainly emphasizes
control of surface water pollution, many of
its provisions can be applied to ground-
water as well. In fact. Section 102 (a)
requires the EPA Administrator to develop,
in cooperation with the affected parties,
"comprehensive programs for preventing,
reducing, or eliminating the pollution of the
navigable waters and ground waters and
improving the sanitary condition of surface
and underground waters."
The main mandate for groundwater
protection in the Clean Water Act comes
under Section 208, which outlines the
primary elements of the Water Quality
Management (WQM) Program. This section
mandates the development of State and
areawide WQM plans that include: "a
process to control the disposal of pollutants
on land or in subsurface excavations within
such area to protect ground and surface
water quality."
Section 106 of the Act adds further
incentives for State groundwater protection
programs. This section authorizes Federal
grants to State governments to assist them
in administration of a wide range of
pollution control programs, including
groundwater protection. Section 106 (eX1)
requires States to carry out groundwater
quality monitoring and evaluation
programs, to the extent practical, in order to
be eligible for such grants.
While there are many Federal, State, and
local legal authorities that address many
pans of the groundwater protection
problem, WQM provides the most compre-
hensive mandate for groundwater
protection precisely because it coordinates
the various efforts of all these levels of
government.
The types of pollution that contaminate
groundwater originate from diffuse or
nonpoint sources as well as point sources
(for example, that which comes from the
end of a single pipe}. Because it is intended
to address both point and nonpoint sources,
the Water Quality Management Program is
in a unique position to develop systematic
approaches to groundwater protection.
The national WQM strategy with respect
to groundwater protection emphasizes
Federal grant support under Section 208
for approximately 20 prototype projects
leading to the development of compre-
hensive State (and areawide) management
strategies and programs. At the State level,
such programs might coordinate State
management of solid and hazardous waste
disposal under RCRA, underground in-
jection and sole source aquifer programs
under SDWA, and nonpoint sources and
land application of wastewater under the
Clean Water Act. For the 20 prototype
projects (10 in FY1980 and 10 in FY 1981),
EPA will provide expert technical assis-
tance (legal, institutional, and fiscal) and
will help communicate project results to
other jurisdictions facing similar problems.
The eventual goal is to transfer successful
groundwater techniques and technologies
and to fill in gaps in existing 208 plans.
In addition to the 20 prototype projects.
Section 208 grant funds will also be
awarded to other State and areawide
agencies where there are known ground-
water problems. Some eligible activities are
the development of State monitoring
strategies, development of aquifer classi-
fication approaches, development of
groundwater quality standards and dis-
charge permit programs to implement
them, and development of model
ordinances, watershed districting, or other
approaches to protecting the recharge
areas of critical aquifers.
What follows is a description of progress
to date in three of the WQM ground-
water prototype projects.*
22
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Managing
Groundwater in
New Jersey
New Jersey is embarking on an ambi-
tious program to protect groundwater
resources, which supply a full 50% of the
State's water needs, Groundwater protec-
tion has become increasingly important to
State and local decisionmakers.
More than 300 landfills and over 400
lagoons dot the New Jersey landscape. The
landfills include many previously unregu-
lated dumps. Because of New Jersey's high
precipitation, they produce large volumes of
leachate. According to Marwan Sadat,
Assistant Director for Water Quality Man-
agement in New Jersey's Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP), a single
acre of unlined landfill can produce
600,000 gallons of leachate annually.
In the past, says Sadat, groundwater was
"managed by crisis." Problems were
handled as they occurred. The situation
came to a head last year, however, when
leachate from a municipal landfill in
Jackson Township contaminated wells
supplying 160 homes. Since then, the DEP
has proposed standards and regulations
needed to implement a Statewide permit
program for controlling discharges into
groundwater. Furthermore, the Lower
Raritan River communities in Middlesex
County are thinking about developing a
concerted groundwater recharge manage-
ment and water conservation program.
The Statewide program will focus on
reducing and eventually eliminating pol-
lutants that violate State groundwater
and/or potable water standards. It would
also aim at ensuring an adequate supply of
clean water for domestic, agricultural,
commercial, and industrial uses. To do this,
effluent limitations based on groundwater
wasteload allocations will be added to New
Jersey's existing NPDES permit program.
At a minimum, the new program will
include policies and procedures for
selecting waste disposal sites, allocating
groundwater supplies, and setting permit
specifications. A computerized data base
will support the effort.
Open meetings and public hearings were
held during the summer, and final regula-
tions are expected to be out in December.
Based on priority discharge activities, Sadat
says that 50 initial permits should be issued
in January of 1981. A few hundred more
should be issued during the year, with
continued active monitoring of the first 50.
The Middlesex County program will
address that area's water supply problems
and recharge protection needs. Lying just
west and southwest of Staten Island, the
county stretches well into central New
Jersey. The program area itself includes 35
municipalities near the Lower Raritan
River. The activities of 17 of these
municipalities already affect the underlying
aquifer system. These communities take
most of their potable water from under-
ground sources; however, overdrafts now
threaten these supplies with saltwater
intrusion. The area also has a significant
toxic pollution problem, which has resulted
in several well closings.
As a prototype project, the Middlesex
County program will be developing
protection measures aimed at local govern-
ments. Project Manager William Kruse says
they are specifically looking at ways to
protect critical recharge areas, including
land use controls, open space and buffer
zones, density considerations, and per-
formance standards. Negotiations are al-
ready underway with one developer of a
rather large apartment complex to have a
dry well system installed for ground-
water recharge. The recharge protection
effort will be linked to water use and
conservation for maximum protection of the
groundwater system. One municipality,
East Brunswick, is already carrying out a
voluntary water conservation strategy.
Once protection measures are proposed,
the program will examine the laws and in-
stitutions needed to carry them out, parti-
cularly zoning ordinances.•
23
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Nebraska
Nitrates
Farmers in Hall County, Nebraska have
begun cleaning up their groundwater by
recycling the nitrates that contaminated it.
With the help of Federal, State, and local
agencies, the nitrate-laden groundwater
normally used for irrigation will also serve
as a source of fertilizer.
Hall County lies in south-central
Nebraska about 100 miles west of Lincoln.
Groundwater protection efforts there have
focused on a 41,350 acre project area
originally selected as an Agricultural Con-
servation Program Special Water Quality
Project. Stretching across the central and
west-central parts of the county along the
Plane River Valley, the project area reveals
fairly flat farmlands with topsoil ranging
from sandy to silty clay foams which cover
about 40 feet of sand and gravel.
Practically all of the project area is
devoted to intensive corn production, which
has produced average yields of 200
bushels/acre. To sustain these yields.
farmers apply as much as 200 IDS of
nitrogen per acre each year. Because of
sparse rainfall, 95 percent of the area's
cropland relies on furrow irrigation
provided from wells. Numbering 650 in
December 1978, these wells supply an
average of 50 acres each. According to
Larry Ferguson, Water Quality Planning
Branch Chief for EPA's Kansas City
Regional Office, "this may be the highest
concentration of irrigation wells in the
world."
In the past few years, extensive research
and water quality surveys conducted by the
University of Nebraska and the U.S,
Geological Survey have turned up signifi-
cant and alarming increases in the nitrate-
nitrogen concentrations of the area's
groundwater. The U.S. Public Health Ser-
vice has established 10 parts per million
(ppm) as the maximum safe level for
nitrates in drinking water. Concentrations
of 25-30 ppm are widespread in the project
area; some water samples have gone as
high as 40 ppm. Nitrate levels this high
pose a health threat to infants and young
animals, particularly unborn and baby pigs.
In fact, the high mortality rate of young
swine has forced some Hall County farmers
to find alternative water supplies.
Over 14 Federal, State, and local
agencies are working with area farmers to
solve this problem. Because cost-sharing
funds have been made available and
because many farmers have seen the
impact of nitrate contamination, coopera-
tion has been excellent. Over 11,000 acres
of land now receive groundwater protection
measures.
The primary feature of this work involves
factoring the nitrogen supplied by the
irrigation water into the total nitrogen
needs of the crops. This lowers the amount
of fertilizer nitrogen usually required.
