WATER QUALITY 2000
Phase II Report
Problem Identification
September 1990
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NOTICE
This report was approved by a straw vote of the organizations participating in
the Water Quality 2000 Member Congress, held September 12-14,1990, in An-
napolis, Maryland. It is now being circulated to all member organizations for
ratification.
For more information, contact Water Quality 2000,601 Wythe Street, Alexandria,
VA 22314-1994, (703) 684-2418.
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Table of Contents
FOREWORD iii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY iv
Sources of Impairment iv
The Condition of the Nation's Waters and Aquatic Habitat vi
Causes of Water Quality Problems viii
Impediments to Solutions ix
Looking Forward Toward Phase HI Solutions x
I. WATER QUALITY CONDITIONS IN 1990 1
Sources and Effects of Impaired Water Resources 3
Measurements of Progress Toward Clean Water Goals 6
The condition of surface waters 7
The condition of groundwater 11
The condition of aquatic resources 13
Measurement of Commitment to Gean Water Programs 14
Investments in water pollution control 14
Services delivered 15
Numbers of trained water quality professionals 16
Public awareness of water quality issues 17
Growth in the number of water quality institutions 18
Conclusion 18
II. THE ROOT CAUSES OF WATER QUALITY PROBLEMS 19
Societal Causes of Water Quality Impairment 20
How we live 21
How we produce and consume 22
How we farm 24
How we transport people and goods 25
How we plan 27
How we have acted in the past 28
Conclusion 29
HI. IMPEDIMENTS TO IMPROVING WATER QUALITY 30
Narrowly Focused Water Policy 30
Watershed-based planning 31
Cross-media effects 32
The relationship between water quantity and water quality 33
Pollutant prevention 33
Environmental results 35
Institutional Conflicts 36
Federal government 36
State government 37
Local government 38
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The private sector 39
Citizens'organizations 40
Legislative and Regulatory Overlaps, Conflicts, and Gaps 40
Overlapping statutory or regulatory controls 41
Conflicting policies and programs 42
Gaps in authority 43
Insufficient Funding and Incentives for Water Quality Improvement 45
Inadequate Attention to the Need for Trained Personnel 47
Limitations on Research and Development 49
Inadequate Public Commitment to Water Resource Quality 51
Conclusion 53
IV. WATER QUALITY CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE 54
Preventing Pollution 54
Controlling Runoff from Urban and Rural Lands 55
Focusing on Toxic Constituents 56
Protecting Aquatic Ecosystems 56
Coping with Multi-media Pollution 57
Protecting Groundwater 57
Increasing Scientific Understanding of Water Quality Issues 58
Promoting Wise Use of Resourcese 58
Setting Priorities 59
Providing Safe Drinking Water 60
Managing Growth and Development 61
Financing Water Resource Improvements 61
V. THE NEXT STEP 63
NOTES 64
APPENDIX A
Organization, Goal, and Mission of Water Quality 2000 69
APPENDIX B
Member Organizations 72
APPENDDCC
Steering Committee Members and Their Affiliations 74
APPENDIX D
Work Group Participants 75
APPENDIX E
Water Quality 2000 Vision Statement and Goal 82
APPENDDCF
Summaries of Work Group Reports 83
APPENDIX G
Major Milestones in Federal Water Quality Legislation 118
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FOREWORD
This report is a starting point in that it identifies problems
without considering solutions. The phased approach of Hater Quality
2000—which proceeds from problem identification to discussion of
solutions to public outreach—allows for fully informed debate that
considers all interests and points of view. However, this approach
also poses some risk. Phase II is limited to identifying water
quality problems without considering solutions. This does not
imply, however, that solutions do not exist, or that we should fail
to give credit to the substantial progress that has been made.
Readers should rather consider this document as merely the first
half of a two-part report. It has been developed and adopted in the
recognition that a common understanding of these problems among all
parties will facilitate a unified approach to formulating solutions
during Phase III.
While all the problems discussed in this report are important,
some are more severe than others. Despite the risk of leaving
readers with the impression that all problems are equal, this
report does not attempt to assign priorities. Phase III will
include additional consideration of which problems should receive
priority for action.
To assist in this effort, readers are encouraged to provide
Water Quality 2000 with their views about the severity and relative
priority of the problems identified here. Comments should be sent
to Paul Woodruff (chairman of the Water Quality 2000 Steering
Committee), Water Quality 2000, 601 Wythe Street, Alexandria, VA
22314-1994, (703) 684-2418.
September 1990 Page iii
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Water Quality 2000—a consortium of more than 80 public,
private, and nonprofit organizations—began a four-phase effort in
1988 to develop and implement an integrated national policy for
water quality. This policy for protection and enhancement of U.S.
waterbodies ultimately supports Water Quality 2000's goal—a
society living in harmony with healthy natural systems. This report
completes Phase II, the identification of problems. Phase III will
focus on solutions, and Phase IV will begin the implementation
process by transmitting recommendations to the Congress and all who
influence water quality. A complete description of the processes
by which Water Quality 2000 was organized and now conducts its
deliberations is presented in Appendix A.
Based on the reports of ten work groups, which brought
together hundreds of water quality experts, Water Quality 2000 has
concluded that today's water quality problems stem from a variety
of human activities and that the public policies and programs
currently in place are not sufficient to deal with them. While
significant progress has been made to improve the condition of the
nation's fresh and marine waters, the national interim goal of
"fishable and swimmable" waters has not been attained in many
areas. Moreover, much work is needed to achieve the broader,
overall objectives of a wide range of water legislation including
the broad objective of the Clean Water Act—to restore and maintain
the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's
surface waters.
SOURCES OF IMPAIRMENT
Degradation (pollution) of the nation's water resource results
from direct human activity, such as municipal or industrial
discharges of wastewaters, and from indirect actions, such as land
alteration for farming, forestry, mining, transportation, or
development. Sources of impairment vary from location to location
and among surface waters, ground waters, and aquatic resources. Yet
overall, the following sources (listed alphabetically) contribute
significantly to impairment in many locations and ecosystems:
o Agriculture
Agricultural runoff is the source of impairment of
55 percent of surveyed river miles found to be
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impaired and 58 percent of surveyed lake acres.
Runoff includes large volumes of sediment and
nutrients and smaller amounts of more acutely toxic
pollutants, such as pesticides. Agricultural
chemicals are significant sources of groundwater
contamination, and animal production is a major
source of phosphorus and pathogens in lakes.
Agriculture also accounts for wetlands losses and
damage to riparian and floodplain environments.
o Community Wastewater
While publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) remove
many pollutants from community wastewater, these
facilities nonetheless are the points of entry of
remaining pollutants into the nation's waters. In
addition to continuing on-going efforts to improve
the operation and maintenance of these facilities,
communities face the following problems: the control
of pollution from combined sewer overflows,
stormwater, and nonpoint sources; the control of
toxic pollutants from industrial, residential, and
other sources; and the upgrading of existing
facilities and construction of new ones to control
nutrients, pathogens, and other pollutants.
o Deposition of Atmospheric Contaminants
Aerial transport of acidic compounds, toxics such
as PCBs, and nitrates, degrade fresh and marine
waters and impair the health of ecosystems in
several parts of the U.S. Sources include utilities,
industry, motor vehicles, and agricultural
practices.
o Industry
The manufacturing, service, power generating, and
solid and hazardous waste management sectors
discharge toxics and other contaminants, produce
runoff, and contribute airborne contaminants; and
releases of waste heat.
o Land Alteration
A wide variety of land uses—including logging,
mining, road building, and development (especially
September 1990 Page v
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urban and suburban sprawl)—contribute to runoff of
water, soil, and chemicals used in and on the land.
These activities also degrade or destroy essential
aquatic resources such as wetlands and riparian
areas and the fauna and flora that depend on them.
o Stocking and Harvest
Intentional and accidental introduction of exotics
and overharvesting of fish and shellfish resources
often result in irreversible impacts on aquatic
ecosystems.
o Transportation
Major sources of impairment from transportation
activities include shipping, surface transport, and
pipelines; spills and other discharges of oil and
other substances; runoff from transportation
facilities; destruction of wetlands and other
aquatic resources from dredging and building
transportation works; and air emissions.
o Urban Runoff
Urban runoff is a major source of water pollutants.
Municipal and industrial stormwater remains largely
unregulated. Residuals of chemicals applied to
suburban lawns may ultimately find their way to
surface and ground waters.
o Water Projects
By removing physical habitat and water required by
aquatic species, channelization, dams, and
consumptive use of water are implicated in the
extinction of many species. Dams and their
resultant reservoirs have been particularly
troublesome for anadromous and riverine species,
respectively.
THE CONDITION OF THE NATION'S WATERS AND AQUATIC HABITAT
Neither the quality of the nation's waters nor the health of
ecosystems is measured regularly. Current ambient monitoring of the
chemistry and biology of waters and aquatic resources is far too
September 1990 Page vj
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limited to be of use in assessing the performance of water
programs. Moreover, data on the release of contaminants to surface
and ground waters are incomplete, covering only a fraction of all
waters and, typically, a small number of pollutants. The lack of
such fundamental measures of progress toward cleaner water leads
to conflicting reports on the condition of water quality and
aquatic ecosystems. Yet, we can see the results of water quality
programs in the return of game fish to rivers once thought
incapable of supporting fisheries. Evidence indicates that progress
is being made. Although designated uses allow for a wide variety
of water quality, some waters now enjoy sufficient quality to
support the uses specified by the states. At the same time, there
are failures of programs: when surface and ground waters are
reported as contaminated or unfit for use as intended, when aquatic
habitat is destroyed as a result of land development and other
activities, or when contaminant advisories are necessary because
the harvestable fish are unsafe for human consumption.
While contamination of surface waters from toxic chemicals is
thought to be more localized than from other sources such as
siltation, nutrients, or organic matter, local impacts on public
health and aquatic life can be severe where toxics have accumulated
or continue to be discharged. In general, the nation has not fully
measured the prevalence of toxics in the environment, fully studied
routes of exposure, or sufficiently understood levels of concern.
The high cost of monitoring for toxics and conducting health
effects studies partly explains this situation.
Comprehensive data on the quality of groundwater is not
collected routinely. Working from anecdotal reports and one-time
surveys, however, it is probably reasonable to conclude that the
shallowest aquifers are at greatest risk of contamination from
human activities, especially those aquifers where the overlying
soil is thin and permeable. Contamination of shallow aquifers
results from agricultural sources such as pesticides, animal waste,
or nitrates from the application of fertilizers, and from
industrial or other sources such as synthetic organic chemicals,
leaky underground storage tanks, and spills. As yet, most deeper
aquifers are believed to be relatively free from contamination.
However, a survey conducted by EPA shows that about 20 percent of
all drinking water aquifers (shallow and deep) are contaminated to
some degree by man-made chemicals.1
Wetlands are not only important breeding and nursery grounds
for aquatic life but also have an important function in improving
water quality, recharging groundwater, flood control, recreation,
September 1990 Page vii
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fish and wildlife habitat, shoreline protection, and water storage.
These resources are being rapidly destroyed by a variety of human
activities.
CAUSES OF WATER QUALITY PROBLEMS
The fundamental causes of water quality problems lie in
seemingly unrelated aspects of life: the way we farm, produce,
consume, transport people and goods, and plan for the future. Many
aspects of modern life and past practices put pressure on water
quality. Until recently, these activities proceeded with little
recognition of the degradation they caused in surface waters,
groundwater, or aquatic habitats.
Typically, individuals and society as a whole make choices
that reflect values specific to living, producing, consuming, or
working—but not necessarily to achieving clean water. Sometimes
these values conflict with water quality goals. Until very
recently, conflicts remained largely unrecognized, at least until
water quality problems became so apparent that the public demanded
action, as it did in the early 1970s in response to the Cuyahoga
River catching fire, or in the 1980s to the declining condition of
the Chesapeake Bay. Historically, such conflicts were resolved
through relatively narrow legislation to restore and protect water
quality by altering the direct sources of impairment but not
necessarily the forces underlying polluting behavior. Even today,
when we are beginning to recognize some of the basic conflicts
between human activities and environmental quality, few
contemporary solutions address the basic economic and social forces
at the root of water problems. Governmental water quality programs
and policies are part of the problem to the degree that they do not
fully address these societal causes of impairment.
Hence, while it may take time to reconcile societal values
regarding the way we live, produce, consume, farm, or work with
our preference for a healthy environment, drawing attention to the
effects of our societal decisions on water quality is critical.
Whether or not Water Quality 2000's goal for the nation can be
achieved will be determined, in large part, by whether we can
reshape these societal functions in ways that are compatible with
protecting and enhancing water quality and aquatic ecosystems.
September 1990 Page viii
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IMPEDIMENTS TO SOLUTIONS
Societal factors in conflict with a healthy environment
produce serious, long-term impediments to improved water quality.
In the near term, however, opportunities exist to address
impediments posed by current water policies and programs. The work
group reports consistently raised the following types of
impediments:
o Narrowly focused water policies impede the holistic
solutions that address watershed-based planning,
cross-media effects, the connection between water quantity
and water quality, incentives for pollution prevention, and
management for environmental results.
o Conflicts among water quality institutions impede
collaborative solutions in which all levels of government,
the private sector, and individuals participate according
to their strengths and limitations.
o Legislative and regulatory overlaps, conflicts, and gaps
sometimes create inefficient or ineffective solutions to
water problems or may result in the underprotection of
water quality or water-based natural resources.
o Inadequate funding and ineffective economic incentives for
clean water programs and construction, operation, and
maintenance of facilities impedes progress toward national
goals and is out of touch with general public opinion and
actual need.
o Inadequate attention to the need for trained personnel has
created a serious gap between a limited supply of new and
retrained professionals and a growing demand for their
skills.
o Current research and development programs fail to meet the
challenge presented by the complexity of today's water
quality problems and the need to improve our basic
scientific understanding of ecosystems.
o Inadequate communication has resulted in citizens who are
largely unaware of the linkages between daily life and
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water resources, what they can do to improve the quality
of water and aquatic habitat, or why they should
participate in the first place.
LOOKING FORWARD TOWARD PHASE III SOLUTIONS
The results of public and private efforts to control sources
of water pollutants and generally improve the quality of waters
and aquatic habitats over the years have been mixed. Some problems
have been solved, others await the results of programs only
recently put in place, while still others remain challenges for the
future. One of foremost challenges we face is to move the debate
over water quality toward the root causes of degradation in water
resources presented in this paper. In practice, this means thinking
more carefully about how to pursue societal goals for living,
working, farming, and producing in ways that are consistent with
improving the quality of the nation's waters.
Water Quality 2000 identified the following 12 issues that
merit consideration in Phase III of our work:
o Preventing pollution,
o Controlling runoff from urban and rural lands,
o Focusing on toxic constituents,
o Protecting aquatic ecosystems,
o Coping with multi-media pollution,
o Protecting groundwater,
o Increasing scientific understanding of water quality
issues,
o Promoting wise use of resources,
o Setting priorities,
o Providing safe drinking water,
September 1990 Page x
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o Managing growth and development, and
o Financing water resource improvements.
We feel confident that this report presents a balanced
description of today's water quality problems, their causes, and
the impediments to solutions. We are optimistic that these
conclusions will stand as a sound foundation upon which to
formulate solutions in the next phase of our work. We eagerly look
forward to Phase III of our project and extend an invitation to all
who wish to contribute to the debate over solutions to comment on
this report.
September 1990 Page ri
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I. WATER QUALITY CONDITIONS IN 1990
The effects of water pollution on human health and natural
systems were first acknowledged in the U.S. as a societal problem
in the 18th century. Major urban centers began to deal with this
problem by installing sewers shortly thereafter. The construction
of wastewater treatment facilities followed in the 19th century.
Water quality legislation has been in place in many states since
early in this century. By 1970, the nation could point to over $70
billion in municipal wastewater treatment assets and almost $80
billion in water supply system assets. These facilities provided
three-quarters of the population with sewage collection, two-thirds
of the population with at least primary treatment, and about half
the population with secondary treatment.2 About 85 percent of the
U.S. population was served by centralized water supply. Also by
1970, state regulation resulting in about $10 billion a year in
private investment in pollution control facilities addressed the
problem of industrial discharge, at least to some degree.3
While the federal interest in water quality was established
as early as 1899 (See Appendix G: Major Milestones in Federal Water
Quality Legislation), the basis for today's federal program was
established in 1972. In that year, Congress passed amendments to
the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), which together
with subsequent amendments is now commonly called the Clean Water
Act. The Act had an ambitious objective—to restore and maintain
the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's
waters. As interim goals, the Act called for eliminating discharges
of pollutants into navigable waters and achieving fishable and
swimmable conditions.
