Water Coll. ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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. ------- "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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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. ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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. ------- 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. ------- • 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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^ ------- 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. ------- {interested in Water Quality? If you would like to receive information on Water Quality Management why not ask to have your name added to the WQM mailing list? The following will help us determine what kinds of information you are interested in receiving. If you have not sent us a request before, please answer these questions as fully as possible. To return this page, cut it out along the dotted line, fold in thirds, and seal (preferably with tape) so that the address window on this side of the page faces outward. 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