Research indicates that high crop yields
can be maintained with reduced fertilizer
applications when supplemented with
nitrate-laden irrigation waters. As plants
take up the nitrates, the resulting level in
the groundwater decreases. Best manage-
ment practices included irrigation
scheduling, and conservation measures
such as land leveling.
As results are documented and evalu-
ated, they can be applied in areas where
soil porosity and permeability will accomo-
date the excessive water required. The
Nebraska Cooperative Extension Service
will develop and distribute appropriate
information materials and teaching
modules. •
24
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The
Copper
Connection
The rugged and sparsely-vegetated
Arizona landscape bespeaks the region's
low rainfall and limited water supply.
People here know how important water is.
Throughout the State, efforts are underway
to ensure water quality protection and
enhancement.
One major project has been started in the
Globe-Miami area of Gila County in central
Arizona, copper country. In order to ac-
curately Identify and assess sources of
ground and surface water degradation, a
partnership has been forged among local
officials, public and State agencies, mining
companies, EPA, and the Central Arizona
Association of Governments (CAAG) which
is coordinating the project. An intensive
effort is also being directed at under-
standing the area's complex hydro logic
system. All results will ultimately be used
to develop, evaluate, and recommend best
management practices for copper mining.
Over the past hundred years, Globe-
Miami has become one of the most
productive copper mining districts in the
State, if not the country. By its sheer
magnitude, however, intensive copper
mining is implicated in water quality
problems. According to Dean Moss,
Planning Director for Arizona's Bureau of
Water Quality Control, water degradation
has in some cases forced people to
abandon wells. Copper plating of pumps
and well casings is common. And after
storms, the pH of some surface waters has
dropped to as low as 2.
Pollutants can stem from many sources
in Globe-Miami's mining industry—tailing
mound leachate, mining and milling
processes, infiltration of mineral-laden
surface waters into underlying aquifers,
and seepage from numerous holding ponds
containing tailings and slurries. The job of
identifying and tracking nonpoint sources
may be difficult. Three mining companies
currently operate in the district, and there
are also several abandoned mining and
disposal areas which are problem relics of
past practices. All concerned agree that, at
this juncture, basic information is needed
from sampling, technical, and historical
sources.
Lester Snow of CAAG finds the coopera-
tive effort of public and private groups the
most unique part of the project. The copper
companies are matching 25 percent of the
funds contributed by EPA and are providing
considerable in-kind services. 'The level of
support we've received so far," says Snow,
"is a very encouraging first step." All
concerned entities are represented on a
Mineral Extraction Task Force (METF)
which provides a policy and review function
for the projects. A technical group of the
METF provides additional expertise.
Globe-Miami's economy almost totally
depends on the mining industry, which
provides 1,000 jobs locally, consequently,
locajjpff icials have been anxious to support
the mining companies while meeting water
quality concerns. Highly sensitive water
rights may also be an issue. As a result, the
strong cooperative effort has been essential
to solving the area's groundwater
problems.
This project, says Dean Moss, will entail
a two-pronged effort aimed at preventing
future problems and containing existing
ones. It will focus on determining the full
extent of the pollution as well as the cause
and effect relationships between copper
mining and groundwater contamination.
The EPA's and the mining company's con-
tributions will fund the development of.
background data, chemical and hydro-
logical analyses, and related aspects. In
order to select, evaluate, and recommend
BMPs, a contract is being sought from the
U.S. Bureau of Mines. Under this additional
phase of the project, a prototype manage-
ment plan will be developed which can be
applied to other copper mining districts. •
25
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Piecing the
Puzzle Together
I
Merna Hurdis currently the Director of
EPA's Water Planning Division in
Washington, D. C. and is responsible for
administering the Water Quality Manage-
ment Program.
26
Management Issues in
Groundwater Protection
By Merna Hurd
The thorniest issues the Nation faces in
groundwater protection will not be what to
do—but rather how to organize it, who is
responsible for doing it, and who will bear
the cost. Action and change will take time
among the complex network of govern-
ments and agencies who share respon-
sibility.
In the next five years, we face urgent and
critical decisions about groundwater pro-
tection. Some of the scientific and technical
know-how required for making them is
already available. Progress toward
resolving the underlying institutional and
financial issues will be necessary if the
devastating tide of groundwater pollution is
to be turned.
This report has discussed groundwater
pollution sources and control mechanisms
individually. More than a piecemeal or
patchwork approach will be needed if the
problem is to be fully solved. The quality of
any particular aquifer depends on a
complicated interplay of its flow dynamics,
recharge characteristics, storage capacity,
geology, and use. The most effective
strategies for managingflnd protecting
groundwater are likely to be those based on
a comprehensive understanding.
Groundwater concerns cross a wide
range of political and institutional boun-
daries, and groundwater management
therefore requires concerted effort from all
levels of government. Some States, munici-
palities, and agencies have enough
authority to do the job, but these
authorities are often so diffuse as to be (ess
than fully effective. Many other places still
lack the laws and ordinances necessary to
protect their own groundwater supplies.
Certainly, diversity in approaches to
groundwater protection is often healthy
and necessary. Groundwater resources
vary widely from place to place, as do the
types of pollution. A broad array of
technical tools and management methods
can be applied, depending on the problem.
Sometimes these methods will be similar to
those for surface water, and sometimes
not. Methods suitable for preventing future
groundwater pollution may be very differ-
ent from those needed to contain existing
pollution. Techniques for controlling point
sources of pollution may be very different
from those for nonpoint sources. Laws
designed to protect the quantity of water
available to the individual well-user may
not protect the quality of well water
available to an entire community. An
effective overall management system will
allow us enough flexibility to choose the
right tool for the job.
Fundamental national policies on how to
address the broad issues of groundwater
protection have not yet been developed.
This year, in an effort to address some of
these issues, EPA is developing a Ground-
water Protection Strategy. Because the
issues are far-reaching, EPA is seeking to
base the strategy on wide public debate and
participation. In building a more coherent
Federal program, EPA is seeking to col-
laborate with State and local governments
who already have efforts under way. The
agency is encouraging participation by
affected industries, businesses, utilities,
environmentalists, professional groups,
civic groups, and interested citizens. After
an initial information-gathering phase, EPA
invited national leaders from all these
walks of life to a pair of workshops in June
1980. Recommendations coming out of
these workshops will be refined into a draft
strategy that will be published in the
Federal Register and widely distributed.
Public hearings on the subject will then be
in at least five locations across the country.
Groundwater policy decisions raise many
difficult questions. The following
discussion highlights some of the major
issues which must be examined.
1. Coordinating Federal and
State Programs
Few if any States have comprehensive
programs to protect groundwater. While
many State environmental agencies have
general mandates to do so, most of the
practical authority is fragmented. A State
public health agency may regulate septic
systems. A water commission may have
permitting authority to allocate water
rights. Mining, highway, and agriculture
departments may hold jurisdiction over
-------
other activities that pollute groundwater.
Zoning powers usually reside with local
governments. Taken together, the parts
often add up to less than the whole.
Federal authority is also fragmented
among many agencies. Even within EPA,
the various groundwater protection
authorities are split up among a number of
offices administering various laws. The
Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water
Act, and Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, the National Environmental
Policy Act, and other laws each take
differing approaches to different aspects of
the problem. EPA's Offices of Solid Waste,
Drinking Water, Water Program Opera-
tions, Research and Development, Enforce-
ment, and others all take part. The result is
an unfinished puzzle with pieces that don't
all fit together.
The overall success of any groundwater
protection effort will not depend on EPA's
actions alone. It will also depend, for
example, on whether the Nuclear Regula-
tory Commission can establish an adequate
program to manage radioactive wastes as
well as uranium milling and processing
operations. Likewise, it will depend on
whether the Office of Surface Mining can
establish an adequate regulatory program
for coal mining. Improved or continued
cooperation among these agencies, EPA,
the Department of Agriculture and Interior,
the Coast Guard, the U.S. Geological
Survey, the Water Resources Council, and
others will be needed to do the whole job.
2. State and Federal Roles:
How Much Uniformity or
Variety is Needed?