September 1990 Page 1
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OBJECTIVE AND GOALS OF THE CLEAN WATER ACT
(1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act)
The Clean Water Act instituted broad federal
authority over all public waters and set as its
objective:
o To restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and
biological integrity of the nation's waters.
o Consistent with its other provisions, the Clean
Water Act established two interim goals:
(1) eliminating the discharge of
pollutants into navigable waters
by 1985 (the zero discharge
goal), and
(2) achieving, wherever attainable,
a water quality that protects
fish, shellfish, and wildlife
and provides for recreation in
and on the water (the fishable
and swixnmable goal).
In practice, the zero discharge goal is implemented
with respect to point sources principally through
a program of technology-based effluent guidelines,
standards, and permits that require the elimination
of discharges of pollutants where technologically
and economically achievable. Stricter controls have
been imposed where needed to meet water quality
goals. See Appendix G for a more complete list of
major federal legislation that affects water
quality and aquatic resources.
September 1990 rage Z
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Since refocusing national clean water programs in 1972, the
U.S. has enjoyed nearly two decades of governmental, private, and
individual attention to water quality protection. Under federal
legislation, public and private responsibilities for protecting
water quality have shifted over time, as have statutory priorities
for action. An even longer history of state statutory action also
has contributed to shifts in public and private roles. Many
factors have influenced these shifts, including the advance of
scientific knowledge, the degree of public awareness of water
quality problems, resource limitations, and the availability of
pollution control technologies. Much progress has been made, but
much more remains to be done.
SOURCES AND EFFECTS OF IMPAIRED WATER RESOURCES
Five years after the 1985 "zero discharge" goal of the Clean
Water Act, and despite the Act's national policy of "no toxics in
toxic amounts," we continue to release large quantities of toxics
and other pollutants into the nation's surface and ground waters
from a variety of sources. The 1983 goal of "fishable and swimmable
water" remains equally elusive. While many waters have improved
since 1972, some have deteriorated and others have barely kept
even.
The failure to meet these interim goals means that the
overriding objective of the Clean Water Act—to restore and
maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the
nation's waters—has not been met for a large percentage of our
surface waters. It also results from our overall failure to protect
rivers as rivers, lakes as lakes, and estuaries as estuaries. By
focusing only on chemical water quality, we ignore the overall
health of the biological system. Consequently, we build right up
to the water's edge, remove essential coastal and riparian
vegetation and other habitat, and channelize and alter the course
of our natural waterways. Natural diversity and aquatic
productivity is lost as a result.
The principal sources of impairment include (in alphabetical
order):
o Agriculture
Agricultural runoff is the source of impairment of 55
percent of surveyed river miles found to be impaired and
58 percent of surveyed lake acres.4 Runoff from
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agricultural lands includes large volumes of sediment and
nutrients and smaller amounts of more acutely toxic
pollutants, such as pesticides. Agricultural chemicals
are significant sources of groundwater contamination, as
well, and animal production is a major source of
phosphorus and pathogens in lakes. Agriculture also
accounts for wetlands losses and damage to riparian and
floodplain environments.
o Community Wastewater
While community treatment plants remove many pollutants
from domestic and industrial sewage, these facilities
nonetheless are the points of entry of pollutants into
the nation's waters. In addition to continuing on-going
efforts to improve the operation and maintenance of these
facilities, communities face the following problems: the
control of pollution from combined sewer overflows,
stormwater, and nonpoint sources; the control of toxic
pollutants from industrial, residential, and other
sources; and the upgrading existing facilities and
construction of new ones to control nutrients, pathogens,
and other pollutants.
o Deposition of Atmospheric Contaminants
Aerial transport of acidic compounds and other toxic
substances has been identified as a major problem
affecting lakes and estuaries in several parts of the
U.S. Acidification of lakes and streams is directly
lethal to aquatic organisms. Deposition of airborne
nitrates degrades estuary water quality, causes algal
blooms, and impairs healthy ecosystems. Atmospheric
sources of PCBs and other toxics are of concern in the
Great Lakes, marine waters, and estuaries.
o Industry
Although more than 90 percent of major industrial
dischargers are in compliance with their discharge
permits, according to EPA's 1987 Toxic Release Inventory
(TRI), manufacturing sources alone continue to discharge
an estimated 360 million pounds of toxic pollutants per
year into rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, and another
570 million pounds into sewage treatment plants.5
Non-manufacturing sources, such as power-generating
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utilities (nuclear, fossil fuel, and hydro), solid and
hazardous waste treaters, mining, and others, also
contribute significant additional amounts of toxic,
radioactive, thermal, and other pollutants.
o Land Alteration
A wide variety of land uses—including logging, mining,
grazing, road building, and development (especially urban
and suburban sprawl)—contribute to runoff of water,
soil, and chemicals used in and on the land. These
activities also degrade or destroy essential aquatic
resources such as wetlands, headwater streams, and
riparian areas, and the fauna and flora that depend on
them.
o Stocking and Harvest
Intentional and accidental introduction of exotics and
overharvesting of fish and shellfish resources often
result in irreversible impacts on aquatic ecosystems.
o Transportation
Major sources include spills and other discharges of oil
and other substances from ships, surface transportation,
and pipelines; runoff from transportation facilities;
destruction of wetlands and other aquatic resources from
dredging navigation channels and building transportation
works; and emissions. More than 10,000 oil spills release
15 to 20 million gallons of oil into the nation's waters
each year.
o Urban Runoff
Contaminated runoff continues as a major source of water
pollutants. Municipal and industrial stormwater remain
largely unregulated. Residuals of chemicals applied to
suburban lawns may ultimately find their way to surface
and ground waters.
o Water Projects
By removing physical habitat and water required by
aquatic species, channelization, dams, and consumptive
use of water are implicated in the extinction of many
species. Dams and their resultant reservoirs have been
September 1990 Page 5
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particularly troublesome for anadromous and riverine
species, respectively.
Water quality is impaired not only by current activities but by
past actions that have altered the aquatic regime or have resulted
in on-going releases after the productive activity has ceased.
Polluted water and lost habitat can pose real problems for
human health and the environment. The abundance, diversity, and
structure of natural fish and wildlife populations may be impaired,
while commercial, sport, and subsistence fisheries and shellfish
beds may show reduced productivity. Food and water supplies can be
contaminated and waters rendered unsafe for swimming or other
recreational uses. An important part of our national and natural
heritage in clean water has already been lost, and the balance is
under stress.
MEASUREMENTS OF PROGRESS TOWARD CLEAN WATER GOALS
Ideally, to measure progress of clean water programs
nationally, investigators would have access to regularly collected
data on physical, chemical, and biological conditions in fresh and
marine waters, groundwater, and aquatic habitats. But since only
limited data exist, various proxy measurements must be used as
substitutes.
The reports that states make to EPA every two years on their
progress toward meeting the Clean Water Act's two interim goals
are the major direct sources of information. Despite their
shortcomings, these 305(b) reports (filed to comply with that
section of the Act) represent the latest available accounts of the
extent to which U.S. waters are meeting the goals of the Clean
Water Act. These reports, however, are somewhat limited. For
example, waterbodies can be reported as meeting uses under very
different criteria across states. Reports often include an
unrepresentative sample of all U.S. waterbodies and generally
measure ambient concentrations of conventional as opposed to toxic
constituents. Data are gathered only from the water column, not the
sediment below, or from aquatic life. This practice limits our
understanding of accumulation of pollutants in the sediment, in
fish, and in other organisms. In addition, this approach limits our
understanding of the complex ecological impacts of other factors
(habitat degradation, flow alteration, species interactions, and
others) that degrade the quality of water resources. Lack of
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carefully formulated biological monitoring programs impairs our
ability to evaluate environmental results of management actions.
Because of the shortcomings of the 305(b) reports, this Phase
II Report also presents a wide variety of proxy, or indirect
measures, such as the amount invested in water quality control
programs, population served by water quality protection facilities,
pounds of pollutants removed from effluents, the degree of public
concern over water quality issues, numbers of trained water quality
professionals, or numbers of water quality institutions. These
proxies represent several different perspectives on progress toward
building national capacity to address future water quality goals.
A summary of current sources of impairment to water quality
for all types of waters is presented in Table 1. Sources for
entries in this table include the reports of Water Quality 2000's
work groups.
The Condition of Surface Waters
Despite significant progress, the national interim fishable
and swimmable goal has not been attained for all waters. Many of
the nation's waterways and aquatic ecosystems continue to be
affected by contaminants from a variety of human sources, including
industry, municipalities, agriculture, and urban runoff.
Without adequate data on trends in water quality, it remains
difficult to draw clear conclusions on our progress. In fact, two
conclusions appear equally valid. Some observers characterize
progress since 1970 primarily as a holding action. They believe
that clean water programs have mainly prevented further degradation
of the nation's surface waters in the face of growing pressures
from economic expansion and population growth. But without the
national effort to improve water quality, others argue, waterbodies
would be much worse off today than 20 years ago because population
and economic output have grown by 25 percent and 50 percent,
respectively. Our gains are reduced discharges of pollutants on a
per capita basis and per dollar of economic output. But the
population and GNP of the nation has grown—by 25 percent and 50
percent, respectively, between 1970 and 1988—so because of growth,
we may be just keeping even on a total loading basis, with the
result that water quality improvement is not universal.
September 1990 Page 7
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TABLE 1
PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF IMPAIRMENT IN
U.S. WATERS AND AQUATIC RESOURCES
RESOURCE
PRINCIPAL SOURl
OF IMPAIRMENT
Surface Water
(river, lakes, streams
marine and estuarine
waters)
Groundwater
(shallow and deep
aquifers)
o Silt, nutrients, and pesticides
from agricultural practices
o Pathogens, organic material, nutrients,
and toxics from community wastewater
o Toxic and heated discharges from
industrial sources
o Pathogens and nutrients from livestock
o Pathogens, organic matter, and toxics
from storm sewers and combined sewer
overflows
o Silt and other pollutants from land
alteration, resource extraction, and
stream channelization
o Spills and other discharges of oil and
other substances from transportation
activities
o Natural leaching of metals, solids,
salts, and radon
o Toxic metals and organics from leaking
underground storage tanks, waste
disposal sites, and landfills
o Percolation of water containing
pathogens, nitrogen, and pesticides from
on-site septic systems and agricultural
practices
o Underground injection of industrial and
resource extraction waste
Aquatic Resources
(wetlands, riparian
areas, and aquatic
habitat)
o Losses and degradation as a result
of agricultural practices such as over-
grazing
o Losses and commercial and industrial
development and transportation
activities
o Siltation as a result of land clearing,
resource extraction, and construction
o Losses from damming, channelization, and
shoreline protection
o Species introductions and overharvest
September 1990
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Fresh Waters. On a streaxn-by-stream basis, efforts to measure
progress toward clean water have been limited. The latest annual
EPA survey (1988) suggests that many waterbodies have been cleaned
up, but others have degraded.6 Lake Erie, apparently doomed to
death in the 1950s, is alive and improving today. Yet despite
improved conditions from the control of conventional pollutants,
the lake still has significant toxic contamination problems. The
International Joint Commission has identified eight Areas of
Concern in Lake Erie and its tributaries, fish consumption
advisories are in effect because of contaminants, and the
biological community has been drastically altered from its historic
condition. The Potomac River, once an unfishable disgrace, is now
populated by numerous species of game fish and is a proud
attraction for tourists and residents of Washington, D.C. Yet there
are also numerous fish consumption advisories, based on
contaminants, in effect for the Potomac River.
There are two interpretations of the 1988 state reports that
addressed the quality of water in 29 percent of the nation's river
miles. Viewed one way, progress has been commendable. Of the waters
measured, 70 percent fully supported designated uses, such as
swimming, drinking, or boating.7 Another 20 percent supported some,
but not all of their designated uses. Only 10 percent of assessed
river miles did not support any of their designated uses. Viewed
another way, there may be less to be encouraged about. That is,
supporting uses does not mean that waterbodies are pristine, nor
are the conclusions drawn from this relatively limited sample
necessarily appropriate for river water quality nationwide. A
designation of "not meeting uses" can mean slightly polluted or
severely polluted. Moreover, states are inconsistent in the
criteria they use to determine if a river section is or is not
meeting designated uses. Causes of impairment—silt, nutrients,
organics, toxics, pathogens, and so on—are not and cannot always
be related to sources of impairment, such as agriculture, industry,
or urban runoff. Typically, EPA and state reports measure water
quality in the water column and not in the bottom sediment or in
fish. Again typically, many factors affecting water resources,
including most toxic contaminants, are not measured at all. A more
statistically robust analysis concluded that 49 percent of stream
segments studied were impaired by degradation in physical habitat
conditions.8 Physical habitat impairment is the leading cause of
extinction in North American fishes.9
The principal cause of identified pollution in rivers and
streams was silt and nutrients —about 42 percent and 26 percent,
September 1990 Page 9
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respectively, of the river miles assessed in 1988 were so impaired.
Pathogens were the cause in nearly 20 percent of impaired miles and
organic enrichment was the cause in another 15 percent. Runoff from
agricultural lands was the source of 55 percent of the total
impairment. Municipal point sources accounted for impairment in
about 16 percent of river miles assessed; resource extraction and
habitat modifications affected 14 percent each. As noted above,
however, these data may be seriously skewed by the absence of
comprehensive monitoring for toxics in water, fish and shellfish,
and the sediment. The remaining sources—silviculture, industry,
construction, land disposal, and combined sewers—affected less
than 10 percent each.
Assessments of lake acres indicated a similar percentage of
impaired waters. Of the 41 percent of lake acres assessed, 74
percent supported designated uses, 16 percent partially supported
uses, and 10 percent failed to support uses. Again, nutrients
accounted for about half the impaired lake acres. Other causes
included siltation (25 percent), organic enrichment (25 percent),
salinity (14 percent), and habitat modification (11 percent) . Other
causes—pathogens, organics, suspended solids, metals, and
pesticides—accounted for less than 10 percent each. Storm sewers
accounted for roughly another 35 percent.
By far, the most prevalent source of pollution in lakes was
agriculture, accounting for nearly 60 percent of impaired lakes
acres. Other important sources included habitat modification (33
percent), storm sewers (28 percent), land disposal (24 percent),
and municipal point sources (15 percent). Other sources, including
industrial point sources, resource extraction, construction,
silviculture, and combined sewer overflows, each accounted for less
than 10 percent.
Marine Waters. It is difficult to accurately assess the extent
of impairment of estuarine and coastal waters because the ultimate
indicator—the biological community—has not been adequately
monitored. However, numerous estuaries have been identified as
critically threatened ecosystems and the majority of estuaries and
many coastal waters are clearly deteriorating.
Municipal point sources—with unspecified contributions of
pollutants such as nutrients, pathogens, organic enrichment, and
toxics—caused the majority (over 50 percent) of identified
impairment in estuaries. In contrast, municipal sources accounted
for a smaller proportion of the impairment of rivers, streams, and
lakes. Resource extraction caused 34 percent and storm sewers 28
September 1990 Page 10
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percent of impaired estuarine square miles. Pollutants from
agricultural runoff affected only about 20 percent of estuary
square miles assessed. The contribution of pollutants from rivers
is also important, but difficult to quantify. Intentional and
accidental discharges of oil and other materials from shipping and
boating also contributed to marine pollution.
Fish consumption advisories are in effect in many coastal
areas (such as for large bluefish taken off New Jersey because of
PCBs), and several fisheries have been depleted (for example,
California sardines, Georges Bank groundfish, redfish in the Gulf
of Mexico).
The Condition of Groundwater
While most groundwater is not currently tapped for drinking
because of high salinity, it is the source of drinking water for
half the U.S. community drinking water systems (somewhat less than
half the population, however) and 95 percent of rural households.
Until recently, groundwater was generally assumed to be pristine.
We now know that in many areas groundwater has been contaminated
by many human activities. Potential sources of contamination
attributable to human activity include hazardous and solid waste
landfills, petroleum and chemical transportation and storage,
septic systems, and the application of pesticides and fertilizer
to crops and lawns. In addition, vast quantities of groundwater are
naturally degraded from metals, solids, and other constituents that
leach from surrounding geologic formations.