Traditionally, State governments have
held jurisdiction over groundwater
management. Different States have dif-
fering laws on groundwater as well as
differing perceptions of the importance of
protecting it. Some States are far more
dependent on groundwater than others,
and the prevailing pollution problems may
vary considerably also. Either the polluting
activity or the groundwater itself may be of
special importance to the economy of a
given State. Effective groundwater
protection programs will take these dif-
ferences into account. States have tended
to be highly protective of their preroga-
tives for managing groundwater, especially
when their rights to receive or allocate
quantities of water are involved.
There is also a legitimate national and
Federal interest in groundwater protection.
This interest is recognized in laws like the
Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act, and Safe Drinking Water
Act. Both water and pollution can cross
State boundaries. Uniform minimum
requirements help prevent industries from
seeking haven in States with lax laws, and
thus from penalizing States which do want
to protect their water resources. Billions of
dollars in Federal tax money have been
invested in the development and clean up
of water resources, and many taxpayers
want to see that investment protected. And
when State pollution controls fail seriously,
the Federal government may be asked to
pick up the costs of emergency contain-
ment and cleanup.
Thus, one area where coordination is
especially important is in the relationship
between the State and Federal Govern-
ments. What institutional arrangements
will ensure that cooperation takes place?
Who bears the responsibility? Who pays the
costs?
The three laws cited above provide a
model for such a State-Federal partnership.
While Federal law sets minimum require-
ments for controtling some major sources
of pollution, it also provides for delegation
of responsibility to the States for carrying
out tailor-made programs in their own
jurisdictions. When Federal requirements
impose new burdens on the States, those
burdens are often alleviated by Federal
financial aid. In most cases. States are free
to require controls more stringent than the
Federal minimums. If the State fails to con-
duct a minimum program, the Federal
government may in some cases operate
such a program itself.
Such a system falls midway in a range of
options from direct Federal regulation, at
one extreme, to complete State autonomy,
at the other. Neither extreme may be wholly
satisfactory. The Federal government may
be better suited for some activities, such as
basic research and technology develop-
ment. The States may be better at others,
such as issuing individual permits suited to
local conditions. The most effective formula
for sharing groundwater protection respon-
sibilities may be one which supports each
level of government in doing what it does
best.
3. Interrelations: Quality and
Quantity, Ground and Surface
Practically and scientifically speaking,
questions of groundwater quality and
quantity have little meaning when con-
sidered in isolation. The important question
is whether there is enough water of the
right quality for the use we want to make of
it. Many State groundwater laws only
address quantity issues, and focus more on
preventing fights over allocation rights than
on protecting the quality of the resource. In
certain parts of the United States, excessive
water use causes groundwater quality
problems. For example, when a usable
aquifer lies next to an ocean or a saline
aquifer, overpumping can pull salt water
into wells and render them useless.
Wasteful methods of crop irrigation in other
areas flush more salts and nutrients into
groundwater than are either necessary or
desirable. Degradation also occurs in areas
where too much water is withdrawn from
interdependent ground/surface water sys-
tems.
To complicate matters further, controls
aimed solely at protecting water quality can
adversely affect groundwater quantity. For
example, septic system effluents make up a
significant percentage of groundwater re-
charge in some areas. Where these septic
systems have been replaced with a central
sewer system to reduce pollution, recharge
has diminished, affecting both ground and
surface waters. Diverting contaminated
storm runoff or irrigation return flows can
produce similar effects.
These last examples suggest a second
major relationship which must be
addressed. Ground and surface waters are
closely related in the hydrologic cycle and
must be considered together in any com-
prehensive water quality management
program. According to one EPA consultant,
groundwater may provide as much as 80
percent of all base stream flows nation-
wide. As a result, groundwater depletion
can increase the concentration of pollu-
tants in streams by reducing flow. Pollu-
tants in groundwater can also find their
way to surface waters.
For the most part, groundwater laws
have developed out of doctrines originally
applied to surface water, and often fail to
take into account the unique characteristics
of groundwater hydrology. In particular,
they do not address depletion, are often
inadequate in resolving conflicts between
surface and groundwater uses, and
generally resolve conflicts between users
only after groundwater pollution has
already taken place.
In order to attack the groundwater pollu-
tion problem, conjunctive management of
the complex quality/quantity and ground/
surface relationships must be sought
where appropriate.
4. RCRA, SDWA, and
Superfund: Getting Things
Moving
Adequate protection of our groundwater
supplies requires full implementation of
Federal laws already on the books for this
purpose. The Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act was passed in 1976 and is
only now being implemented. EPA has
issued key regulations specifying the
operational details of the program, and
more will be coming soon. Industries
affected by the regulations have
participated extensively and submitted
voluminous comments on the proposal.
Although valuable time has been
consumed during this process, EPA expects
that time delays caused by litigation after
the regulations go into effect will be
reduced.
The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed
in 1974. Interim drinking water standards
have been developed for many pollutants,
but further work needs to be done in
defining acceptable levels of risk for many
other pollutants which contaminate under-
27
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ground drinking supplies in trace amounts.
The Underground Injection Control
Program is getting underway, but the job of
implementing it still lies ahead.
Much of the responsibility for imple-
menting these laws is being delegated to
the States. Getting the programs going will
take time, but the following timetable
seems realistic. Within the next five years,
an adequate management system for solid
and hazardous wastes will be set up in each
State, hazardous wastes will be defined, all
disposal sites will be under permit, and a
manifest system to track the movement of
these wastes will be operating. Within three
years, underground injection wells dis-
charging hazardous wastes into under-
ground drinking supplies will be closed.
Other wastes injected underground will be
regulated. Progress in these areas will help
protect the Nation's most valuable ground-
water resources from the forms of con-
tamination most dangerous to human
health.
Even if a sound preventive program were
in effect today, lethal contaminants from
existing illegal dumps—known and un-
known—would continue seeping into valu-
able water supplies. EPA expects that a
method to cope with the aftermath of Love
Canal-type tragedies maybe available in
the next few years if Congress passes some
form of the proposed "Superfund" legisla-
tion. This would give the Agency authority
and resources to act immediately to prevent
the spread of contaminants from hazard-
ous waste sites. As now proposed, the
legislation would allow the government
either to clean up the site itself or to require
liable parties to do so. The bill also provides
for partial recovery of public costs and
compensation of victims. Both government
and industry would contribute to a kind of
revolving fund which could finance
remedial actions without the delay of legal
proceedings.
5. Is All Groundwater Equal?
How good does groundwater quality have
to be? Some people feel that there should
be no pollution of groundwater at all—a
"nondegradation" policy. Since pollution
can rarely be reversed, the principal would
be to keep the groundwater from getting
any worse.
When groundwater is good enough to
drink, should it remain so? When large
populations already depend on it as a
drinking source, protecting itsdrinkability
makes sense. But what about high-quality
groundwater that isn't presently being used
as a drinking source? Today's unused
aquifer may prove a valuable drinking
source for future generations.
Drinking is one of the most common,
socially valuable, and vulnerable uses of
water, hence drinkability is an important
benchmark for water quality. The standards
for finished drinking water are particularly
high. Water of slightly lower quality can be
used for drinking if it is purified first, adding
to its cost. Since some contaminants can
not be feasibly removed, allowable levels of
these contaminants at the source would be
the same as allowable levels at the tap. Still
lower levels of groundwater quality may be
adequate for uses other than drinking:
power plant cooling, industrial processes,
mining, and maintenance of surface
streamflow, to name a few. Where
these are expected to be the principal uses
of an aquifer for the foreseeable future, a
community may prefer standards that are
sufficient for these uses only.
Much groundwater is not considered
recoverable. Many aquifers recharge very
slowly and yield only small amounts of
water. Others have been irretrievably con-
taminated by natural processes or human
activities. Do we protect such aquifers
indiscriminately, or should limited
resources be focused on protecting priority
aquifers? What factors should give an
aquifer priority status? Who decides?
Intuition suggests that not all ground-
water merits the same level of protection. It
makes little sense to put a municipality to
the expense of retooling a landfill in order
to protect the water supply below when the
oil well next door has hopelessly polluted it
already. In fact, isolation of small parts of
slow-moving, low yielding aquifers for
waste disposal has been practiced. This is
also the idea behind underground injection
wells. The decision to deposit wastes
directly into aquifers must be made only
after careful thought, planning, and debate.
Government officials, environmental
groups, industries, and the general public
must all be involved in these choices.