Groundwater is found in saturated rock, sand, and other
geologic formations called aquifers. It is part of the earth's
hydrologic cycle, receiving inputs from rain percolating (seeping)
downward through the soil and exchanging water with rivers and
lakes. Generally, groundwater moves very slowly, but it can
sometimes flow swiftly and unpredictably.
Because of these characteristics, protecting groundwater poses
special challenges. Contamination is difficult to detect and
predict; concentrations of contaminants can be high in one place
and absent a few feet away. Contaminants can travel slowly or
rapidly, evenly or erratically, and cleanup once groundwater is
contaminated is difficult if at all possible, expensive, and
time-consuming. Contaminated groundwater can pollute streams,
wetlands, and estuaries.
September 1990 Page 11
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There are no comprehensive national accounts of the current
condition of groundwater. Despite these constraints, the U.S.
Geological Survey, the EPA, and other agencies have conducted a
number of groundwater assessments, from which a partial profile of
groundwater quality emerges. The highlights of one recent
assessment follow.10
o High concentrations of a variety of toxic metals, organic
chemicals, and petroleum products form plumes around point
sources such as leaking underground storage tanks, waste
disposal sites, and landfills. Although the volume of
contaminated water in such plumes is relatively small, tens
of thousands of such sites exist. These types of problems
are, in many cases, a result of past practices and are
concentrated in urban or industrialized areas, although
they are also found in rural areas.
o Some contamination is the result of natural leaching of
constituents from soils. Common natural problems include
concentrations of dissolved solids, sulfate, iron, and
manganese that exceed drinking water standards. In some
western locations, natural concentrations of nitrate exceed
primary drinking water standards—levels of purity for
drinking water determined to be safe under the Safe
Drinking Water Act.
o In some regions, contaminants derived from runoff are
frequently present in shallow wells scattered throughout
an area. Where detected, contaminant concentrations
generally are at minimum detectable levels, although in a
small percentage of water samples, contaminants (such as
nitrates and pesticides) exceed drinking water standards
or health advisories. Such runoff is associated with
densely populated urban areas, agricultural lands, and
concentrations of septic systems in suburban areas. Thus,
shallow groundwater contamination is often related to land
use.
o The shallowest aquifers are at greatest risk of
contamination, especially those where the overlying
unsaturated zone is thin and permeable. Contamination by
nitrates and synthetic organic chemicals of shallow
aquifers is widespread in many areas. For example, 20
September 1990 Page 12
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percent of 124,000 wells analyzed over 25 years had nitrate
contamination attributable to fertilizer application,
septic systems, or animal wastes.
As yet, most deep aquifers are believed to be relatively
free from contamination. Yet a recent EPA survey showed
that about 20 percent of all drinking water aquifers
(shallow and deep) are contaminated to some degree by
man-made chemicals.11
One or more of 47 pesticides that can be attributed to
normal agricultural use have been detected in groundwater
in 26 states.
The Condition of Aquatic Resources
Aquatic resources include wetlands, riparian (shore) habitat,
floodplains, aquatic habitat, and the plant and animal communities
that inhabit these areas.12
Aquatic resources have been degraded and destroyed by a broad
range of human activities. To date, more than half of the inland
and coastal wetlands in the contiguous U.S. have been destroyed,
with 10 states losing 70 percent or more of their original
acreage.13 Agriculture is by far the major cause of wetland loss.
Urbanization, tree harvesting, and grazing have also altered the
integrity of aquatic resources. Damming, channelization, mining,
thermal effects on biota, and water consumption have further
altered and eliminated aquatic habitat and restricted major
fisheries. Fish and wildlife may be affected when aquatic habitats
are degraded. For example, nearly one-third of North American fish
taxa are now at risk of extinction.14 Dams on the Columbia River
blocked access to 50 percent of the basin's headwaters for
anadromous fish, causing an estimated loss equal to 75 to 80
percent of the annual catch.15 Thirty-eight states, in actions
attributable to contamination, have advised against the consumption
of certain fishes or have restricted or closed sport fishing in
some areas.16 In some areas, disposal of waste and other by-products
of human activities has led to contamination of the water column,
sediment, fish, and shellfish by bacteria, viruses, and toxics.
State reporting on the status of wetlands in 1988 was sparse
and uneven; only about one-fourth of the states made reports.17
Incomplete reporting can be traced to the complexity and expense
-------
of wetland monitoring, the lack of a complete database on wetland
acreage, the absence of state water quality standards for wetlands
(on which measures of supporting uses could be based) , and
inconsistent national guidance on the type of information to
collect. Further, no efforts are made to report on the status and
trends of other aquatic habitats, many of which have experienced
widespread degradation, or to demonstrate successful environmental
results of management programs.
MEASUREMENT OF COMMITMENT TO CLEAN WATER PROGRAMS
The 305 (b) reports just discussed make up the most direct data
on water quality progress. However, several indirect measures also
provide valuable perspectives. Most of these indicators measure
our national commitment to water quality rather than conditions in
bodies of water. Nonetheless, they serve as useful indicators of
our current efforts to control pollution and of national capacity
to address these goals in the future.
Investments in Water Pollution Control
As a nation, the U.S. spends more on pollution control per
capita and more per unit of economic output than most other
industrialized nations including Great Britain, Japan, Canada, or
Germany.18 All levels of government (federal, state, local, and
special districts) and industry have reported to the Bureau of the
Census that they have spent $239 billion to build capital
facilities for water pollution control and another $234 billion to
operate facilities and administer water pollution control programs
since 1970 (1986 dollars).19
Much more may have been spent on water pollution control, but
not recorded in Census surveys. For example, water quality is the
principal beneficiary of much of what is spent under the Superfund
and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) programs. Many
industries, such as mining or construction, invest millions in
controlling runoff from sites, but these expenditures are probably
not recorded in standard surveys of water pollution control
expenses.
The assessment of need for additional investment in water
quality is somewhat variable, as it responds to changes in
government regulation, improvements in control technologies and
September 1990 Page 14
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strategies, and shifts in public attitudes about how much spending
is acceptable and how clean is clean. Yet in certain areas,
well-documented estimates exist that indicate a need to invest
substantial sums. EPA's 1988 Needs Survey, for example, concludes
that another $84 billion will have to be spent on municipal
wastewater treatment systems to serve the projected population in
the year 2008 to comply with the requirements of the Clean Water
Act.20 This figure could easily double if communities choose to
invest in the control of urban runoff, combined sewer overflows,
and rehabilitation of current facilities. Moreover, these figures
exclude needed upgrades to comply with the toxic discharge
requirements of the 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act.
Implementation of remedial action plans in critical areas of the
Great Lakes or restoration plans in the nation's estuaries will
increase estimates of need, as well.
EPA's work to implement Section 304(m) of the Clean Water Act
indicates that effluent guidelines and standards must be revised
or developed for many industries. These new requirements are
expected to result in significant new private investment in water
pollution controls.
In 1987, local governments spent about $15 billion to build
and operate drinking water systems. By the year 2000, they will
have to spend nearly $22 billion a year just to maintain the
current levels of service and water purity. Compliance with new
standards of water purity under the 1986 amendments to the Safe
Drinking Water Act will cost local governments another $500 million
a year by the year 2000.21
State water agencies have estimated that, by the mid-1990s,
they will have to spend between $300 million a year and $400
million a year more than they now spend to administer water quality
and drinking water programs.22
Services Delivered
The total population served by central sewers and secondary
treatment of wastewater or better has increased by 76 percent, from
85 million in 1972 to 150 million in 1988.a Federal construction
grants plus state and local shares built some 4,000 sewer systems
and 2,000 treatment plants between 1972 and 1988.2* By 1988, less
than 1 percent of the urban population routinely generated and
discharged wastewater to waterbodies without any treatment.
September 1990 Page IS
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In the 1980s, EPA and the states had a considerable backlog
in issuing wastewater permits to major industrial dischargers. Now,
the backlogs appear to be shrinking. Today only about 13 percent
of major dischargers await renewed permits.25 The figures for minor
dischargers whose effluents individually (but not necessarily
collectively) have less effect on the environment are somewhat less
encouraging, however (32 percent backlog). As of December 1988, 93
percent of major industrial dischargers and 87 percent of major
municipal facilities reported, from the results of their own
discharge monitoring, that they were largely meeting their effluent
limits. Existing permits, however, do not always cover the full
range of pollutants discharged nor do they always protect biotic
integrity.
Drinking water is provided to 200 million Americans (80
percent of the population) by 60,000 community water systems.
Another 140,000 small-scale suppliers deliver drinking water to
nonresidential locations such as campgrounds, schools, and
factories. Forty million Americans are served by individual
drinking water wells.
Numbers of Trained Water Quality Professionals
Separate statistics are not available on the number of water
quality professionals, as distinct from all engineers, life
scientists, or social scientists.26 Yet intuition would suggest
that their numbers have grown in tandem with increased budgets for
water programs and the resultant increase in the number of state,
regional, and local water quality institutions. Some data do
support such intuition. For example, the employment rate for
scientists and engineers, in general, has increased faster than
total U.S. employment, accounting for 3.6 percent of the labor
force in 1986, compared to 2.4 percent a decade earlier.27 Compared
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics* projection of 15 percent average
growth in employment in the 1990s, the outlook for professionals
that typically manage water quality appears bright: 17 percent
growth for civil engineers, 26 percent for biologists, 17 percent
for chemists, and 32 percent for managers in the natural sciences.28
The number of certified operators of water and wastewater
treatment plants increased rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1961,
there were only about 20,000 certified operators of water and
wastewater treatment facilities.29 By 1970, the number of
board-certified water and wastewater treatment plant operators had
September 1990 Page 16
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almost tripled to 57,000. The total almost tripled again by 1980,
with 141,700 that year.30 A new survey in 1990 is expected to show
that growth in the number of certified operators has leveled off.
Public Awareness of Water Quality Issues
By many measures, public awareness of the environment is at
an all-time high. In a major public opinion poll conducted for USA
Today's special Earth Day coverage, for example, Americans were found
to be more concerned about the environment today than in the past.
Two-thirds of the 850 adults contacted nationwide believed that the
environment is getting worse, and one-third saw evidence of local
environmental deterioration. While public opinion is heavily
influenced by current events, one important finding of this survey
was that nearly three-quarters of the respondents were more
concerned about these trends than they were five years ago. In
another recent survey of 1,500 adults nationwide, 22 percent of
respondents said they thought most groundwater is contaminated with
chemicals or other pollutants. Only 7 percent were so convinced
when that same question was asked in 1981. 3Z
Topping the list of environmental concerns in the USA Today poll
were two prime water quality issues: storage of hazardous waste and
pollution of drinking water, sixty-seven percent of those
interviewed said they were "very worried" about hazardous waste;
57 percent were "very worried" about contaminated drinking water.
These issues were found to be of greater public concern than
increasing cancer rates, running out of landfill space, damage to
the ozone layer, the loss of tropical rain forests, or damage from
acid rain.
Of particular interest, the poll generally corroborated the
results of similar efforts in the past — that Americans are more
concerned about environmental quality than they are about the cost
or inconvenience of new environmental regulations. As one
indication, nearly two-thirds of all those polled said they would
pay 15 percent higher taxes to clean up the environment. More than
half said they were willing to pay 15 percent more for groceries
if all packaging was recyclable.
At the same time, respondents were not convinced that drastic
action was necessary. Two-thirds believed that individuals alone
could help the environment significantly. More than half said that
the environment can be kept clean without drastic changes in their
lifestyles.
September 1990
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Growth in the Number of Water Quality Institutions
Increases in statutory authority and public and private
investment in water quality have been accompanied by growth in the
number of water quality institutions. This includes local, state,
and federal agencies; university research centers; corporate
environmental programs; and other public and private entities.
One indicator of the growth in water quality institutions is
the growth in special districts established to deliver drinking
water and wastewater treatment services to the public. In the 1950s
and 1960s, there were few such districts; by 1972, however, a total
of 6,742 had been established.33 The number of water and sewer
districts grew by 50 percent over the next five years to a total
of 9,386 by 1977. Growth continued over the following five years,
but at a slower pace; by 1982, 10,866 water and sewer districts
had been established.
CONCUOSION
While progress has been made over the past 20 years, a
consensus has emerged that we still have a long way to go to solve
the nation's water quality problems. If efforts are not expanded
to meet these challenges, not only will we fail to meet national
water quality goals, we risk a reversal of the progress made to
date.
September 1990 Page 18
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II. THE ROOT CAUSES OF WATER QUALITY PROBLEMS
The fundamental causes of water quality problems lie in
seemingly unrelated aspects of life: how we live, the way we farm,
produce and consume, transport people and goods, and plan for the
future. Many aspects of modern life and past practices put pressure
on water quality. Until recently, these activities proceeded with
little recognition of the effects they had on surface water,
groundwater, and aquatic habitats.
Typically, individuals and society make choices that reflect
values specific to farming, producing, consuming, or working—but
not necessarily to achieving clean water or healthy ecosystems.
Sometimes these values conflict with clean water goals, until very
recently, conflicts remained largely unrecognized, at least until
water quality problems became so apparent that the public demanded
action, as it did in the early 1970s in response to the Cuyahoga
River catching fire, or in the 1980s to the declining condition of
the Chesapeake Bay. Historically, such conflicts were resolved
through relatively narrow legislation to restore and protect water
quality by altering the direct sources of impairment but not
necessarily the root causes of declining water resource quality.
Even today, when we are beginning to recognize some of the basic
conflicts between human activities and environmental quality, few
contemporary solutions address the basic economic and social forces
at the root of water problems.
Our tendency as a society is to underestimate the cost of
pollution in currently less populated areas, such as wilderness or
aquifer recharge areas, because there are fewer immediately
measurable impacts on human health and because we tend to
undervalue the impacts on biological communities and their
habitats. We are beginning to recognize the inadequacies in
currently available methods to assess the negative consequences and
benefits of our actions.
The economic benefits of pollution may be reaped by one group,
whereas the costs of pollution may be borne disproportionately by
another—those least financially and politically capable of
influencing the decisions.
Hence, while it may take time to reconcile societal values
regarding the way we live, produce and consume, farm, or work with
our preference for a healthy environment, drawing attention to the
effects of our societal decisions on water quality is critical.
Focusing on these societal causes of water quality problems is
September 1990 Page 19
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essential if we are to articulate long-term solutions in which
societal goals are compatible with clean water.
SOCIETAL CAUSES OF WATER QUALITY IMPAIRMENT
People's day-to-day activities and the choices they make for
lifestyles—suburban living, green lawns, and throw-away consumer
goods—can have unanticipated but profound effects on water
quality. Similarly, our business and government leaders have, at
times, made decisions with little regard for water quality impacts.
Intensive agriculture seeking high yields with fertilizers,
pesticides, and irrigation water is designed to feed the nation at
low cost. Until recently, the cost of water quality impairment from
chemicals and soil washing off the nation's farmland has been
missing from agricultural policy debates. Manufacturing the
products most Americans demand also generates residual material,
which is mostly treated as wastes. While some are recycled, many
of these wastes directly or indirectly find their way to surface
and groundwater. Even the most seemingly innocuous of habits—for
example, fertilizing our lawns to make them green in summer—can
add potentially harmful nutrients to nearby waterbodies as excess
nitrogen and phosphorus compounds wash off the land or infiltrate
to groundwater when it rains.
Every day the American public, including individuals and
leaders of business and government, makes choices in arenas that
appear unrelated to water quality, but do, in fact, affect it.
There are six key areas of concern:
o How we live;
o How we produce and consume;
o How we farm;
o How we transport people and goods;
o How we plan; and
o How we have acted in the past.
Currently, national water quality policies and programs do not
address these societal origins of impairment.
September 1990 Page 20
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How We Live
The way Americans live is shaped by a variety of social and
economic forces—the availability of inexpensive automobiles and
gasoline as well as a lack of alternative forms of transportation,
proximity of homes to centers of commerce and culture, and
government incentives for home ownership, for example. The
resulting land use pattern is a product of consumer preferences,
local government decisionmakers, and land developers. Until
recently, concern for environmental quality has not affected our
way of life to any significant extent. But as lifestyles evolved
toward decentralized urban and suburban centers after World War II,
conflicts began to emerge between lifestyles and the quality of the
environment. Environmental controls in general and efforts to
improve water quality in particular increased in the 1950s and
1960s, frequently in reaction to crises. However, efforts to target
and control urban and suburban growth and to plan for sound land
uses have not always been sufficient. Sprawling growth continues
to claim our open space, agricultural, and natural lands.
By 1970, the conflicts between American lifestyles and water
quality captured national attention. Twenty years later, we can
point to much progress. However, we can also identify continuing
water quality problems associated with how we live, such as runoff
from roads and construction sites, contamination of groundwater
from poorly designed or malfunctioning septic systems, discharge
of untreated sewage from combined sewers when it rains, loss of
open space with the development of new suburbs and degraded or
destroyed aquatic habitat from overuse, unregulated recreational
activity, or housing construction. Our challenge is to anticipate
how lifestyle choices may affect water resources and then plan to
live compatibly with preserving and improving water quality.
The way Americans use energy also has significant implications
for water quality, although the linkages are rarely spelled out.
Modern life entails higher energy use than lifestyles of a century
ago. However, Americans use energy half as efficiently per unit of
economic output as do populations in other developed economies.
More efficient use of energy in homes and cars—shifts that are
well within the reach of current technology with net savings
compared to current use—could reduce significantly the demand for
oil, gas, and electricity. In turn, worldwide oil and gas
extraction, processing, and transport could be reduced, with
accompanying worldwide reductions in water pollution from these
activities. Reducing worldwide oil and gas demand would also have
September 1990 Page 21
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other benefits, including reduced downstream water quality impacts
and production of acid rain, which results primarily from the
combustion of fossil fuels.
How We Produce and Consume
Manufacturing processes that transform raw feedstocks into
fundamentally different products must of necessity generate some
residual materials. Until recently, industry practices and
government regulations have thought of these materials almost
exclusively as wastes, so they have been disposed of, with or
without prior treatment, in the nation's rivers, streams, and
lakes. This strategy has been costly both to society directly and
indirectly, through decreased environmental quality.
The U.S. market-based economy is characterized by private
production and consumption decisions that are generally driven by
concern for short-term profits and convenience. That is, producers
make decisions as to whether and how to produce goods and services
based on demand and their expectations regarding revenues from the
sale of goods versus the cost of producing them. Many environmental
problems originate in the difference between the private costs
considered in production decisions and the external costs of those
actions to society. Such societal costs include reduced recreation
opportunities or increased incidence of disease from drinking
contaminated water.
While producers do not pollute out of malice, they may not
take into account the environmental ramifications and or the costs
their actions impose on society unless there are government
regulations. Electroplaters, for example, would control the release
of spent plating baths only to the extent that it is economically
attractive to do so. Their calculation of what is or is not
economic must compare the cost of purchasing new plating solution
to the cost of buying and operating equipment to purify spent
solutions. In the absence of regulations preventing discharge,
whatever is not recycled would be discharged to sewers or to nearby
waterbodies, possibly without adequate treatment. Because
electroplaters would not have to pay directly for costs associated
with the effects of the discharge, they would have no incentive to
consider these "external" costs in the management decision of
whether to recycle or discharge spent plating bath. Nonetheless,
those uncontrolled discharges can reduce or eliminate fish
populations, impair recreation, and impose substantial costs to
September 1990 Page 22
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nearby drinking water supplies for removing harmful chemicals.
Other environmental amenities, such as the overall health of
aquatic ecosystems or the aesthetic value of clean water, cannot
be fully measured in economic terms, but have value nevertheless.
Without government regulations mandating such actions,
industry has little incentive to shoulder the cost burden of
pollution control when the benefits of clean water accrue not to
industry specifically, but to all who use receiving waters for
swimming, fishing, or boating. In a competitive market, producers
who raise their own production costs by making greater investments
in controlling pollution relative to other producers are likely to
be driven out of the market. Well-designed government regulations
can reduce the effects of these perverse incentives.
Consumption patterns also are responsible for much of
production waste. American consumers typically demand, or have been
conditioned to expect, well-packaged products. And while packaging
is often associated with product safety, hygiene, or longevity,
by-products of our relatively inefficient patterns of consumption
are too frequently disposed of with little thought to the
consequences. Even though consumers have always had opportunities
to exert such leverage through their buying power, only recently
have they begun to influence production decisions by demanding
environmentally compatible products, less packaging, or packaging
materials with benign effects on the environment.
For many types of products, we have grown used to the
convenience of disposal rather than reuse. It is not surprising
then that the United States produces more waste per person than any
other industrialized nation. In fact, Americans often throw away
what amounts to valuable recyclable resources in some other
economies—used plastic bags—for example.
There are indications that the way we produce and consume is
beginning to change. In response to incentives beyond regulations
—liability, public image, expanded markets for by-products,
shifting consumer demands, widely available information, and new
technologies, to name only a few—some industries are becoming more
environmentally conscious, recycling materials and preventing
pollutants at the source. Overall, however, society has not done
an adequate job of sending consumer signals and developing,
encouraging, and regulating private industry to make profits in
ways that are consistent with protecting the environment.
September 1990 Page 23
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How We Farm
The production of food and fiber of necessity involves the
disturbance of soil and water. Since a great deal of the American
landscape is farmland, activities such as tilling the soil,
applying fertilizers and pesticides, and irrigating fields make
agriculture the largest source of polluted runoff in the country.
Agricultural sediments, nutrients, pesticides, and salts can impair
rivers, lakes, and wetlands; agricultural pesticides and
fertilizers can contaminate groundwater; and agricultural
development can displace natural wetlands.
Many farms are characterized by monoculture, or the production
of just one crop. Monoculture requires greater use of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides than does diversified production. It
also may cause more soil erosion. With few positive incentives,
but facing significant impediments to change, the farm sector has
been slow to adopt changes that can be equally productive and
minimize environmental impacts through crop rotation, integrated
pest management, soil and water conservation, and use of buffer
strips to protect aquatic ecosystems.
Improper irrigation practices result in leaching or drainage
of excessive amounts of salts, nutrients, and pesticides from soil
to surface waters, and infiltration of these constituents to
underlying aquifers. Some government programs provide incentives
to farm in ways that directly influence water quality and use. For
example, federally subsidized irrigation water has been identified
as a disincentive to conservation efforts. In addition,
agricultural price and income supports encourage farming practices
that lead to water quality problems. These practices may result
in agricultural production on environmentally sensitive lands. In
the West, water rights based on the "use or lose" principle (actual
or perceived) also encourage excessive application of irrigation
water.
Policy decisions that limit consumer choices are also partly
responsible for current farm practices that impair water quality.
Grading standards and marketing orders administered by government
and industry, for example, place a premium on unblemished fruit
and vegetable products, which leads to greater use of pesticides
and waste of nutritionally acceptable food. Consumers have come to
expect year-round availability of such products. In addition, food
packaging and value-added processing can contribute to water
quality problems through the use of paper and plastics and the
production and disposal of chemicals.
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Timber harvesting, grazing, and concentrated livestock
operations also contribute to water resource impairment. Grazing,
timber, and mining subsidies often exacerbate impairment. Although
environmental impacts of livestock and use of pasture and rangeland
can be mitigated through proper management, degradation of adjacent
rivers, streams, and lakes has been and continues to be a problem
when grazing is mismanaged. The most prevalent problem is
overgrazing, which causes erosion and loss of nutrients from the
soil into waterbodies. In addition, when animals are allowed to
graze riparian areas, they can seriously damage or destroy stream
banks and vegetation as well as produce wastes that directly
contribute bacteria and nutrients to water. Finally, water projects
(ditching, channelization, dams) alter aquatic habitats and
decrease biotic integrity (for example, extinctions and
extirpations).
How We Transport People and Goods
Transportation is a vital force in the nation's economy.
Although water quality implications rarely play more than a
peripheral role when transportation decisions are made, transport
facilities (roads, highways, railways, harbors) and vehicles
clearly affect water quality in five ways:
o Directly through disturbance or elimination of aquatic
habitat;
o Directly through runoff from surfaces, carrying
contaminants such as deicing salt, oil drippings, brake
lining dust, or fuel spills.
o Directly by runoff to surface water and infiltration to
groundwater from accidental spills of oil and other
contaminants from trucks, ships, pipelines, and trains;
o Directly from deposits of airborne contaminants released
through the routine use of facilities and vehicles; and
o Indirectly by helping to determine where we live and work;
in particular by encouraging dispersed development patterns
without adequate concern for water quality.
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There is little controversy about the need to control these
direct impacts, especially from land-based transportation. But
marine transportation also contributes to water quality degradation
in ways that are both anticipated and unanticipated. While national
programs seek to minimize adverse effects, dredging ship channels
to assure navigation eliminates habitat diversity and species and
can resuspend toxic chemicals and other pollutants that had
accumulated in bottom sediment. In addition, dredged material can
present a problem unless disposed of in a proper manner and
location.
Improper placement of this material can destroy aquatic
habitat; but proper disposal of uncontaminated material can be used
for beneficial purposes, including beach nourishment, wave
attenuation, wetlands creation or restoration, shallow-water
habitat development, or uplands construction. Contaminated dredged
material can cause numerous problems unless isolated from the water
column by management techniques, such as confined disposal
facilities, underwater capped mounds, or capped underwater
depressions, that are suitably designed, sited, and operated.
However, while most public attention focuses on direct
effects, the indirect influence of transportation on land use and
lifestyles could have a more profound impact on water quality in
the long run.
In recent decades, the U.S., along with other advanced
economies, has increased its reliance on cars and trucks instead
of mass transit and rail. While cars offer convenience in moving
people and trucks offer efficiency in moving goods, highways are
well-documented sources of contaminated runoff and their
construction has sometimes destroyed wetlands and other aquatic
habitat. Urban highways and other commuter roads have had the most
far-reaching effect on water quality by facilitating and
encouraging the nation's move to the suburbs, in 1980, nearly 60
percent of our urban population lived in the suburbs; almost
three-fourths of the growth in the 1980s occurred in suburban
areas.34 These trends show no sign of slowing, with 85 percent of
the growth to the year 2000 projected to occur in the 50 largest
metropolitan areas. In the past, we have failed to recognize the
full environmental cost of development in land use and
transportation policies. Our future challenge is to meet the
transportation needs of the nation in ways that are compatible with
good water quality.
September 1990 Page 26
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How We Plan
Resource and land use planning is essential to achieve
economic growth that is compatible with good water quality.
Yet, traditional planning efforts have not taken a broad
enough perspective to anticipate effects on water quality or
aquatic habitat over long enough periods of. time or over wide
enough geographic areas. In some cases, when planners have failed
to communicate clearly with those responsible for implementation,
the resulting actions have been unrelated to even the best of
plans. In other cases, despite adequate efforts to communicate, the
location of development or transportation corridors has occurred
more as function of local political pressure or the cost of land
than of overall planning. Even when planners work well with
politicians and the private development community, attention to
water quality concerns may be inadequate because none of the
participants are sufficiently trained in environmental disciplines.
Traditionally, the need to provide a growing population with
water and sewer services has driven planning related to water
resources and pollution control. In the 1970s and 1980s, government
increasingly regulated point sources and much water quality
improvement resulted. However, these regulations usually followed
the boundaries of political jurisdictions (states, counties, or
municipalities) rather than ecological areas, such as river or lake
drainage basins. In addition, traditional planning efforts focused
on short-term delivery of services; they placed relatively little
emphasis on long-range, strategic planning. Moreover, rarely has
water planning incorporated interactions between water quantity and
quality. Such needs are especially critical for planning adequate
quantities of safe drinking water from all sources including
surface water and groundwater as well as wastewater effluent and
other nontraditional sources.
The result of this legacy is that layers of federal, state,
regional, and local government responsibility create a fragmented
approach to planning. An emphasis on single-focus compliance
ignores the importance of management on a broader geographic scale
and over longer periods of time. The current paucity of
consistently gathered data on the quality of the nation's waters,
discussed earlier, is testimony to this relatively narrow,
short-term planning perspective.
Too often, point source data and chemical-specific permits
dominate the process used to make decisions that affect entire
watersheds. Data on runoff and ambient conditions (including
September 1990 Page 27
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integrative biological evaluations) are not given equal status. For
example, the majority of controls in point source discharge permits
are based on achieving a certain concentration in the water at a
specific site instead of by determining a total pollutant loading
analysis for the watershed as a whole. Moreover, local ambient
water quality is generally measured by concentrations of key
constituents in the water column, only—not in the bottom sediment,
in fish, or in other aquatic species. Further, little effort is
made to assess the structural and functional integrity of
biological systems within the water resource. Finally, rarely are
the effects of upstream land use decisions or the cumulative
impacts of many small human actions translated into basinwide
changes in the quality of the water resource.
The absence of a comprehensive planning strategy that is
accepted and fostered by government and academic institutions has
hampered our ability to properly use water resources and protect
water quality. There have been some attempts to coordinate planning
efforts for entire watersheds, such as EPA's areawide water quality
planning program in the 1970s or, more recently, its National
Estuary Program. However, such efforts remain more the exception
than the rule. Even the most comprehensive of planning exercises
often fail to account for cumulative effects.
Local land use controls that account for water quality have
also been the exception, although this may be changing. At the
local level, most land planning has responded to growth, rather
than guiding development in ways compatible with protection of
recharge areas, conservation of aquatic habitats, or improvement
in the quality of surface waters. The impact of sprawling
development on watersheds, and consequently on water quality, has
not always been recognized. Even if recognized, efforts to target
and control growth have often been insufficient.
Much more remains to be done to improve both the way we plan
for general economic expansion and for the protection of water
resources. We must consistently monitor changes in water quality
and their effects on aquatic life to identify the most serious
causes of impairment and, in turn, use funding efficiently.
How We Have Acted In the Past
Changes in how we live in the future will not prevent or
remedy all damage to water quality. Water quality will continue to
September 1990 Page 28
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be degraded by past uses of the land that contribute to continuing
pollutant loadings and to physical damage to aquatic systems.
Examples of these past activities with continuing impacts
include drainage and leaching of pollutants from abandoned mines,
tailings piles, solid waste and hazardous waste disposal areas,
spills, pollutants in the bottom sediments, and pesticides and
other materials currently present in the soil and groundwater
systems. Past physical alterations, such as channelization, and
continuing physical impacts of past activities, such as stream
scouring and erosion, will also affect future water quality
regardless of our changes in current practices. Introduction of
exotic species have also occurred as a result of past activities.
CONCUJSION
The causes of water quality degradation are far from
straightforward or simple. They are intertwined with aspects of
life that seem far removed from concerns over water quality. In
addition, traditional planning efforts have been too limited to
achieve economic growth compatible with good water quality. The
section that follows identifies the many impediments to solving
these problems.
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III. IMPEDIMENTS TO IMPROVING WATER QUALITY
What are the major obstacles to improving water quality? The
reports of the Water Quality 2000 work groups discussed a broad
range of impediments emanating from a great variety of sources.
Most of the issues raised by the work group reports can be
summarized in terms of seven crosscutting types of impediments to
improved water quality:
o Narrowly focused water policy;
o Institutional conflicts;
o Legislative and regulatory overlaps, conflicts, and gaps;
o Insufficient funding and incentives for water quality
improvement;
o Inadequate attention to the need for trained personnel;
o Limitations on research and development; and
o Inadequate public commitment to water resource quality.
Effectively removing these seven impediments will result in
near-term improvement in the nation's water quality. Work group
members would agree that these seven issues are not necessarily
equal in importance. Establishing priorities among them, however,
is reserved for Phase III of the project, as explained earlier.
Despite gaps in data, limits to scientific knowledge, and a need
for new technologies, many believe that water quality improvements
are attainable now.
NARROWLY FOCUSED WATER POLICY
Water quality programs in the 1970s and 1980s have emerged
from relatively prescriptive, fragmented, and sometimes inflexible
federal and state mandates. In part because they were easier to
implement and installation was easier to confirm, water quality
control strategies of the 1970s and 1980s relied on engineering
solutions; little use was made of ecological knowledge and economic
tools and other strategies capable of directing resources to
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protect water resource quality. The easy targets--point source
controls and conventional pollutants—were addressed first, largely
outside of any comprehensive framework for overall water quality
improvement. Consequently, too little attention was paid to
measuring improvement in waterbodies as a whole. Instead, the
measures of improvement corresponded to the fragmented policies—
numbers of treatment facilities put in place or the reduction in
frequency of discharge violations from individual point sources,
for example.