Aquifer classifications are one useful
starting point for such decisions. These are
methods of sorting aquifers (or portions of
them) according to their actual quality,
present or potential use, economic value,
hydrogeologic characteristics, and other
factors.
One example of a classification plan,
suggested by Tripp and Jaffe in the Harvard
Environmental Law Review, divides
aquifers into three major categories. A
priority (or high quality) category would
contain aquifers which serve as sole or
principal sources of drinking water. A
middle category would contain all other
actual or potential drinking water sources,
sources for other major water uses, and
aquifers whose contamination would harm
surface waters. The last category would
include the remaining low quality aquifers
or portions of aquifers. Further variations
and refinements of this plan are possible.
The most useful unit of groundwater
classification is usually not the entire
aquifer, but a specific part of it. Some
aquifers are especially vulnerable to pol-
lution in the recharge zones, where surface
water naturally seeps into them. Because
contaminants underground do not disperse
in ail directions, but .instead travel in a
plume in the direction of groundwater flow,
only part of an aquifer may be affected by a
specific contamination source. Con-
sequently, efforts to map an aquifer's
recharge zones and flow characteristics
can provide useful support for groundwater
management programs.
6. Emerging Groundwater
Protection Measures
A unique mix of groundwater protection
measures will probably be required for any
given set of local or regional conditions.
Among the measures being tried or
considered by individual States are the
following.
Standards. Groundwater quality
standards are a more precise method of
answering the question: "How much
protection do we need?" Much confusion
surrounds the term "standard" because it
can mean different things in different
contexts. As used here, the term refers to a
set of numerical limits on the allowable
concentrations of particular contaminants
which are consistent with a particular use
of an aquifer. The numerical limits them-
selves are called criteria, and they vary
according to an aquifer's assigned use. For
example, the criterion for nitrates may be
low in an aquifer used for drinking (where
they can cause health problems) but some-
what higher in sources of irrigation water
(where they can provide nutrients for
plants). Properly speaking, a standard
includes both the set of numerical criteria
and the designated uses which determine
them.
Like classification systems, standards
express general goals for groundwater
quality based on use. Both offer ways of
setting priorities for where, how much, and
how urgently protection efforts are needed.
Standards themselves do not prevent pol-
lution. Their main use is in setting an
28
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objective legal basis for further, more active
pollution control measures or for deter-
mining what changes in groundwater
quality are permissible. Theoretically, it
should be possible to work backward from
the standard and calculate what specific
limits and controls on pollution are needed
to meet it. In practice, however, this
process is far more difficult for ground-
water than for surface water. Because
pollutants do not disperse underground as
they do in surface waters, an under-
standing of their movement is important.
Basic hydrogeologic data and computer
models for predicting groundwater move-
ment are not well developed in many areas.
Technical problems remain in assessing
the impact of specif ic pollutants, particu-
larly organics. Monitoring the quality of
entire aquifers is difficult and expensive. All
this makes it difficult to draw the cause-
and-effect relationship between control
measures and attainment of the standards,
leaving the controls open to challenge.
Also, once standards have been
exceeded, some damage to groundwater
may be virtually irreversible; thus,
standards may be less useful as a protec-
tion mechanism for groundwater than for
surface water.
For these reasons, standards may not
work everywhere, and there may be simpler
and more practical alternatives. The
success of standards depends partly on the
approach selected by each State. To date,
five States have such standards, six are
currently reviewing proposed standards,
and seven are considering developing
them. In all, nearly 40 percent of the States
are taking active steps in this direction.
Recharge Zone Protection. Critical re-
charge zones will require special pro-
tection. Because of the difficulty in develop-
ing and enforcing groundwater quality
standards, nondegradation has been
proposed as a goal in these zones. The
possibility of isolating aquifer segments
makes nondegradation more feasible for
groundwater than for surface water.
Land use controls, in particular, may be
needed to prohibit polluting activities in
critical areas. Ideally, this means
preserving the areas in their natural
vegetative state, but could include, for
example, the exclusion of septic systems,
land disposal facilities, and hazardous
industrial activities. Limitation of resi-
dential and commercial development to low
densities and curtailment of road construc-
tion are also desirable in many cases.
Generally, land use controls are the
exclusive province of local governments. A
major drawback is the political problems
involved with their legislation and imple-
mentation. They have been challenged on
the grounds that they constitute the taking
of property without compensation.
Implementing such control across the
potentially high number of political boun-
daries that a recharge area can cover
L
makes the problem even fuzzier. The
probability of upholding land use controls is
much greater if such actions are based on
sound hydrology and fair public planning
processes.
Effluent Limits. For lower priority
aquifers or areas where land use controls
are not feasible, effluent limits can be used
to restrict the amount and strength of dis-
charges into groundwater, especially point
source discharges or effluents from land
disposal sites. Permits would be the most
likely means of enforcing such limits—
although permits can also be used to limit
groundwater uses and administer contain-
ment and management practices.
Effluent limits have the advantage of
placing specific limits on individual
polluters based on their actual discharges.
They are also an effective means to go after
existing polluters and can be used to focus
on specific problems when more sweeping
protection measures are unnecessary. Poli-
tically, they may be more acceptable than
other control measures. Effluent limits do
have drawbacks, however.
If based on quality standards, they can
suffer from the same methodological and
technical problems. In addition, they often
stop polluting activities only after ground-
water contamination has occurred. Nothing
happens to prevent the problem in advance.
Lastly, effluent limits do not address the
many significant non-point sources of
pollutants.
Best Management Practices (BMPs|
Groundwater contamination can also be
reduced or eliminated through BMPs,
which address nonpoint or areawide
sources of pollution. They are a wide range
of technical and management tools speci-
fically selected for individual types of
pollution. For farm areas, this can mean
more efficient and better timed applica-
tions of fertilizer and pesticides. For
developing areas, BMPs may mean more
frequent septic system pum pouts or road
salt management.
In many areas, BMPs can be used to deal
with specific sources and problem areas.
Because many actually save money, they
can be implemented on a voluntary basis,
although mandatory BMPs may be needed
to deal with more serious contamination
threats. The voluntary approach to BMPs
can make then more politically acceptable.
Even more importantly, many BMPs reduce
groundwater pollution enough so that the
time and expense of developing a regula-
tory program are unnecessary. Because
they generally reduce rather than eliminate
pollution, however, BMPs may not be
adequate in some critical areas where more
stringent controls may be needed.
The issues involved in groundwater
protection are varied and complex. But
there are indications that at least some of
the necessary steps are being taken.
Several States are now coordinating their
protection efforts through multi-agency
advisory committees or task forces. New
York and New Jersey are among the
leaders in developing comprehensive
groundwater management programs and
plans. EPA, through its Groundwater Pro-
tection Strategy and through cooperation
with other Federal agencies, is making a
similar effort at the Federal level. The
Water Resources Council, of which EPA is a
member, offers another context for coordi-
nating Federal and State Programs.
The Federal government has recognized
that States should logically continue their
responsibility for managing groundwater.
Rather than trying to supersede State
authority, the Federal government has
regarded its role as one of ensuring that
Federally-initiated projects do not endanger
groundwater; conducting basic research of
use to many States; providing technical and
financial assistance to the States for
implementing their own programs; and
seeing that vital national interests in
groundwater quality and quantity are not
jeopardized. •
-------
Water
Quality
Forum
(Ed. Note: The following articles wen all
solicited from persons outside of EPA. Each
author was asked to address the following
question in e few hundred words.)
"What do you see as the most
important emerging ground-
water concern(s) for the
1980's and beyond? What
actions are needed to
address them?"
Jay Lehr
Executive Director,
National Water
Well Association
As recently as ten years ago, ground-
water was something that most people
ignored, misunderstood, or undervalued.
While it has, in the last decade, gained
recognition as a major national resource,
this recognition has only come after the
discovery that it has been thoughtlessly
subjected to serious pollution.
Federal legislation to protect ground-
water has been on the books since at least
1948. when the first Water Pollution
Control Act was passed. But the overall
thrust of Federal, state, and local pollution
control efforts since that time has been
aimed primarily at surface water. Legis-
lators and government agencies over the
years have shown little interest in pro-
tecting a resource which is equally
important, but which the public literally
cannot see.
Our national myopia toward groundwater
has been compounded out of equal parts of
unawareness, neglect, and ignorance.
There are, indeed, major gaps in our
understanding of this hidden resource.
Only by strengthening and expanding
scientific research efforts aimed speci-
fically at groundwater will we begin to
break out of the cycle of ignorance and
neglect.
Although groundwater research is far
behind surface water research, a number of
government agencies, universities, and
private institutions are pursuing programs
in this area. The U.S. Geological Survey.
the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Office of Water Research and Technology,
and others can support this effort to some
degree with the limited funding available to
them. University researchers and institu-
tions like the National Water Well Associ-
ation Research Facility depend largely on
Federal grants for research funding, but
funding for groundwater research is far
less than for surface water.
Effective protection of groundwater
requires an adequate national research
effort that addresses the following issues:
• Training. There is an immediate need to
start training adequate numbers of hydro-
geologists. There are now less than 500
such professionals in state and Federal
environmental agencies, while ten times
that number are needed.
• Information and Technology
Transfer must be accomplished in a timely
fashion and targeted at all pertinent
audiences.
• Technical Assistance must be
provided to help state and local agencies
implement comprehensive groundwater
protection plans.
• Sources of Groundwater Pollution
must be studied to ascertain their im-
portance. Work on mitigation methods is
needed.
• Methods of Detection, including
remote sensing, groundwater tracers, log-
ging techniques, and monitoring wells,
should be studied.
e Analytical Procedures in the labora-
tory to ascertain the presence of pollu-
tants are still in need of refinement.
• Transport and Fate of Pollutants in
saturated and unsaturated porous media
continue to pose many unanswered ques-
tions.
• Subsurface Categorization of
aquifers and soil profiles as to their capacity
to attenuate, eliminate, or pass pollutants
requires considerable attention.
• Aquifer Rehabilitation is the last
resort in a pollution control program. We
will always face "Love Canal" types of
incidents, and need to be able to undo the
damage.
The need for a greatly expanded ground-
water research program cannot be over-
emphasized. If we could shut off the 21
sources of groundwater pollution tomor-
row, we would still have the sword of
Damocles hanging over us, for we do not
know the extent of the pollution that has
already taken place. Only by initiating the
programs described above can we properly
attack the problems we face.
In summary, let me quote from the
former chief of the Ground Water Branch of
the U.S. Geological Survey, C.L.
McGuinness, who said in an address to the
Midwest Ground Water Conference in
1969, "Of all things that might be said
about ground water in today's world, one
that seems highly appropriate to me is an
expression of amazement. After years—in
fact, decades—in which students of ground-
30
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water felt that we were just voices crying in
the wilderness, the world has suddenly
discovered our subject. Now we don't know
whether to laugh or cry, because the world
suddenly wants from us more than we have
to give—more knowledge than was ever
demanded before, and more than we ever
dreamed would be needed. "•>
Michael O'Toole
New York State
Department of
Environmental
Conservation
The most important emerging ground-
water concern in New York State for the
1980s is how best to protect and manage
the State's groundwater resources. Most of
the State's major aquifers are in developed
areas. They are recharged by rivers con-
taining treated sewage and industrial
wastes and by rainfall that passes over and
through land occupied by dense housing,
parking lots, industrial sites, dumps, junk-
yards, and agricultural areas. For years it
was felt that the ground itself adequately
filtered out contaminants. This was gen-
erally true when bacteria were the sole
. source of concern. However, the soils do
t adequately remove heavy metals,
rates, or organic contaminants which are
'y usecl 'n developed areas and
f their way by many varied routes
intothegtaundwater. With increasing
are discovering that through
the years thee contaminants have
remained in thdgroundwater and have
become more concentrated. We are
beginning to overcome the out-of-sight/
out-of-mind past attitude regarding ground-
water. We know that contaminated ground-
water aquifers are very difficult to clean up.
It makes more sense to prevent future con-
tamination and manage the resource to
minimize the spread of already-con-
taminated groundwater.
Federal, State, and local legislative
authorities to protect and manage ground-
water are scattered. A review of current
laws reveals that most of the tools
necessary to protect and manage ground-
water are already available if used in a
concentrated and coordinated manner.
However, to successfully use these
authorities, we must overcome the lack of
knowledge concerning the nature, extent,
and physical and chemical characteristics
of the groundwater resource. And equally
important, the general public must be made
aware of how its activities can contribute to
aquifer contamination.
Any successful groundwater protection
and management program should involve
the following activities:
e coordinate and administer existing laws
to give maximum protection to useable
groundwater resources,
• clearly define the groundwater respon-
sibilities of Federal, State, and local
governments,
e carefully analyze existing groundwater
quality data and aquifer information, deter-
mine where needs are most immediate,
and develop priorities,
e intensify efforts to define the extent and
physical characteristics of groundwater
aquifers and recharge areas,
• increase the public awareness of how its
everyday actions singly and collectively
impact the groundwater resource,
e encourage the development of local
groundwater management and protection
plans so that local permitting or zoning
decisions are made with full knowledge of
the effects of such actions on their
groundwater resources,
• manage well drilling and pumping to
minimize excessive drawdowns, control
contamination movements, avoid saltwater
intrusion, and control detrimental ground-
water mining.•
Leo Eisel
Former Director,
Water Resources
Council
A major problem associated with ground-
water management in the 1980s will be
depletion of aquifers in excess of recharge,
commonly referred to as "mining." Nearly
one-quarter of all the water used in this
country in any one year is groundwater, yet
a quarter of that total is being mined from
aquifers that cannot be easily recharged.
Overdrawing of aquifers is a critical
problem in many areas of the United States.
One of the most serious is the Ogallala
aquifer of the High Plains area of west
Texas, eastern New Mexico, Oklahoma,
Colorado, Kansas, and South Dakota. This
area contains the largest irrigable land
mass in the world—52 million acres—a
land mass larger than 37 of the States of
the United States. Nearly 10 million
presently irrigated acres overlying this
aquifer are threatened by depletion. The
loss of this area's agricultural production
would be of significant national im-
portance. If present pumping rates con-
tinue, the underlying water supplies for this
aquifer will be exhausted in 30-50 years; in
some local areas the time might be even
less.
Diminishing artesian pressure, declining
spring and stream flow, land subsidence,
and saltwater intrusion problems are
strong evidence of excessive use of ground-
water. Although the amount of water in
storage underground is an extremely im-
portant factor, use of that water at rates
exceeding natural recharge merely defers
the inevitable day when: (1) alternative
sources must be found, or (2) serious
decisions must be made concerning the
continued existence of water-dependent
industries, irrigation developments, and
proposed community expansion. In some
areas, declining water tables will cause
abandonment of activities before the water
is totally consumed because of the
increasing cost of energy to bring it to the
surface.
These water quantity problems are
closely connected with water quality prob-
lems since declining spring and stream
flow reduce base flow in streams during
low-flow periods required to maintain
water quality. Saltwater intrusion in coastal
areas due to over-pumping of aquifers can
present formidable water quality problems.
This linkage between water quality and
quantity demonstrates the need for inte-
grating water quality and quantity in
groundwater management. At present, the
administration and management of ground-
water quality and quantity, as well as
surface water quality and quantity, is often
separated by law or administrative tradi-
tion. This separation occurs both at the
Federal and State level and may hinder
effective use of both surface and ground-
water resources and can lead to inefficient
management. Steps need to be taken by
Federal and State water resources and
water quality management agencies to
ensure meaningful coordination of their
programs if the common resource of water is
to be efficiently used and preserved. •
Jacqueline
M. Warren
Environmental
Defense Fund
The contamination of critical ground-
water supplies resulting from many years
of indiscriminate disposal of hazardous
waste is emerging as one of the most
serious environmental problems facing us
over the next decade. Discharges of toxic
materials into and from septic tanks,
underground injection wells, hazardous
waste landfills, industrial sludges, pits,
31
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settling ponds and lagoons, mining, oil and
gas exploration and development, and
urban and agricultural runoff have polluted
many aquifers. Thus, the water supplies
and ecological systems supported by those
aquifers have been seriously endangered.