The result is the distinct lack of a holistic approach to
water resource protection programs today. In particular,
traditional fragmented approaches typically fail to address:
o Watershed-based planning;
o Cross-media effects (pollutants that cross traditional
categories);
o The relationship between water quantity and water quality;
o Pollution prevention; and
o Environmental results.
Watershed-based Planning
In Section 208 of the 1972 amendments to the Clean Water Act,
Congress designed a framework to coordinate water quality programs.
Section 208 directed basinwide and areawide planning to account for
and set priorities over controlling municipal point sources,
industrial point sources, and runoff from rural and urban lands.
Over time, however, the 208 program produced many planning
documents but largely failed to coordinate government programs or
set priorities for investments in water quality. In part this was
due to unfortunate timing—federal grants to build wastewater
treatment plants began before the planning could help set
priorities for funding.
Much of the problem of policy fragmentation seems linked to
our failure to recognize or reluctance to adopt the appropriate
spatial scale, including patterns of water movement and
biogeographic considerations, for water resource planning and
management. This approach provides the framework to evaluate a
September 1990 Page 31
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natural resource problem using a natural systems approach. It is
well suited to track holistic cause-and-effect water quality
relationships since it can link upstream uses with downstream
effects. Without understanding these relationships, it is difficult
to assess current or potential conditions or to remediate
cumulative environmental degradation.
Even where there is a watershed approach, ecological
differences in the landscape between upstream and downstream areas
often are ignored.
Cross-Media Effects
Many environmental professionals have recently come to
recognize that many pollution problems do not fit neatly into the
traditional typology of single-medium environmental laws and
policies. A single disposal effort may potentially affect both
water and air quality. Sludge handling under the Clean Water Act,
for example, can have profound effects on groundwater quality.
Nitrogen oxides released into the air, even in compliance with the
Clean Air Act, can be deposited in waterbodies downwind, with
significant degradation of water quality. Pollutants in surface and
ground waters increase the cost of delivering pure drinking water.
Following traditional, single-medium approaches, residuals can
potentially be transferred from one medium to another. Under the
Clean Water Act, for example, EPA established technology-based
effluent limitation guidelines and standards for the organic
chemicals industry that allow the use of air stripping. Under these
guidelines, the water quality problem would appear to be
eliminated, but air stripping can result in air pollution problems.
Air regulators are then left to regulate emissions from wastewater
treatment plants under the Clean Air Act. Alternatively, if
industry uses steam stripping, the sludges produced may become a
regulatory target under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Shifting the management burden from one medium to another is
inefficient from both public and private perspectives. In addition,
transfers leave open opportunities for pollution problems to escape
regulation entirely. In a striking example, Philadelphia recently
attempted to control emissions within its airshed by requiring
installation of precipitators on urban smokestacks. The solids and
sludges that were removed, however, found their way to the Delaware
River, either directly through discharge or indirectly through
runoff from land disposal. Once in the river, metals and other
September 1990 Page 32
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constituents that had been removed from smokestacks through air
pollution controls were pushed upriver by natural tidal action
until they entered the city's drinking water intake. Extra funds
had to be allocated to remove these pollutants from drinking water
supplies.
The Relationship Between Water Quantity and Water Quality
Water quantity is important to water quality in many areas of
the U.S., yet the quantity aspects of water resources are almost
always regulated and managed separately from the quality aspects.
Water withdrawal for all types of consumptive uses can have
profound effects on aquatic habitat downstream. To the degree that
water is withdrawn from streams and not returned, less in-stream
flow is available for fish and wildlife habitat, inputs to wetlands
and other aquatic resources, and mixing in estuaries to preserve
critical freshwater/saltwater balances and prevent saltwater
intrusion into coastal aquifers. Water used, degraded, and returned
to waterbodies can have equally significant effects on water
quality. Irrigation return flows often have high concentrations of
salts and metals, for example. In addition, excess water use places
a burden on overloaded sewage treatment plants.
Concerns for water quality also limit water use. Regulations
that prevent estuarine salinity from exceeding acceptable levels
for drinking water supplies can limit power plant withdrawals,
especially during a drought. They also can affect the operation of
upstream reservoirs. In a few cases, strict application of effluent
discharge rules at wastewater treatment plants can alter water
supply and in-stream flow when treated effluent constitutes a large
part of the flow in the receiving stream.
When water quality is impaired by point sources or
contaminated runoff, the effective water supply available for human
and environmental uses declines or the cost of water treatment (for
supply) increases. Contamination of aquifers likewise eliminates
or increases the cost of using groundwater sources for many uses.
Pollutant Prevention
Until very recently, the Congress and EPA have largely focused
their efforts on treating pollutants once they have been generated,
rather than preventing or reducing their generation in the first
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place. The end-of-pipe treatment focus of the Act and other
statutes fails to encourage or reward reduction at the source. The
very focus on effluents in the Clean Water Act is testimony to the
fact that legislators have not really begun to address ways to
reduce waste at the source. Further, it reflects the dominance of
a chemical perspective and a narrow concept of pollution (chemicals
and other contaminants) that diverts attention from the biological
and physical impairment that results from a wide variety of human
activities.
Moreover, setting uniform national technology-based standards
may not require but tends to encourage installation of end-of-pipe
technologies used to set discharge limitations. Such standards act
as a disincentive for potentially more efficient local solutions
to meeting performance targets, some of which could involve
pollutant prevention.
Even where the language of the law may authorize relatively
more attention to preventing the generation of pollutants,
legislative and regulatory policies have emphasized the granting
of permits to discharge a limited amount of pollutants or cleaning
up existing problems rather than eliminating or preventing new
ones. The Clean Water Act, for example, established a goal of zero
discharge. It explicitly calls for a standard permitting no
discharge of pollutants, wherever practicable, but this provision
of the act has not been widely implemented. While the Clean Water
Act established this goal, it also created a permitting system that
allows discharge of pollutants up to certain limits.
Most states have relied on best professional judgment in
setting these limits. States have only recently begun to adopt
water quality standards based on specific quantitative criteria for
metals and organic compounds or to include these limits in
discharge permits. As a result, dischargers have had little
incentive to reduce their discharges of these constituents below
levels required by effluent limitations.
Pollutant prevention strategies hold particular promise for
addressing water quality problems caused by agricultural or urban
runoff. While historical efforts to address soil erosion problems
are analogous to practices to prevent the generation of pollutants,
only recently have efforts been initiated to address agricultural
water quality problems resulting from application of nutrients and
pesticides. Similarly, controlling or preventing the discharge of
pollutants from stormwater has only recently begun to be addressed.
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Environmental Results
Measuring the outcome of our water quality control strategies
has proven elusive, in part because of the limitations of the data
currently collected. At best, we have devised ways to count inputs
—the number of permits written, the number of enforcement
proceedings, or the dollars and staff devoted to a given problem.
But in most cases, we have not chosen to measure progress by
measuring environmental results. Overall, monitoring programs have
not been used extensively to measure the status of water resources
or to identify the causes of declines in quality when they are
detected. Further, monitoring has not been used to assess the
extent to which regulatory and other efforts have had the desired
effect in improving the quality of water resources.
Clean water programs have been less effective than they could
be because of a failure to collect baseline data and statistics
related to environmental results over time. This lack of data
contributes to a lack of program accountability, inadequate or
uncontrolled program oversight and implementation, uncertain
direction, and the inability to focus limited resources on the most
environmentally effective initiatives. While the Clean Water Act
required collection and reporting of data on the attainment of its
f ishable-swimmable goal, EPA has developed inappropriate or unclear
accountability measures that are more related to administrative
activities than to clear-cut environmental results. In its clean
water agreements with states, in effect, EPA often ends up holding
states accountable for collecting statistics on administrative
activities rather than for achieving measurable environmental
improvements. Historically, monitoring has focused on water
chemistry, largely ignoring physical habitat, flow, and biology.
This has resulted in substantial losses of aquatic ecosystems. Both
the extent and the biological integrity of the resource has
suffered, despite general improvement in water quality.
Even where environmental data are used to assess results of
programs, sometimes different EPA program offices collect
noncomparable data or use incompatible systems or formats. A
similar problem exists among the various agencies charged with
protecting water quality (the Environmental Protection Agency, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S.
Geological Survey, for example). In 1988, a U.S. General Accounting
Office report recommended that EPA do more to "manage for
environmental results.I|3S
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Development of improved biological methods over the past
decade has provided a mechanism for assessing environmental
results. Ohio and Maine, for example, have adopted biological
criteria to assess resource status and trends.
INSTITUTIONAL CONFLICTS
Under the American system of government, federal, state, and
local units share responsibilities for different aspects of the
same program or for different programs. Implementing environmental
initiatives under this system inevitably involves private
participation and the commitment of individual citizens or their
representative groups. Relationships among these key players are
largely constructive; opposing viewpoints can be voiced and
compromises reached. Yet conflicts can arise over the allocation
of authority and responsibility among government units, the private
sector, and individual citizens.
Two types of conflicts can cause serious impediments to
improvements in the nation's water resources. First, conflicts
can arise out of the balance of authority among the key players.
Second, conflicts can arise among different participants within
each level of authority. The following sections present the
current role of the key institutional players in water quality and
note the critical conflicts that often arise.
Federal Government
While the federal government participated in water quality
control to some degree in the 1950s and 1960s, surface water
quality was predominantly a state and local concern until 1972. In
that year, the federal role in setting standards and charting a
national program direction for surface waters began to grow.
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, states began to adopt the role
of implementing agents of the federal program but retained their
authority to enact stricter or more expansive water quality
controls so long as minimum federal requirements were met. While
local governments continued their role as owners and operators of
drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities, the pace of
construction of wastewater facilities was greatly hastened under
an expanded federal grants program. The 1974 Federal Safe Drinking
Water Act focused local attention on the quality of drinking water.
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Federal programs in water resources development and protection
have undergone several major shifts since the late 1800sr when the
Corps of Engineers was first authorized to protect the nation from
floods. Today, more than a dozen federal agencies conduct programs
in such diverse areas as navigation, flood control, irrigation,
hydropower production, ecosystems preservation, fisheries and
shellfisheries restoration and maintenance, coastal and marine
protection, and basic water use and quality data collection and
analysis.
With so many federal agencies involved in water resources and
water quality, it is not surprising that they sometimes overlap or
conflict with each other. For example, federal land management
agencies may work at odds with water quality goals when they seek
to maximize timber production, mining output, or grazing acreage.
One federal agency with authority for delivering irrigation water
to off-stream farms may have little regard for another agency's
goals for alternative in-stream water uses, such as maintenance of
aquatic habitat.
As already discussed, conflict is fundamental to the American
form of government. Federal mandates that apply nationally may be
inefficient when applied in some localized situations. Yet, a
strong federal role is often needed to ensure some minimum level
of environmental quality nationwide, despite the conflicts or
inefficiencies that may arise.
State Government
States play a key role administering national clean water and
drinking water programs. Historically, the federal government has
supported this role with grants for state program operation. But
the federal budget deficit, continued expectations for maintenance
of base programs, plus new initiatives enacted by Congress, are
expected to pose serious funding problems for state water
administrators within the next several years. By the mid-1990s,
for example, states could face an aggregate deficit of some $400
million a year between the cost of clean water and drinking water
programs mandated by Congress and combined federal and state funds
currently available to administer them.36 Moreover, the demand for
resources to run state clean water programs will compete with
equally large demands for funds to administer solid waste and air
quality programs.
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While the states are being asked to assume more leadership in
water quality programs, clear accountability and responsibility for
those programs has not yet registered at the state level. The
responsibility for these programs has not been matched by the
financial resources or political independence necessary to
accomplish the job. In some instances, while states work to improve
their programs, current controls are inadequate to ensure against
degradation of water quality.
On the other hand, in many respects states have not fully met
their obligations under Clean Water Act programs. For example,
state water quality standards have lagged behind federal guidance,
leaving gaps and other problems in state water programs. In
addition, state agencies may have inadequately coordinated policies
and procedures, such as among agriculture, drinking water,
transportation, health, and aquatic habitat protection. Where this
occurs, some programs can lose effectiveness.
Local Government
Local governments are responsible for delivering clean water
services, such as drinking water, wastewater treatment, and
stormwater control. They also assist in implementation of national
programs, including wellhead protection, the preservation of
aquatic habitat, and industrial pretreatment. Wellhead protection
relies on local data collection, land use ordinances, and zoning
controls. Pretreatment of industrial discharges requires local
implementation. Perhaps most important in terms of current water
quality programs is the key role that local governments play in
integrating land use management with water quality protection. But
local land use decisions rarely are based on water quality factors,
and water quality gains achieved by federal and state regulatory
programs often are offset by development at the local level.
In the case of drinking water, the nation's most serious
contamination problems are associated with the 13 million private
wells and 180,000 small public water suppliers (serving fewer than
3,300 people each).37 Yet, even though a large number of small
entities are recognized as the source of the problem, the role for
local governments, which are closest to the problem, remains
relatively restrained. This situation leads to an underuse of local
land use controls (a traditional province of local government),
public education, and technical assistance.
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In the 1970s and 1980s, a doubling in the number of local
water and sewer districts enabled financing of these services
without restrictions imposed on municipalities. Yet special
districts may not provide the best or most cost-effective services
due to lack of economies of scale.
Local attainment of Clean Water Act goals has been impeded,
to a degree, by other government programs that may be based on
sound policy reasoning but that have an unintentionally perverse
impact on water quality. Over the past eight years, for example,
the U.S. Tax Code has been revised six times to reduce tax abuses
and promote tax equity. While changes have appropriately supported
these goals, each revision has further curtailed state and local
ability to meet water infrastructure needs through the issuance of
tax-exempt bonds and reduced incentives for the private sector to
finance such needs. Limits on tax-exempt bonds to finance
public-purpose, government-owned water and sewer projects plus
other restrictions on tax-exempt financing have increased
significantly the cost of building these facilities.38
The Private Sector
The private sector has a pivotal role in (1) complying with
controls for the 126 priority pollutants and other contaminants;
(2) preventing pollution; (3) implementing nonpoint source
controls; (4) financing and/or operating assistance for water and
wastewater infrastructure; (5) creating new products (and markets
for products) in response to consumer demand; and (6) educating
consumers on how to use products without impairing water quality.
The private role in controlling the release of heavy metals
and organic compounds is self-evident. Some drinking water sources
drawn from both ground and surface waters have been contaminated
with industrial toxic wastes, representing significant economic,
aesthetic, and human health losses. Reproduction of aquatic species
has also suffered, as a result—at least in part—of exposure to
industrial toxins, with the nation's attention now turning to the
environment, the private sector faces increased pressure to do more
to reduce or otherwise control toxic releases into air, water, and
the land.
Less widely recognized but probably equally important is the
private role in controlling runoff. The essential character of
runoff problems is the ubiquity of sources, many of them private.
Agricultural pollution stems from uncountable day-to-day activities
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and management decisions taken by farmers as they interact with
highly site-specific conditions (soil type, field slope) and
natural events (rainfall, temperature). The millions of private
entities and uncontrollable natural events involved greatly
complicate the abatement of runoff. Another critical but largely
unassumed private role is to provide the farm sector with new,
environmentally conscious instructions on the use of fertilizers
and pesticides.
A behind-the-scenes but nonetheless important activity is the
private sector's participation in financing or operating the
environmental infrastructure. While estimates vary on the exact
sums involved, almost all analysts concur that future needs to
build and operate water and wastewater facilities outstrip current
public resources devoted to these purposes. Historically,
government fiscal, tax, and environmental policies and programs
have tended to discourage private participation in facility
construction, ownership, operation, or management and in assistance
in program administration. Some view the private sector as a great
untapped resource in these areas.
Manufacturers have already begun to take on a role as
proponents of "green" products—products that require less
environmentally harmful inputs for production, produce few
residuals, and are believed to be more compatible with the
environment during their useful lives and after disposal. In
response to a growing demand for such products and increasing
sensitivity to liability associated with waste disposal, some
producers are beginning to promote "green" products in place of
environmentally harmful ones, at least in a limited way.
Citizens• Organizations
Citizens, both as individuals and through citizens'
organizations, have a central role to play in protecting water
resources. In decisions about facility siting, land use management
and zoning, transportation, permitting, and protecting natural
resources, the viewpoint of affected communities is critical.
LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY OVERLAPS, CONFLICTS, AND GAPS
While eliminating these concerns entirely would be an
unrealistic goal, a principal impediment to forming solutions to
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today's water quality problems are the many instances of
legislative and regulatory overlaps, conflicts, and gaps.
o Overlapping statutory or regulatory controls as well as
other policies and programs are inefficient unless they are
carefully coordinated and work toward the same goal.
o Conflicting legislative authorities, policies, and programs
are potentially counter-productive.
o Gaps in authority, policies, and programs underprotect
water quality and water-based natural resources.
The evolution of water quality laws from the 1960s to the
present reflects several trends: increasing federal responsibility,
enactment of new authority to fill gaps, increasingly explicit
requirements for treatment of toxic levels of metals and organic
compounds, increased attention to biology, and longer and
more-detailed statutes. As information available to policymakers
improved, laws and policies shifted from abating acute hazards to
preventing chronic low-level hazards. Instead of focusing on a few
pollutants, regulators began to address hundreds of substances of
potential concern. The earlier focus on single-medium pollution
problems has begun to shift to include inter-media pollutants that
cycle from air, to land, to water. Similarly, single-chemical
criteria are being supplemented by whole effluent and ambient
toxicity, as well as ambient biological and physical habitat
criteria.
It is not surprising that a patchwork of sometimes overlapping
and conflicting legislation has resulted. These inconsistencies
have serious effects. They often send mixed messages about which
environmental values are to be protected and how much protection
will be provided. For example, similar processes may be required
to meet different and inconsistent standards under different
statutes with the common goal of protecting groundwater.
Overlapping Statutory or Regulatory Controls
Overlapping statutes or regulations can impose unnecessary
costs on both the public and private sectors—sometimes with no
net gain in environmental benefits. At least four federal statutes,
for example, require some monitoring and reporting on groundwater
September 1990 Page 41
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quality. Fragmented and inconsistent reporting requirements reduce
the overall efficiency and effectiveness of groundwater protection
efforts and may impose unnecessary costs.
Commercial or industrial facilities are sometimes required to
report the same data to, or obtain overlapping permits from,
several different EPA offices as well as other federal, state, or
local agencies. The state of Louisiana, for example, requires that
all dischargers to surface waters obtain a permit to do so from the
state. But the state does not operate a federally approved
discharge permit (NPDES) program, so all dischargers have to obtain
an additional NPDES permit from the EPA for the same discharges.
Currently, Louisiana's industries and municipalities pay permit
fees under the state program, and they could become subject to pay
federal fees as well, if EPA institutes an NPDES fee program as
proposed in the administration's Fiscal Year 1991 Budget. Some
states are also proposing fees for ambient monitoring programs.
Too many regulatory institutions may leave no single agency
really in charge. Many agencies representing different political
and programmatic jurisdictions are tasked with agricultural
pollution control, which creates difficult planning and
communication problems. Even when interagency planning does occur,
as was the case in Section 208 of the Clean Water Act or as is now
the case under Section 319, problems arise. Because typically one
set of agencies does the planning while another set does the
implementing, program efforts often diverge from the planning
blueprints.
Conflicting Policies and Programs
Today's patchwork of laws and rules create the potential for
water quality policies to conflict with policies in other arenas.
By providing tax deductibility for second home mortgages, for
example, the federal tax code promotes the construction of second
homes, many of which are located in environmentally sensitive or
heavily stressed areas along the coasts or adjacent to mountain
wilderness lands and headwaters.
Farm policy still works at odds with water quality policies
despite the changes in the 1985 Farm Bill. Federal commodity
programs raise prices above market levels, which encourages farmers
to intensify their use of program cropland through additional
cultivation, added agrichemicals, and greater irrigation. All these
factors may increase the discharge of nonpoint source pollutants,
September 1990 Page 42
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habitat destruction, and extirpation of species. The design of
current commodity programs also constrains farmers from choosing
the mix of crops and type of management that would be most
environmentally sound. Base acreage rules limit farmers'
flexibility to rotate crops or to plant non-program commodities,
even though these activities might reduce adverse water quality
impacts.
In addition, our national policy of dredging to drain lands
and maintain shipping channels along navigable rivers and building
dams for navigation, water supply, and electric power are at odds
with both water quality and aquatic ecosystem conservation
policies. Careful planning can mitigate but not eliminate these
adverse effects. Without such precautions, resuspension of
contaminated sediments can pollute surface waters. Improper
placement of such dredged materials in certain land locations can
also contaminate underlying groundwater. Dams, reservoirs, and
dredging, including inappropriate placement of any type of dredged
material, can eliminate sensitive aquatic habitats, remove fish
habitat, destroy bottom-dwelling communities in both freshwater
and marine environments, and prevent or hinder fish migration.
Gaps in Authority
With the vast array of federal, state, and local water quality
statutes and programs described in this report, it may seem
surprising that gaps still remain in our regulatory structure.
However, such gaps do exist. For example, while the Clean Water
Act, Superfund, RCRA, and FIFRA each address distinct aspects of
groundwater protection, none is designed for total resource
protection. A comprehensive legislative mandate to protect
groundwater does not exist. Instead, laws intended to protect
drinking water supplies, control specific contaminants and sources,
or clean up aquifers provide a patchwork of groundwater protection
activities. Protection has been incomplete in some areas, such as
individual drinking water wells (which are exempt from federal
legislation) and inconsistent in others. Also no statute provides
for nationally consistent accounts to be kept on the current
condition of groundwater or to relate ground and surface (fresh and
marine) waters as an integrated system.
Current water quality criteria often do not afford adequate
protection to human health and aquatic life. Similarly, criteria
are not always developed for both fresh and marine waters. More
September 1990 Page 43
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effective application of available knowledge would result in better
protection. However, establishing the comprehensive chemical,
physical, and/or biological criteria essential to protecting
aquatic ecosystems is difficult.
Gaps in treatment of some water problems are attributable to
both the absence of legislative attention and to unsatisfactory
implementation of existing authorities. For example, even though
they have been authorized by the Clean Water Act, the following
criteria have yet to be published by EPA:
o Numeric water quality criteria for the full range of
pollutants (not just priority pollutants) for all uses and
types of aquatic systems, including human health, aquatic
life in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and marine waters;
o Criteria for whole effluent toxicity and total human
toxicity;
o Sediment criteria;
o Criteria for residues of toxics in fish and shellfish that
address toxicity to these species and to humans who consume
them;
o Criteria for wildlife that use aquatic systems and
biocriteria for overall health of aquatic systems,
including wetlands, estuaries, freshwater systems, and
marine waters; and
o Groundwater criteria, apart from public drinking water
standards.
In addition, effluent guidelines and standards authorized by
the Clean Water Act are not complete. According to EPA, four out
of five direct industrial discharges are not covered by current
guidelines specific to their industrial category.39 Substantive
stormwater regulations and technology-based regulations for
combined sewer overflows are also lacking. Regulatory programs for
sewage sludge quality and runoff controls are still in development
or only under consideration.
September 1990 Page 44
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INSUFFICIENT FUNDING AND INCENTIVES FOR HATER QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
At the same time that public opinion polls and political
rhetoric suggest that our national commitment to clean water is
strengthening, appropriations to administer clean water programs
are reduced and capital facilities for water pollution control are
under-funded. But the cost of water programs continues to escalate.
According to the EPA, the cost of simply maintaining today's level
of drinking water and water quality programs will increase from
$31.3 billion a year in 1987 to $42.3 billion by the year 2000.40
Adding the new programs that are currently authorized but not yet
in place will add another $4 billion a year by 2000. Devising
efficient solutions to reduce the cost of clean water and healthy
ecosystems, paying the remaining costs, and allocating funds among
competing environmental investments are among today's most critical
water quality issues for government and the private sector. Who
pays and how much become even more critical in light of equal or
greater demands on limited budgets placed by other environmental
needs such as management of air quality or hazardous and solid
waste.
The federal government is clearly withdrawing from its
historically prominent position as financier of water programs. In
dollars of constant purchasing power, EPA's water quality budget
in 1990 is one-third lower than its 1980 budget. EPA's 1990 support
for building wastewater treatment facilities is almost half the
1980 level. This support will be eliminated entirely after 1994.
One might argue that federal financial devolution is
appropriate because the prominent federal role of the 1970s and
1980s is giving way to state and local dominance as the federal
government increasingly delegates programs to the states. But this
decline in purchasing power has occurred simultaneously with
increased national water quality mandates and program
responsibilities. Imbalances between mandates and funding could
grow more serious as the federal deficit continues and as emerging
areas of concern are addressed. These areas include aquatic habitat
protection, nonpoint source control, groundwater protection,
control of toxic pollutants, and stormwater/combined sewer overflow
management.
State water quality and drinking water budgets are also under
strain, caused in large part by the withdrawal of federal grants
and the new requirements for administering water quality and
drinking water programs authorized in the late 1980s. Estimates of
the gap between program needs and available funds by the mid-1990s
September 1990 Page 45
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range between $250 million and $500 million a year. EPA's State
Funding Study addressed this concern and concluded that increased
funding at both the state and federal levels would be necessary to
raise water programs to levels contemplated under current policies.
Local governments are expected to feel the full effects of
federal withdrawal as the transition from construction grants to
State Revolving Loan Funds to build local wastewater treatment
plants is completed in the mid-1990s. Even under full
appropriations, which has not yet occurred since authorized levels
were established in 1987, combined EPA assistance to build local
treatment plants would fall at least $1 billion short in each of
17 states.41 To meet the discharge limitations established in the
Clean Water Act, localities in these states will face unprecedented
increases in local user fees and capital formation requirements.
Limited financial resources also may limit protection of
aquatic resources by all levels of government. Current methods to
assess the economic value of water resource functions that
emphasize production of commodities, for example, do not allow an
aquatic ecosystem in its natural state to be favorably compared in
terms of dollars to a project that would alter the system for
direct human use. As a result, all types of programs to protect
aquatic ecosystems may be underfunded. Advances in environmental
economics and ethics are likely to alter societal views in these
areas.
Resources for runoff control programs also are limited. To
date, spending on polluted runoff generally, and agricultural
pollution specifically, has been dwarfed in comparison to spending
on point sources. There may have been a time when this was
justified, but as polluted runoff increases in relative
significance nationwide, the justification is fading. Stated
simply, the lack of funding for runoff control programs has become
a fundamental impediment to accomplishing real gains in water
quality.
The private sector cost of clean water is substantial--just
over $13 billion a year in 1989 for water quality and drinking
water. As new regulations are phased in, costs are expected to
increase substantially. A common assumption is that the private
sector simply passes the cost of pollution control on to the
consumer as increased prices for goods or services. But in a weak
domestic economy or in the face of price competition on the
international market, such price increases may be possible only at
the expense of slower sales, reduced market share, cutbacks in the
labor force, or some combination. Moreover, raising the funds to
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invest in pollution control facilities may be difficult for some
small or marginal businesses.
Many economic incentives that could encourage public and
private investment capital for funding improvements in drinking
water supply and wastevater treatment are no longer available.
This has significantly increased the cost of capital for these
systems.
Not only are pollution control funds limited, but so are funds
to adequately monitor the environmental effects of control
programs. State and federal monitoring is inadequate for unbiased
estimates of waterbody quality, from which to better decide how to
allocate limited control funds. Our ignorance of status and trends
also prevents us from educating the public about related risks.
INADEQUATE ATTENTION TO THE NEED FOR TRAINED PERSONNEL
Clean water is a public good whose protection requires public
control, which, in turn, requires adequate human resources assets
to be effective. Assuring progress toward achieving national water
quality goals will require a continued influx of sufficiently
trained, adequately paid professionals. According to a recent
review of the demand for engineers, for example, the American
Society of Civil Engineers concluded that the need for
environmental engineers will grow more rapidly than for any other
engineering discipline through the turn of the century.42 Since
1980, the number of Americans employed in science and engineering
has risen twice as fast as employment in general.43 Yet, in a number
of industrialized nations, the percentage of total labor force
trained in science and engineering is growing faster than in the
U.S.
In some water disciplines, the gap between supply of new
professionals and demand for their skills is particularly wide.
Demand for environmental engineers, for example, is greater than
supply by a factor of two or three.44 Groundwater pollution
specialists are in even shorter supply. Nearly 40 percent of the
chemists and engineers constituting today's scientific work force
will be eligible for retirement within the next five years.45
Professional education—both academic training and continuing
education—must provide more opportunities to build the skills and
experience needed for national clean water programs. After
examining demographic data and historic trends, for example, one
recent study concluded that a cumulative shortfall of several
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hundred thousand scientists and engineers at the baccalaureate
level might develop by 2000.** That shortfall could translate into
an annual supply-demand gap of several thousand scientists and
engineers at the Ph.D. level, with the shortage persisting well
into the 21st century. Such a trend in science and engineering as
a whole suggests that we examine salaries for positions in
government clean water programs with an eye to how they meet the
competition. At today's rates, government may be unable to attract
and retain skilled employees. High turnover rates may result, as
public employees leave government for better paying industry jobs.
Strong leadership is needed from our academic institutions,
the professional community, political institutions, and the media
to turn around the recent decline in federally supported student
stipends. The number of federally funded graduate stipends
(fellowships, traineeships, and research assistantships) declined
from 80,000 in 1969 to 49,000 in 1989.47 Declining levels of
support, however, may be only part of the problem. Scientists and
engineers apparently do not put much effort into communicating the
values that make science attractive. With world-class research
facilities on college campuses across America, why do few research
professors pay attention to teacher training programs at their
universities or, indeed, why do so few willingly sacrifice even a
small percentage of their budget to improve such training programs?
Current academic programs have limited access to the growing
knowledge base that constitutes the foundation of clean water
programs and do not integrate it well into the curriculum. Natural
resource managers, lawyers, economists, and civil engineers need
a skills base that goes beyond the traditional training of these
disciplines. Natural resource management requires staff trained in
biology, natural resources, water quality, environmental
engineering, cost planning, recreation, urban development and land
use, geographic analysis, sociology, and public relations. It is
no longer sufficient to train one group of engineers to produce
products and another group to clean up after them. And, considering
the high visibility that most environmental issues receive in the
eyes of the public, environmental leaders also must posses
effective written and verbal communications skills and have a keen
understanding of the impact of problems and solutions on society.48
But academic training by itself will not necessarily be
sufficient to address tomorrow's water quality problems, such as
controlling contaminated runoff. Failure of past control programs
stem, in part, from lack of perspective on the real long-term goal
of water resource protection and a failure to train professionals
September 1990 Pa8e **
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to work with individual citizens. As the nation turns its attention
to controlling contaminated runoff, planners will be needed to
develop land use regulations that are sensitive to water quality
issues. Too few agricultural specialists and farm advisors are now
adequately trained in the effects of farming on water resources and
in techniques to reduce these effects. In addition, these
personnel may have inadequate training or resources to communicate
water resource concerns to the broader public. Few programs are
in place to educate consumers about safe use and disposal of
agricultural chemicals, and there are too few efforts to train
dealers, distributors, and farmers in the safe handling and
efficient use of agricultural chemicals and fertilizers, manures,
and other nutrients.
Public policy managers must be trained to understand social
values underlying societal origins of water quality problems and
risk assessments to establish priorities. They must also be trained
to evaluate the costs and benefits of alternative approaches to
improve water quality and to assess regional aspects of water
resources. Enforcement of regulatory programs requires standards
that are ecologically sound and that will hold up under court
challenges. Therefore, managers will need expertise to resolve
legal difficulties related to scientific uncertainty behind control
measures.
LIMITATIONS ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Although ecological knowledge relevant to the solution of
water resource problems is often limited, careful application of
existing knowledge by water resource professionals would improve
the condition of those resources. At the same time, current
research and development programs are not keeping pace with demands
for scientific information. All too frequently, decisionmakers rely
on best professional judgment instead of empirical information. A
limited national research and development (R&D) effort is part of
the problem. While in dollar terms the total U.S. effort is the
largest in the world, Japan and Germany each invest more in R&D as
a percentage of their gross national product (GNP) than we do, and
other countries equal our current rate.49
EPA's Science Advisory Board reported that the Agency's 1991
budget request for its Office of Research and Development— barely
sufficient to keep up with inflation compared to 1990 and lower in
terms of constant purchasing power than in 1980—• is grossly
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inadequate. The Science Advisory Board predicts the Agency will
face difficulties attracting the kind of talent needed to replace
an aging scientific work force.50
Policy decisions concerning dredging for navigation, as
mentioned earlier, often suffer from a lack of sound economic
evaluation methods and a limited understanding of the nature and
magnitude of contaminated sediments. Managers cannot discern the
best alternatives because there is insufficient research on the
concentration and toxicity of contaminants in sediments and the
bioavailability of potential contaminants to marine organisms.
similarly, much remains unknown about health effects of
treated waters or pesticide contamination of ground and surface
waters. Insufficient data are available on long-term health effects
of some pesticides, the risks of pesticide breakdown products, and
the potential health effects of exposure to multiple pesticides,
before decisions are made to register pesticides for use. Nor do
we know enough about actual pesticide use patterns and the amounts
of pesticide residues getting into surface and ground waters under
these use patterns. We also lack detailed information—notably a
reliable, comprehensive database on pesticide use—to enable full
understanding of the amount of specific pollutants attributable to
different sources in agricultural runoff. In addition, a greater
understanding of soil-water-plant relationships is needed to
develop improved management practices.