Because groundwater lacks the self-
cleansing capacity of surface water, heavy
metals, industrial chemicals, pesticides,
and other pollutants can contaminate all or
a portion of an aquifer for many years. In
view of this fact, it is imperative that actions
be taken at both the State and Federal
levels of government to protect the remain-
ing high-quality groundwater sources.
It has been EDF's position that adequate
protection of groundwater requires the
following steps!
(1) Establishment of a non-degradation
standard for groundwater, enforced by
protective land-use measures in critical
recharge areas;
(2) Clean-up of abandoned and existing
hazardous waste sites to prevent further
migration of hazardous substances into
groundwater;
(3) Enactment of restrictive siting and
technological standards for new hazardous
waste disposal facilities; and
(4) Research into the long-term effects on
groundwater of land disposal of toxic waste
materials.
Implementation of the measures
described above will not restore ground-
water resources that are already polluted;
only the passage of time can accomplish
that result. However, serious efforts to
protect our remaining high quality ground-
water supplies will preserve these valuable
natural resources now and for the future.*)
Carla M. Bard
Chairwoman
State
Water Resources
Control Board
In the first quarter of the century, Cali-
fornia communities fought over ground-
water by running the pumps 24 hours a
day. The Idea was to build up a record of
"use" for a court adjudication. Ground-
water law and regulation in California have
come a long way from that base, but there
are still challenges to the primary source of
water for many California communities and
major portions of California agriculture.
These challenges include:
• An annual overdraft of 2.2 million acre
feet, about half in the agricultural southern
San Joaquin Valley.
e 58 wells in the San Gabriel Valley closed
due to contamination by TCE.
e In the Oxnard Plain north of Los Angeles
about 30 percent of the basin has been lost
to seawater intrusion.
e Approximately 400 Central Valley wells
have DBCP levels that concern health
officials.
As with most water problems, the
primary issues relate to quantity and
quality, although strict parallels break
down. Groundwater basins operate on a
different clock than other water systems.
Remove a pollution source from a river and
water quality bounces back; in a ground-
water aquifer both the source and the past
pollution must be removed. Groundwaters
built up over centuries can be used up in
decades, especially if replenishing surface
water sources are also exploited.
California laws on groundwater alloca-
tions contain a cumbersome adjudication
procedure that water users avoid. It is not
just the decade-long legal struggles; there
is also the possibility that all users would be
required to curtail pumping to protect the
overall integrity of the groundwater.
Though adjudications are most often initi-
ated by the users, the State Water
Resources Control Board can initiate them
when there is a threat to water quality.
Such is the case of the Oxnard Plain,
where over-pumping has stopped the
gradual underwater flow of freshwater to
the ocean. Instead, the water is pumped up
and saline ocean waters are drawn in.
Under threat of adjudication, county
governments, water agencies, and farmers
are developing physical solutions to the
problem, such as boosting replenishment
efficiency. Though local officials have been
concerned about the problem for 40 years,
it took the threat of State Board action for
them to begin compromising and taking
necessary steps.
Problems of overdrafts are not simple to
solve. In agricultural sections of the Central
Valley, some groundwater tables have
fallen from the 120 foot level to 500-1000
feet. When well water levels drop, drilling
and energy costs soar. Because agriculture
ties into the intricate network of dams and
canals of the surface system, it is
impossible to consider groundwater issues
separately. It is a Statewide problem,
especially if imported surface supplies are
used to replace or replenish groundwater.
Part of the solution was contained in the
report of the Governor's Commission to
Review Water Rights Law. That body
proposed local groundwater management
districts under the supervision of the State
Water Resources Control Board. Strongly
opposed by many water users, the proposal
lies on the legislative shelf waiting the
proper political moment or a compelling
natural event for revival.
Until that time, California has turned to
water conservation and wastewater
reclamation as the "treatment of choice"
for California water shortages. Governor
Jerry Brown recently signed an executive
order requiring that all State Board actions
include provisions for water conservation
and reclamation. That means that Clean
Water Grants will require development and
implementation of effective water conser-
vation programs. Establishment of a new
water right would require the user to show
that efficient use has been made of the
water already available.
This is a new approach to the problem.
We expect to find creative ways to use this
authority, which is implicit in California
Constitutional provisions enjoining waste
and unreasonable use of water.
Though the water quantity issues are
thorny, the water quality issues pose
dilemmas and technical problems that are
difficult to solve, expensive to implement,
and dangerous to ignore. Contamination
from toxic substances has already affected
many groundwater basins; we expect to
find more as monitoring efforts are
increased and technical detection capa-
bilities expand.
We are at the stage now where the
emphasis is on finding and defining the
problems. Those we have detected are
already causing major changes in Cali-
fornia practices. Since the late 1940's,
Regional Water Quality Control Boards
have been able to control damaging
discharges, with the law being strength-
ened periodically. Similar to the federal
NPDES program, current California law
gives us the tools to stop damaging
discharges. In light of recent findings, the
Regional Boards are reexamining current /'
discharges with an eye to raising ^
standards. They are also vigorously pujr
suing enforcement actions such asjrre
ones against the Aerojet facilitytffeused of
casually dumping hazardous vafetes on Its
own site and a Hooker Chemical subsidiary
charged with laxity in handling DBCP.
Enforcement tools are best used pre-
ventively; cleanup of toxic wastes is costly
and difficult. Contaminated soils must be
removed, but disposal of those soils may
prove impossible. Pumping out conta-
minated groundwater also poses a storage
problem. Toxics operate in small concen-
trations, often in parts per billion. Con-
taminated groundwaters may be unclean-
able; the resource is lost forever.
My assessment—and this is subject to
further monitoring data and development of
hard information—is that we have become
aware of the problem in time to save most
California aquifers. That goes for the
threats posed by both quality and quantity
issues. However, preservation will not be
accomplished without a willingness to
stabilize pumping, curtailed usage in some
cases, strong preventative enforcement
actions and a firm governmental stand
against degradation and depletion.*
t
-------
Groundwater
Outlook: No
Guarantees
II *»
What is the prognosis? Will there be
enough usable groundwater available to
meet the Nation's demands in the year
2001?
The outlook for U.S. groundwater
resources is guarded. Many communities
have already lost their wellwater. Expert
studies have scarcely begun to outline the
magnitude and extent of the threats to
groundwater on a nationwide scale. Many
questions need answering before anyone
can make confident predictions about the
usability of the Nation's groundwater in the
year 2001.
The questions are worth asking. A lot can
happen in twenty years. Twenty years ago,
few Americans could imagine lines at the
gas stations or the tragedy at Love Canal.
Twenty years ago, the Nation was just dis-
covering severe environmental damage
from twenty previous years of uncontrolled
PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) use and
disposal. Today, twenty years later, PCBs
have scarcely begun to disappear.
Groundwater changes much more slowly
than surface water. Underground, twenty
years is a short time. Pollution may take
decades to show up in a well or stream—
and centuries more to disappear. Ground-
water protection may not pay off for a
generation. Like saving for a child's college
education or a secure retirement, it is worth
thinking about ahead of time.
Like farmland, forests, fishing shoals,
wetlands, lakes, and streams, groundwater
is a resource that can sustain us indefini-
nitely if we take care of it. Within a half mile
of the surface of the United States, there is
enough groundwater to fill the Great Lakes
six times—and slightly more than all the
fresh surface water in the world. This
should be enough to support far more
people, more homes and industries, and
more food and energy production than
today's level. In terms of sheer quantity,
rainfall is currently putting ten times more
water into the ground than Americans are
taking out. This is the good news.
The bad news is already staring us in the
face. In many parts of the country where we
need it today, there is not enough ground-
water of adequate quality at an acceptable
price for the uses we want to make of it.
Some areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas,
Nebraska, California, and Arizona are
simply using up groundwater faster than
rainfall replenishes it (overdrafting) or
using water from deep aquifiers that are
not naturally replenished at all. Today,
about one-quarter of all the groundwater
used in the United States is being over-
drafted. The national rate of overdraft is
accelerating—doubling between 1930 and
1960, and doubling again between 1960
and 1975.
Disturbing Trends
If present trends continue, the Nation will
be using more water every year. The
increase has averaged 2% over the last 25
years (measured as total withdrawals).
Groundwater use, however, is growing
about twice as fast (3.8% annually) as
surface water use. It amounted to 17.5% of
total withdrawals in 1950 but grew to 24%
by 1975.
In short, a superficial look at the Nation's
gross groundwater supply gives a decep-
tively reassuring picture of future ground-
water adequacy. Total supply statistics will
not tell us what we really need to know.
Groundwater is a commodity whose value
is primarily local or regional. In com-
parison with wheat or oil, for example, the
cost of transporting water makes up a far
larger portion of its total cost. Since these
costs are roughly proportional to distance,
economics quickly limit how far water can
feasibly be transported. Thus, an
National Watar Wall Association
33
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George A. Grant, National Park Service
abundance of good groundwater in one
region of the country will not neces-
sarily offset a shortage in another region.
Groundwater adequacy does not simply
mean having enough water; it means
having enough water where it is needed,
and of sufficient quality for the uses we
want to make of it.
Before we forecast bountiful supplies of
groundwater for the indefinite future, it will
also be wise to size up what portion of the
supply is likely to be stolen by contami-
nation. Only since the mid-1970s have
Federal and State efforts begun to assess
the threat. As the dim outlines of the
picture begin to emerge, the picture is not
reassuring.
We know that the sheer quantity of waste
the Nation puts into the ground every year
is staggering. According to most available
estimates, we are putting more of it into the
ground every year. We build about 500,000
new septic systems annually, for a growth
rate of 2.9%. Municipal solid waste disposal
is estimated to be increasing at about 3.8%
annually. Industrial solid waste also
increases by about 3% each year.
Hazardous industrial wastes, liquid and
solid, are estimated to be increasing at
3.5% each year.
It seems reasonable to expect waste
disposal to grow at a rate roughly com-
parable to that for economic and popu-
lation growth. It is worth remembering,
however, that the general trend in recent
decades has been toward ever greater use
of materialspe/- capita. Disposable products
have increasingly replaced durable
products in the American lifestyle. Thus,
waste disposal may actually grow faster
than population and Gross National
Product.
Disposal of wastes on land seems likely
to increase more quickly than disposal into
water or air in the coming years. While the
Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act
discharge regulations have been enforced
for years, enforcement of solid waste regu-
lations (Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act) and underground injection
regulations (Safe Drinking Water Act), as
well as State and local control programs,
has scarcely gotten under way. Until all are
enforced with equal effectiveness, pollution
will be driven underground.
34
Residual wastes are another fast-
growing problem. These are wastes such as
sludge and ash, the pollutants removed
from wastewater treatment plants, smoke-
stack "scrubbers," and other pollution
cleanup activities. The amount of municipal
wastewater sludge (5 million tons dry
weight annually) is expected to double in
the next 8 to 10 years because of all the
new treatment plants built under the Clean
Water Act. Air pollution control equipment
on old and new electric power plants in the
next 10 years will generate over 120
million metric tons of wet sludge (enough to
cover ten square miles to a depth of nine
feet). While the tonnage of residuals is
estimated to be less than one-third the
tonnage of municipal and industrial solid
waste ten years from now, residuals are
essentially made up of concentrated pollu-
tants. Unless properly disposed of, they
could pose a significant threat to ground-
water, because they tend to contain many
of the most toxic, hazardous, and noxious
pollutants.
Facing Uncertainty
What is the bottom line? Available infor-
mation suggests that \~nepotential threat to
the groundwater resource is increasing and
will continue to increase—unless we act.
Good information on the actual and
potential impact of waste disposal on
groundwater, however, is still sketchy.
Groundwater quality monitoring is far more
difficult and expensive than surface water
monitoring. One thing we do know for sure
is that only a tiny fraction of land disposal
sites have any groundwater monitoring.
Until we know more, we are gambling for
high stakes on a very uncertain proposition.
Trying to assess groundwater adequacy
in the year 2001 is like gazing into a crystal
ball: the closer we look, the cloudier it
becomes. Uncertainty is compounded by
uncertainty. Scientists need much more
information before they can determine
exactly how much of the waste going into
the ground is hazardous. How soon will the
various wastes break down, if ever? How
widely will they be dispersed? What are the
health risks of long-term exposure to low
level of toxic substances in drinking water?
There are still too many "ifs" to provide any
certain guarantee of groundwater
adequacy. What we have is more like a 90-
day limited warranty.
There are other important "ifs" that will
also affect the final picture. Here are some
of them:
Energy Use and Development
Energy use and development will have
important impacts on both the quality and
quantity of groundwater. It takes water to
mine coal; drill for oil or gas; mine and
refine uranium, synthesize and refine oil or
gas, pipe coal slurry; and extract petroleum
from oil shale, heavy oil formations, and tar
sands—and to cool the power plants heated
by any of the above. Each of these uses can
deplete or pollute groundwater to some
degree.
Like groundwater, energy is a regional
resource and a regional issue. Physics and
economics limit the feasibility of trans-
porting coal and electrical power over
transcontinental distances. Aquifers in the
East already bear the scars of energy
development. Coal mining runoff and
drainage in the Appalachians has been a
major groundwater pollutant. In Michigan,
exploratory gas wells drilled in the 1800s
and abandoned without proper plugging
have rendered large amounts of ground-
water saline and useless. The West,
however, is likely to feel the greatest
groundwater impacts from future energy
development. In fact, most current U.S.
energy development is taking place in the
water-poor States.
An example is the Upper Colorado River
Basin. This mineral-rich, water-poor water-
shed covering portions of Wyoming, Utah,
Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico has
been proposed as a site for many kinds of/
development: power plants, coal minj
synfuels, shale oil recovery, uraniumrnines
and mills, slurry pipelines, andoeothermal
wells.
Predictions of the groundwater impacts
of future energy development in the Upper
Colorado differ widely. A1980 General
Accounting Office report concluded that,
even with energy projects, the basin's
groundwater would be adequate until at
least the year 2000. A 1979 EPA report,
however, concluded that significant con-
tamination and depletion of groundwater
would be likely. Behind the differing
conclusions in this one case, there is a
more basic uncertainty over how much of
what types of energy the Nation will be
using in the year 2000, and how fast our
per capita energy demands will be growing.
Groundwater adequacy in other regions
may also depend on how we resolve energy
issues.
Growth Patterns and
Land Management
Both groundwater needs and ground-
water pollution tend to be concentrated in
densely populated areas. The trend in the
United States during the last several
decades has been a steady concentration of
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population into cities and metropolitan
areas (although it has leveled off recently).
More people mean greater demand for
drinkable tapwater. It also means more
domestic garbage, more industrial waste,
and more land disturbed by construction—
all within a small geographic area. The
result is that many U.S. cities today are
having to drill expensive new wells farther
and farther outside their own limits to find
water fit to drink.
The city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, typifies
this dilemma. Because the Bay itself is
seriously polluted by wastes and runoff
from an intensely developed agricultural
and industrial watershed, the city has had
to turn to inland wells for drinkable water.
Urban development has paved over aquifer
recharge areas, and present wells may
soon be inadequate. Eventually, the city
may have to pipe and pump its water all the
way from Lake Michigan at a sharply
increased cost.
In many other cities, the problem is not
merely one of too many people living and
working in too small an area. It is also a
result of how they manage the land within
the municipal or metropolitan area. Most
cities and counties already have the land
management tools they need to solve some
of their own groundwater problems. Many
are already doing so. Reasonable
restrictions on subdivision lot size, onsite
stormwater holding ponds for new develop-
ments, zoning limits on septic system
density, better street sweeping methods
and schedules, ordinances to control con-
struction site runoff, responsible sanitary
landfill practices, and legal prosecution of
industrial polluters are all within the
powers of a municipality. Many com-
munities are finding that careful and
appropriate land management, far from
impeding economic growth, is the key to
sustaining it in decades to come.
Agricultural Practices and Food
Production
No nationwide assessment of future
groundwater adequacy can risk ignoring
the fact that 68% of all water withdrawn
from the Nation's aquifers is used by
irrigated agriculture. Agriculture can be
both a cause and a victim of groundwater
pollution. The biggest problems are salinity
and nitrates. Methods are already available
for controlling these problems in ways
consistent with the long-term economic
benefit of the farmer. These "Best Manage-
ment Practices" include efficient irrigation,
erosion control, and fertilizer and pesticide
use. But groundwater protection has
received relatively little attention compared
to surface water in the development of
nonpoint source agricultural water quality
projects.