Although some stream and lake restoration projects have been
successful, current technological solutions simply are incapable
of filling the gaps produced by ecosystem degradation. It remains
unclear whether creation or restoration of wetlands are technically
or scientifically feasible. Hence, restoration of many types of
wetlands remains in the experimental stages.
Technology development is needed for new cost-effective
procedures and equipment to detect and remove contaminants in
drinking water. Problems arise because regulations often are
written ahead of needed research and technological development and,
at the same time, federal R&D funding is limited. In addition, in
the water supply industry few market incentives exist for private
sector technology development.
The nature and magnitude of atmospheric transport of
pollutants is an area lacking sufficient research. For example,
even as atmospheric deposition, runoff, and leaching of toxic
metals into surface water and organic compounds into groundwater
are widely recognized as areas of concern, most research programs
fail to address them.
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As well, complex water quality issues such as cross-media
effects and the cumulative impacts of human activities on water
quality receive too little attention.
Finally, past government research and development policies
have focused almost exclusively on end-of-pipe or other types of
pollution controls. In comparison, preventing the generation of
pollutants in the first place has earned too little government
funding. The lack of scientific information is one of the principal
impediments to making the transition from end-of-pipe controls to
source reduction. Many who might otherwise choose to reduce the
generation of waste or consumption of water simply lack information
on the means to do so. That is, industries may be unfamiliar with
the notion that improved process design and operation could help
them use inputs more efficiently and generate less waste. One
reason for this information lag is that our traditional regulatory
programs have not yet elevated source reduction on a par with
treatment technologies.
INADEQUATE PUBLIC COMMITMENT TO WATER RESOURCE QUALITY
We can point to some success in public commitment in the
growing numbers of environmentally literate citizens who push the
professional community, public agencies, and industry toward
policies and programs for cleaner waters. On the other hand, a vast
public also exists that is uneducated or misinformed about the
relationship between clean water and a healthy economy. While it
is popular to assume that a healthy economy cannot coexist with a
healthy environment, it can and must. The environment and the
economy are not necessarily at odds.
The public generally receives effective communication
concerning water quality crises. In contrast, when water
professionals deliver satisfactory services, they receive little
recognition. As infrastructure to the economy and community
well-being, water and waste services remain in the background. The
public should expect adequate quantities of safe drinking water
and pollution-free streams. At the same time, water quality
personnel do not do an adequate job of communicating the
difficulties in achieving those goals.
Partially because of our failure to communicate the
relationship between human activities and degradation of water
resources, the public does not feel responsible for its actions
that affect water quality. Ordinary citizens remain largely unaware
September 1990 Page 51
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of what they can do to improve water quality or to reduce use.
Communicating to citizens and private industry that they must take
greater responsibility for the wastes they produce directly and for
the wastes produced as a result of their consumption of
manufactured products has not been given enough priority. Industry
and consumers have little understanding that wastes can be used as
a resource without negatively affecting human health or the
environment. Since traditional market mechanisms do not include the
environmental cost of producing certain goods, alternative
mechanisms are needed to tell citizens how their choices affect the
environment.
Not applying ecological knowledge, described earlier, hinders
effective communication about water quality issues and best
management practices to minimize adverse water quality impacts.
Private commercial interests also sometimes tend to limit
communications that would further environmental gains. Industrial
and commercial competition nay preclude companies from sharing
information about manufacturing processes that are environmentally
protective.
Consumers and producers are generally unaware of how their
choices can affect water quality. Few consumers understand that
their preference for unblemished fruit may lead to increased
pesticide runoff and concentration in game fish and water supplies.
The American public is also generally unaware of the true
costs of ensuring a safe and uninterrupted supply of water for
drinking. When systems are financed from general taxes, the true
cost of drinking water is hidden from the consumers. Even when
homes and industries are metered and charged according to use, many
drinking water systems charge less than full cost of service,
making up the difference with general revenues. As explained
earlier, the perception that safe tap water is a cheap commodity
may be on a collision course with budgetary and regulatory trends.
Another reason for deficiencies in public understanding of
aquatic resources is that education programs from kindergarten
through college have failed to stress the value of these resources
and the dependency of humans on a self-sustaining, healthy
ecosystem. As a result, even educated people lack sufficient
understanding of the nature of the environment, the environment's
fragility, society's impact on the environment, and even more
directly, the consequences of individual actions such as lawn care,
home car-care, or disposal of household chemicals. One of the areas
least understood by the public is the functional value of natural
aquatic ecosystems. Few understand that these ecosystems provide
September 1990 Page 52
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flood control, water quality enhancement, recreational
opportunities, fish and wildlife habitat, groundwater recharge,
shoreline protection, water storage, and natural green belts with
aesthetic value.
In many respects today, we lack a clearly articulated
environmental ethic that would enable us to value natural
ecosystems for their own sake. This is an impediment to resolving
water resources problems because it makes it difficult to balance
the values of natural systems against other societal priorities.
CONCLUSION
Water Quality 2000 has identified many impediments to solving
our water quality problems. Many of these center on defects in the
programs and policies currently in place. Others result from
inadequate resources devoted to the problems—low levels of
funding, inadequate application of existing knowledge, insufficient
research and development efforts, and the potential for a personnel
shortage. Nor does the public sufficiently understand factors that
impair water quality or the growing threats to the availability of
clean, abundant water.
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IV. WATER QUALITY CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE
As this report explains, the root causes of many water quality
problems are the activities of our society. As we begin to address
these root causes, it will be necessary to think carefully about
the dual pursuit of water quality and societal goals. Disagreements
will arise concerning the relative importance of water resource
quality as compared with other social, environmental, and economic
goals. Yet initiating the debate over compatibility of these goals
is critical to improving the condition of the nation's waters and
aquatic resources.
Hater Quality 2000 has concluded that the results of public
and private efforts to control sources of impairment and generally
improve the quality of waters and aquatic ecosystems over the years
have been mixed. Some problems have been solved, others await the
results of programs only recently put in place, while still others
remain challenges for the future.
A major challenge facing water managers will be to convey to
the public a clear picture of what constitutes our water resources
and the real risks we face as a result of their degradation, their
interconnectedness with other parts of the environment, and how
natural and human activities may affect water quality.
Recognizing a longer-term goal of moving the water quality
debate toward the root causes of impairment, the pages that follow
present Water Quality 2000's assessment of the key emerging near-
term issues concerning water quality.
PREVENTING POLLUTION
Where there has been a sufficient economic incentive to do so,
industry generally has improved the efficiency of manufacturing
processes and hence prevented pollution. But only recently have
government and industry turned their attention to preventing
pollution in the name of environmental protection as an alternative
to disposing waste once it has been generated.
Heightened attention to pollution prevention is due, in part,
to the increasing costs of pollution control attributable to
traditional forms of regulation and, in part, to a more fundamental
rethinking of the other economic advantages of pollution
prevention. As a rule, those who promote pollution prevention
advocate a hierarchy of alternatives whereby reducing the
generation of waste would take precedence over recycling or reusing
September 1990 Page 54
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waste once generated. In turn, recycling and reuse would take
precedence over waste treatment. Only after these options are
exhausted would the remaining residuals be disposed of as wastes.
The impediments to implementing these principles include:
o a lack of economic and/or regulatory incentives to change
current waste management practices;
o inability to access information on how to prevent
pollution;
o a lack of willingness to overcome the inertia from years
of conducting business without explicit concern for
pollution prevention; and
o physical inability to add technology or make process
changes that would result in less pollution.
Our challenge is to better understand the impediments standing
in the way of pollution prevention and to promote adoption of the
hierarchy stated above in ways that are technologically acceptable
and economically feasible.
The pages that follow present Water Quality 2000's assessment
of the key emerging issues concerning water quality.
CONTROLLING RUNOFF FROM URBAN AND RURAL LANDS
Largely because many of our past efforts have addressed point
sources, controlling runoff from farms and urban centers in the
future is likely to be far more important to improved water quality
than, say, removing the final 5 to 10 percent of pollutants from
domestic sewage. EPA studies have found that, since most of the
conventional pollutants have been removed from domestic and
industrial wastewaters, runoff from urban and rural lands is the
predominant cause of water quality impairment in more than half the
nation's rivers and streams. Controlling runoff poses significant
challenges to conventional pollution control strategies, given the
diversity of human activities on the land and the direct
relationship between land use and the contamination of runoff.
Agricultural runoff, which contains priority constituents and
excess nutrients, is widely dispersed over the landscape. The
practice of applying fertilizers and pesticides in amounts greater
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than the ecosystem can assimilate is a basic impediment to control.
Developing and implementing land use management measures that
prevent or reduce impairment rather than mitigate it after it
occurs is a major challenge.
FOCUSING ON TOXIC CONSTITUENTS
We face major technological and economic challenges in
preventing the generation of toxic constituents in the first
instance—both toxic wastes and products that may be toxic in their
own right. In addition, we face challenges in improving current
end-of-pipe control technologies. Tomorrow's water quality problems
are more likely to center on toxics, including metals, organic
compounds, and radioactive constituents than they are on
conventional pollutants. While guidelines limiting concentrations
of toxics in point sources were put in place between 1977 and 1989,
control of toxic pollutants in discharges is only now gaining
momentum. Many more toxic compounds found in waterbodies are
released with no control at all. Water quality professionals are
only just beginning to seriously consider how to deal with locally
contaminated sediments and the buildup of toxic metals and other
compounds from unchecked discharges and runoff of past decades.
Moreover, a significant source of toxics in water is atmospheric
deposition. Controlling these sources implies strengthened air
toxics regulations. Compared to toxic releases to water, toxic
discharges to air have been underregulated at the federal level and
inconsistently regulated by individual states under federal and
state authorities.
Given recent advances in our ability to detect toxic metals
and organic compounds in minute amounts, the policy challenge for
future control of toxics is a better understanding of the risks to
health and ecosystems of toxics in trace amounts.
PROTECTING AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
Many aquatic ecosystems have been degraded or destroyed by a
broad range of human activities, including construction of
residential subdivisions, new transportation systems, and
recreational developments. These physical losses result in fewer
benefits from aquatic resources, such as flood control, water
quality enhancement, timber and forage production, recreation, fish
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and wildlife habitat, groundwater recharge, shoreline protection,
water storage, and natural greenbelts. Although considerable
knowledge of the local impacts of human activities exists,
documentation is not available on cumulative degradation across
regions. Locally, urbanization, agriculture, silviculture, and
grazing have greatly reduced the integrity of the landscape. These
activities have altered the transport of water, soil, and chemicals
to receiving waters and degraded essential aquatic and terrestrial
habitat. Nationwide, habitat loss and declining fisheries also
result from municipal, industrial, and agricultural activities, and
various water development projects. Ambient biological monitoring
has been underused to assess the extent to which regulatory and
other efforts have had the desired effect in improving the quality
of water resources. Our future policy challenge is to prevent
further degradation of aquatic habitat and find ways to restore
losses of past decades.
COPING WITH MULTI-MEDIA POLLUTION
Study after study demonstrates that air, water, and land
resources are interconnected. Yet cross-media controls constitute
one of the greatest remaining challenges of pollution control. Ten
to 15 percent of the nitrogen entering Long Island Sound, for
example, and as much as half the PCBs entering the Great Lakes may
come from airborne emissions.51' 5Z Concentrating contaminants from
wastewaters in treatment sludges and disposing them on or in the
land may simply transfer pollution from surface to ground waters.
Hater quality planning in the past often has been ineffective
when based on political boundaries rather than watersheds or other
appropriate geographic scales. A policy challenge is to find the
broad perspective necessary to achieve effective ecosystem
protection on a rational geographic basis.
PROTECTING GROUNDWATER
Significant gaps exist in comprehensive resource protection
for groundwater. Yet groundwater is the repository of most human
activities in and on the land such as farming, manufacturing, and
transporting goods and people. Failed septic systems, leaking
underground storage tanks, improper well construction, and
infiltration from surface spills and runoff also are sources of
September 1990 Page 57
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concern. According to surveys conducted by EPA, for example, 47
pesticides have been detected in groundwater in one or more wells
in 26 states as a consequence of normal agricultural practices.
It is questionable whether current groundwater protection
authorities and programs will be sufficient to ensure the future
safety of drinking water drawn from the ground. The challenge is
to pursue a nationally consistent level of groundwater protection
that respects ongoing local protection activities and allows
locally efficient solutions to operate.
INCREASING SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF WATER QUALITY ISSUES
In contrast to the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on
facilities to remove pollutants before they enter the nation's
waterways, relatively little has been spent to improve our
understanding of the effects of pollution on humans and ecosystems
at all levels of concentration. Credible measures of environmental
results are largely unavailable. The effectiveness of many types
of control measures has not been evaluated. A basic understanding
of the values of aquatic ecosystems is lacking, as is a full
understanding of the cumulative effects of human activities on
these systems.
Advanced methods to measure metals and organic contaminants
in minute concentrations makes them easy to find in most surface
and ground waters. But views conflict on the significance of
on-going, low-level toxic contamination on human health or the
environment and on the cost-effectiveness of controlling such
contamination at the outer limits of detection. The challenge we
face is to improve our understanding of the significance of
contamination and the effectiveness of cleanup programs through
improved sampling, testing for pollutants, and monitoring for the
effects of point sources and runoff. This is impeded by the lack
of effective ecological monitoring programs for aquatic resources.
PROMOTING WISE USE OF RESOURCES
Until recently, the by-products of industry, commerce, and
everyday life have been treated largely as waste. Disposal of these
by-products has put pressure on the quality of the nation's surface
and ground waters. But as society has begun to increase the value
it places on clean water resources, institutions and individuals
September 1990 Page 58
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alike are finding new ways to use residuals productively, rather
than dispose of them on the land or in the water.
Similarly, because supplies generally have been plentiful,
Americans have grown used to low prices for water with the
predictable effect of excessive rates of use. In Europe, where
water generally is scarcer than it is in the U.S., the average
household pays roughly twice the average U.S.. price for drinking
water and uses roughly half as much as we do in this country.54
A reduction in the quantity of clean water results directly
from unwise use of resources. At some point, the higher prices that
must be paid to cleanse water of residuals disposed in it could
have a negative effect on lifestyles and dampen economic activity.
The challenge for the future is to find ways of keeping materials
cycling through the economy rather than allowing them to escape as
waste.
SETTING PRIORITIES
Disagreements over the most important water quality problems
hinder setting national priorities. Moreover, disagreements as to
the relative importance of water quality problems versus other
environmental issues also exist. At the heart of many of these
differences are different perspectives on the criteria one might
use to set environmental standards, agree on priorities, and
allocate resources.
EPA's Unfinished Business: A Comparative Assessment of Environmental Problems found,
among other things, that one alternative way to set priorities is
on the basis of relative risk. Using risk to set priorities may
require a deeper understanding of both risk assessment and risk management--
two distinct concepts. Risk assessment is the science of
determining what level of risk is posed by a given activity, such
as the risk of cancer from exposure to a toxic pollutant in food
or water. While the validity of various risk assessment methods is
hotly debated, this is largely limited to scientific dispute. Risk
management, on the other hand, involves extremely controversial
policy issues such as what level of risk is "acceptable" for
various activities as well as the feasibility of success within
specified time frames or resource limitations. Opinions vary from
those that argue that no risk from chemical pollution is
acceptable, to those who point to the necessity of balancing risk
to human and ecosystem health against the economic costs of
September 1990 Page 59
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reducing risk. Most agree, however, that both regulators and the
public need to achieve a better understanding of risk assessment.