In a time of spiralling farming costs and
tumbling commodity prices, many farmers
today can not afford to farm for the long
term. They are hanging on by their finger-
nails and farming to survive another year.
Because the larger society receives the
benefits of an individual farmer's pollution
control actions, cost-sharing programs will
probably be needed to give the farmer
enough incentive to act.
Ultimately, however, groundwater
adequacy will depend on the larger patterns
and trends in agricultural production and
land and water use. Despite water
depletion in certain areas, irrigated
agriculture in the United States appears to
be increasing at an accelerating rate.
Irrigated acreage increased from 37 million
acres in 1958 to 58 million acres by 1977,
growing by 56% in two decades. And
groundwater provided about 41 % of all
irrigation needs in 1975. Irrigation has also
accounted for the largest share of the
increase in groundwater withdrawals
during recent decades. Groundwater with-
drawals for irrigation grew from 21 billion
gallons per day (bgd) in 1950 to about 57
bgd in 1975. Continuation of these trends is
certain to mean increased stress on the
groundwater resource.
A considerable portion of the irrigated
farmland in the United States, especially
the portion with salinity problems, is
economically marginal—that is, very close
to the break-even point where it is worth
farming. If the history of the last decade
repeats itself in the next decade, a
significant amount of cropland will shift in
and out of production, or from one crop to
another, in response to economic forces.
Federal agricultural policies (food export
policies, commodity price supports, land set
asides, water supply development cost of
energy, pricing decisions, and others) will
have profound impacts on patterns of
agricultural production. These policies are
difficult to predict, but we do know that
future increases in crop production and
producing cropland acreage are likely to
bring proportional increases in ground-
water withdrawals and pollution.
Making the Odds
Groundwater is one of the most precious
renewable resources America has—at
least, it may be renewable if we take care of
it. Will there be enough groundwater of the
right quality in the right places for the uses
we want to make of it in the year 2001 ?
That is not so certain, because it depends
on what we do in the meantime. It will
depend on the many hard decisions the
Nation has yet to face in water develop-
ment, waste disposal, energy, land
management, and food production. Specu-
lating about the future is a tricky business
for an important reason: we create the
future and set the odds ourselves. •
Bill M*rr, USOA
>.>>4^
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For More
Information
The following are accessible and authori-
tative sources for further information on
groundwater and groundwater pollution.
They form the bulk of the sources used to
prepare articles for this report. Ordering
information is provided.
Please contact these sources—and not
the editors—for desired publications.
Environmental Impact Statement—Cri-
teria for Classification of Solid Waste
Disposal Facilities and Practice* (1978).
Available from EPA Office of Solid Waste,
WH-562,401 M Street, S.W.. Washington,
DC 20460.
Everybody's Problem: Hazardous Waste
(1980). Available from EPA Technical
information and Communication Branch,
Off ice of Solid Waste, WH-562,401 M
Street, S.W., Washington, DC 20460.
Oroundwater (1979), by R. Allen Freeze and
John A. Cherry. Available from Prentice-
Hall, Inc; Route 9W, Ertglewood Cliffs, NJ
07631. Price: $29.95 plus tax.
Ground Water Contamination in the
Northwest State* (May 1975), EPA 660/3-
75-108, by Fritz van der Leeden. Lawrence
A. Cerrillo, and David W. Miller. Available
from NTIS, 5286 Port Royal Road, Spring-
field, VA 22161. Order No. PB 242-860/AS.
Price: $20.00.
Ground Water Contamination in the
Northeast States (1974). EPA 660/2-74-
056, by D.W. Miller, F.A. DeLuca, and T.L
Tessier. Available from NTIS, 5285 Port
Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161. Order
No. PB 235-702/AS. Price: $18.00.
Ground Water Pollution In Arizona. Cali-
fornia, Nevada, and Utah (Dec. 1971), by
Dean Fuhriman and James Barton,
Fuhriman, Barton & Associates, for the
Office of Research and Monitoring.
Available from NTIS, 5285 Port Royal Road,
Springfield. VA 22161. Order No. PB 211 -
145/8BA. Price: $15.00.
Ground Water Pollution in the South
Central States (June 1973). EPA No. R-
2,73-268 by M.R. Scatf, J.W. Keely, and
C.J. LaFevers. Available from NTIS, 5285
Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161.
Order No. PB 222-178. Price: *12.00.
Ground Water Pollution From Subsurface
Excavations (1973). EPA-430/9-73-012.
EPA Water Planning Division. Available
from Forms and Publications Center, U.S.
EPA MD-41. Research Triangle Park, NC
27711. PDS Order No. 0089.
Ground Water Resource Evaluation
(1970), by William Walton. Published by
McGraw-Hill. Inc., 1221 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020. Price:
$27.95.
Hydrogeology (1966), by Stanley N. Davis
and Roger J.M. DeWiest. Published by John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.. 1 Wiley Drive,
Somerset. NJ 08873. Price: $26.95.
A Manual off Laws. Regulations and
Institutions for Control of Ground Water
Pollution (June 1976), EPA-440/9-76-
006, EPA Water Planning Division.
Available from Forms and Publications
Center. U.S. EPA MD-41, Research Tri-
angle Park, NC 27711. PDS Order No.
3276.
Monitoring Ground Water Quality:
Methods and Costs (May 1976), EPA
600/4-76-023. by Lome G. Everett,
Kenneth D. Schmidt. Richard M. Tinlin, and
David K. Todd, General Electric Company,
GE75TMP-69. Available from NTIS, 5285
Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161.
Order No. PB 257-113/9WP. Price: $11.00.
Planning Workshops to Develop Recom-
mendations for a Groundwatar Protection
Strategy (June 1980). Available from EPA
Office of Drinking Water, 401 M Street,
S.W., Washington, DC 20460.
Polluted Ground Water: A Review of
Significant Literature (March 1974), EPA-
600/4-74-001. Available from EPA Office
of Research and Development, 401 M
Street, S.W., Washington. DC 20460. Also
available from Water Information Center,
Inc., 7 High Street, Huntington, NY 11743.
Preventing Ground Water Pollution:
TowardsaCoordinatedStrategy to Protect
Critical Recharge Zones, Vol. 3 (1979), by
James Tripp and Adam Jaffe. Availablefrom
Harvard Environmental Law Review.
Proceedings of the Fourth National
Ground Water Quality Symposium
(August 1979), EPA-600/9-79-029, Office
of Research and Development. Available
from Roberts. Kerr Environmental Research
Laboratory. Ada, OK 74820.
A Report to Congress—Waste Disposal
Practices and their Effect on Ground Water
(January 1977). Available from EPA Office
of Solid Waste, 401 M Street, S.W.,
Washington, DC 20460.
Siting of Hazardous Waste Management /
Facilities and Public Opposition (Novem-
ber 1979). EPA No. SW-809. Available from
EPA Office of Solid Waste, 401 M Street,
S.W., Washington, DC 20460.
Solid Waste Facts, A Statistical Hand-
book. Available from EPA Office of Solid
Waste, WH-562.401 M Street. S.W.,
Washington, DC 20460.
Subsurface Pollution Problems in the
U.S. (1972), EPA Water Planning Division.
Available from Forms and Publications
Center, US EPA MD-41. Research Triangle
Park. NC 27711. PDS Stock Number 0498.
Summary Appraisal* for the Nation's
Ground Water Resources (By Drainage
Basins), U.S. Department of the Interior,
Geological Survey, Professional Papers
813A through H. Available from Superin-
tendent of Documents, U.S. Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402.
Variously Priced.
Surface Impoundments and Their Effects
on Ground Water Quality in the United
States—A Preliminary Survey (June
1978), EPA-570/9-78-004. Available from
EPA. Office of Drinking Water, 401 M Street,
S.W., Washington, DC 20460.
Public Participation Regulations, Title 40,
Code of Federal Regulations, Part 25, "Public
Participation in Programs under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act, the Safe
Drinking Water Act, and the Clean Water
Act." Federal Register, February 16, 1979.
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