Even if scientists and policymakers improve their
understanding of these issues, there may be little agreement on
which kind of risk should be reduced. In Unfinished Business, for example,
EPA identified four kinds of risk. The first two focused on
relative risk to human health, including cancer health risks and
non-cancer health risks. Some decisionmakers might prefer to
minimize these risks.
But EPA also found that there are two other measures of risk:
the risk of ecological losses, such as elimination of
environmentally sensitive species, and the risk of welfare losses,
such as reduced opportunities for recreation or declining land
values adjacent to polluted bodies of water.
Moreover, some would argue that setting priorities on the
basis of any kind of comparative risk is unwise. Neither public nor
regulatory agencies, they argue, have sufficient information to
understand fully human health risks or risks to ecosystems. In
addition, risk assessment is resource intensive and may be an
inefficient use of limited public resources.
Our challenge is to improve our understanding of whether and
to what extent risk analysis can contribute to priority setting or
whether, for example, environmental priorities might be better
established based on whole ecosystem effects, including
consideration of all environmental media.
PROVIDING SAFE DRINKING WATER
The relationship between water quality and water quantity
suggests that much of our activity designed to improve the quality
of surface and ground waters will benefit drinking water supplies.
For example, better planning to protect watersheds will ultimately
reduce the cost to treat drinking water. Yet many issues regarding
the provision of safe drinking water remain unresolved. For
example, much of the cost of treating water to the standards
required in the Safe Drinking Hater Act is currently shouldered by
users—who are not necessarily the ones responsible for polluting
drinking water sources.
In addition, the expanded drinking water regulatory program
presents a significant infrastructure problem, especially to small
communities. These small systems generally have much higher costs
of service because they lack the economies of scale needed to bring
September 1990 Page 60
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treatment costs down. They also generally lack the management
expertise to assure problem-free operation of relatively
sophisticated treatment works or, indeed, to establish adequate
pricing or billing systems. Moreover, small communities generally
pay higher capital costs to borrow funds to build treatment works
because they are unknown to most lenders and buyers of municipal
bonds. In addition, some communities cannot afford the high fixed
costs of borrowing through the bond market.
Our challenge, therefore, is to acknowledge the benefits of
high-quality drinking water, protect water supplies, develop
technologies that deliver such supplies without harming other
media, price the delivery of this resource to adequately reflect
its value, and assure that all communities have access to and can
pay for equally high-quality drinking water.
MANAGING GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
In many areas across the nation, urban and suburban sprawl is
replacing forests, agricultural lands, and coastal and other
natural areas at an alarming rate. Sprawling development increases
surface areas exposed to disturbance, increasing storm water runoff
and sedimentation and aggravating the risks of failed septic
systems that pollute ground and surface waters. Such development
forces the use of automobiles for most aspects of daily living,
leading to increased highway development and causing more air
pollution. The challenge we face is to manage and control growth
in a way that respects watershed integrity and minimizes both
direct and cumulative impacts of water quality.
FINANCING HATER RESOURCE IMPROVEMENTS
Central to all these water quality and resource issues is the
question of funding. Finding adequate resources for water programs
may be considerably more difficult in the future than it has been
in the past. The dimensions of our funding challenge include:
o Securing sources of funds from public and private sectors;
o Allocating funds among competing environmental controls
and monitoring of media;
September 1990 Page 61
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o Managing funds effectively to address the full range of
water quality problems; and
o Evaluating the effects of funding programs in terms of
public health and environmental results.
September 1990
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V. THE NEXT STEP
This report, which concludes Phase II of Water Quality 2000's
work, contains findings regarding current and future water quality
problems as articulated in the reports of ten work groups and in
the deliberations of Water Quality 2000's Steering Committee and
Member Congress. Water quality professionals from all levels of
government, academia, industry, the professional community, and
environmental interest groups contributed to these deliberations.
This report has presented a profile of the current condition
of the nation's water resources. It has described the sources
currently impacting these resources and the importance of each
relative to total impairment. Both causes of pollution and
impediments to improving the physical, chemical, and biological
integrity of the nation's waters have been discussed in detail. The
report has characterized the root causes of water quality problems
emanating from the fabric of our society. Impediments to solutions,
in comparison, generally have been attributed to inadequacies of
current water policies or programs.
As water quality professionals representing all perspectives,
the contributors to this report feel confident that it presents a
balanced description of today's key water quality problems. We are
confident that these conclusions will stand as a sound foundation
for the formulation of solutions in the next phase of our work. We
eagerly look forward to Phase III of our project and extend an
invitation to all who wish to contribute to a continuing debate
over solutions to support Water Quality 2000.
September 1990 Page 63
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NOTES
1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Groundwater Supply Survey,
Office of Drinking Water, June 1982.
2. National Council on Public Works Improvement, Frayte Foundations: A
Report on America's Public Works, February 1988.
3. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Investments: The Costs
of A Clean Environment, (forthcoming 1990) .
4. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality Inventory, 1988
Report to Congress, Office of Water, March 1990.
5. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Toxic Release Inventory.
1988.
6. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Survey, March 1988.
7. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Qualify Inventory, 1988
Report to Congress, Office of Water, March 1990.
8. Judy, R.D., Jr., et al. 1984. 1982. National Fisheries Survey, Vol. I.,
"Technical Report: Initial Findings." FWS/OBS-84/06. U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C.
9. Miller, R.R., et al. 1989. "Extinctions of North American
Fishes During the Past Century," Fisheries (Bethesda) 14:22-38.
10. U.S. Geological Survey, Testimony before House Public Works
and Environment Committee, April 25, 1990.
11. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Croundwater Supply Survey,
Office of Drinking Water, June 1982.
12. There is some controversy regarding the definition of
wetlands. According to federal regulations, an area is
considered a wetland if it has certain soil, hydrologic, and
biological conditions. In contrast, many define wetlands as
marshes, swamps, bogs, and similar wet areas that are
transitional between open water and dry land (uplands). The
second definition would exclude many areas considered wetlands
under federal regulations.
September 1990 Page 64
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13. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wetland Lasses in the United States, 1970s to
1980s, A Report to Congress, U.S. Department of the Interior,
Washington, D.C., July 1990.
14. Williams, J.E. et al. 1989. "Fishes of North America-
Endangered, Threatened, or of Special Concern," Fisheries
(Bethesda) 14:2-20.
15. Ebel, W.J. et al. 1979. "The Columbia River: Toward a Holistic
Understanding." Pages 205-19 in D.P. Dodge, ed. Proceedings
of the International Large Rivers Symposium. Canadian Special
Publication of Fish and Aquatic Sciences.
16. Sport Fishing Institute, Aquatic Contaminants: A Threat to the Sport Fishing
Industry, Washington, D.C., 1986.
17. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality Inventory, 1988
Report to Congress t Office of Water, March 1990.
18. Congressional Budget Office, Environmental Regulation and Economic Efficiency,
March 1985.
19. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Government Finances Series, various
years.
20. Environmental Protection Agency, 1988 Needs Survey, Office of Water,
February 1989.
21. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, A Preliminary Analysis of Public Costs
of Environmental Protection:1981-2000, Office of Administration and
Resources Management, May 1990.
22. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, State Funding Study-Draft
Recommendations, Office of Water, 1989.
23. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1988 Needs Survey, Office of
Water, February 1989.
24. National Council on Public Works Improvement, Fragile Foundations,
February 1988.
September 1990 Page 65
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25. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality Inventory, 1988
Report to Congress, Office of Water, March 1990.
26. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Evaluating the
Environmental Health Work Force, prepared by Levine and Associates,
Rockville, MD, January 1988.
27. Richard C. Atkinson, "Supply and Demand for Scientists and
Engineers: A National Crisis in the Making," Science, April 27,
1990.
28. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as cited in Robert Pool, "Who
Will Do Science in the 1990s?" Science, April 27, 1990.
29. Personal communication with Steven Moehlmann, Executive
Director, Association of Boards of Certification, May 30,
1990.
30. Association of Boards of Certification, "Operator
Certification: 1980 Status Report," Journal of the Water Pollution Control
Federation, December 1981.
31. USAToday, April 20, 1990.
32. Cambridge Reports, Trends and Forecasts, September 1989.
33. Institute of Public Administration, Special Districts and Public Authorities in
Public Works Provision, prepared for the National Council on Public
Works Improvement, July 10, 1987.
34. Commuting in America, The Eno Foundation, 1988.
35. U.S. General Accounting Office, Environmental Protection Agency: Protecting
Human Health and the Environment Through Improved Management, August 1988.
36. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, State Funding Study—Draft
Recommendations, Office of Water, 1989.
37. Many of these systems, such as those that serve mobile home
parks, recreation areas, or institutions, are not in
continuous use by the public.
September 1990 Page 66
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38. For details, see Environmental Financial Advisory Board to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Statement an Environmental Tax
Polity, Draft, March 1990.
39. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Report to Congress, Water Quality
Improvement Study, Office of Water Regulations and Standards,
September 1989.
40. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, A Preliminary Analysis of the Public
Costs of Environmental Protection: 1981-2000, Office of Administration and
Resources Management, May 1990.
41. This estimate may overstate shortfalls, to the degree that
states leverage their capitalization grants. See: National
Council on Public Works Improvement, The Nation's Public Works: Report on
WastewaterManagement, prepared by Apogee Research, Inc., May 1987.
42. American Society of Civil Engineers, Civil Engineering in the 21st Century,
1988.
43. National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Indicators -1989, 1989.
44. Richard 6. Luthy and Mark M. Benjamin, "Solving Groundwater
Contamination Problems Through Graduate Education in
Environmental Engineering," Water Environment and Technology, January
1990.
45. Testimony of John Neuhold before the House of Representatives'
Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Subcommittee on
Natural Resources, April 3, 1990.
46. Richard C. Atkinson, "Supply and Demand for Scientists and
Engineers: A National Crisis in the Making," Science, April 27,
1990.
47. see Atkinson, 1990.
48. Paul L. Busch and William C. Anderson, "Education of Hazardous
Waste Engineering Professionals," presented at the 116th
Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association,
Boston, Massachusetts, November 15, 1987.
49. National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Indicators • 1989, 1989.
September 1990 Page 67
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50. See Testimony of John Neuhold, April 3, 1990.
51. Long Island Sound Study Policy Committee, Long Island Sound Study 1988
Annual Report. 1989.
52. Great Lakes Water Quality Board, Report to the International
Joint Commission, The 1987 Report on Great Lakes Water Quality, Windsor,
Ontario, 1987.
53. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticides in Ground Water Data Base,
1988 Interim Report, Washington, D. C., 1988.
54. Peter Rogers and Kenneth I. Rubin, "Management of Water
Resources in the U.S.: Current Context and Future Strategies,"
presented at the Institute of Public Administration of
Canada's Conference on Management of Water Resources, Harrison
Hot Springs, B.C., April 24-26, 1985.
September 1990 Page 68
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APPENDIX A
Organization, Goal, and Mission of Water Quality 2000
Water Quality 2000 was initiated in 1988. In July of that year, leaders of 26 national, state, and local
organizations met to assess the effectiveness of current water quality policies, the process by which
these policies are established, and ways in which this process could be improved. At the conclusion of
the conference, an ad hoc committee was formed to explore the feasibility of a formal cooperative effort.
This ad hoc group developed a mission statement, agreed upon a vision and goal, and created an or-
ganizational structure for the effort. These documents were refined and ratified by representatives of 31
organizations.
Mission Statement
The mission of Water Quality 2000 is stated as follows:
Representing a broad range of interests in America, propose and promote national policies and
goals for the 21st century that will protect and enhance water quality, with a specific agenda for action.
In carrying out this mission, the following principles will be applied:
• Broad representation will be achieved;
• The perspective will be long-range, visionary, and holistic;
• Maximum consensus on "national principles" will be sought;
• Water quality, not water quantity, is the focus, but with a balanced view of surface,
ground, and atmospheric waters; and
• The product of Water Quality 2000 will include a specific agenda for action.
Membership and Governance
To date, membership in Water Quality 2000 has included more than 80 organizations, representing
industry, government, the environmental movement, the professional and technical community, and
academia (see Appendix B for a list of Member Organizations). Membership is balanced to reflect the
diversity of interests concerned with water quality. Each organization has an equal voice in the Member
Congress (except that federal agency members do not vote). A twenty-member Steering Committee,
September 1990 Page 69
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elected in September 1989, provides overall leadership and direction for Water Quality 2000 (see Appen-
dix C for a list of Steering Committee members and their affiliations).
Water Quality 2000 is a Four-step Process
The work plan approved at the 1989 conference divides the activities of Water Quality 2000 into four
distinct phases (see box). Phase I, Feasibility and Plan Development, was completed in May 1989. The
adoption of this report completes Phase ft Problem Identification. This report assesses the current con-
dition of the nation's water resources, explores the underlying causes of water problems, critiques the
policies and programs in place to deal with these problems, and identifies impediments to their solu-
tion. In doing so, it provides the foundation for Phase ffl, Development of Recommendations. This next
phase of the project will seek consensus on policy recommendations that correspond to the problems
identified in this report. These recommendations will be completed in 1991. During Phase IV, Im-
plementation, Water Quality 2000 will publicize and explain these recommendations to Congress and
all who influence water quality.
The Four Phases of Water Quality 2000
Phase I — Feasibility and Plan Development
Phase n — Problem Identification
Phase QI — Development of Recommendations
Phase IV — Implementation
Methodology for Problem Identification
To provide the broadest possible perspective on problems with current policies and programs, ten
work groups of 15 to 25 members were established (see box). Efforts were made to ensure a balanced
membership that would reflect the diverse composition of those concerned with water quality. Work
groups were asked to arrive at their conclusions by a process of discussion, debate, and consensus. Over
150 individuals participated in the work group process between August 1989 and May 1990 (a list of
work group participants is attached as Appendix D).
September 1990 Page 70
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The Ten Work Groups Convened During Phase II
• Agriculture
• Aquatic Ecosystems and Habitat
• Community
• Energy and Resources Extraction
• Industry
• Legislation
• Recreation
• Transportation
• Watershed
• Water Supply
The groups were charged with identifying the most critical water quality issues in each area of con-
cern. The groups were asked to approach this task in a visionary and futuristic manner, measuring cur-
rent conditions against the Water Quality 2000 Vision Statement and Goal (see Appendix E for the full
text of both). Each group addressed three broad topics: (1) water quality problems; (2) causes of these
problems; and (3) impediments to solutions.
Draft reports from each work group were circulated for review by all Member Organizations. Com-
ments submitted as a result of this review were considered by the groups in developing their final
reports. The Steering Committee reviewed the ten reports, used them to develop this document, and in
some cases, augmented them. This report — the official product of Phase n — synthesizes the findings
of the ten work groups, identifies major themes and oosscutting issues, and provides a framework for
the consideration of solutions in Phase m.
September 1990 Page 71
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APPENDIX B
Water Quality 2000
Member Organizations
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
American Academy of Environmental Engineers
American Association of Port Authorities
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
American Consulting Engineers Council
American Farm Bureau Federation
American Farmland Trust
American Forestry Association
American Institute of Chemical Engineers
American Paper Institute/National Forest Products Association
American Petroleum Institute
American Planning Association
American Public Works Association
American Recreation Coalition
American Rivers
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Water Resources Association
American Water Works Association
Association of Environmental Engineering Professors
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies
Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies
Association of State Drinking Water Administrators
Chemical Manufacturers Association
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Citizens For A Better Environment, California
Colorado Environmental Coalition
The Conservation Foundation
Edison Electric Institute
Environment and Energy Study Institute
Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Law Institute
The Fertilizer Institute
Friends of the Earth
Green Bay Metropolitan Sanitary District (Wisconsin)
Great Lakes Commission
Harvard University - Division of Applied Sciences
Heidelberg College - Water Quality Laboratory
International City Management Association
Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin
Izaak Walton League of America
Kansas Water Office
Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation
September 1990 Page 72
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Lower Colorado River Authority (Texas)
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
National Agricultural Chemicals Association
National Association of Conservation Districts
National Association of Counties
National Association of Regional Councils
National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges
National Association of Stormwater and Hood Management Agencies
National Association of Water Companies
National Food Processors Association
National League of Cities
National Parks and Conservation Association
National Recreation and Parks Association
National Society of Professional Engineers
National Wildlife Federation
Natural Resources Defense Council
North American Lake Management Society
NSI Technology Services, Inc.
Occidental Petroleum Corporation
Reliance National Insurance Company
Rock River Water Reclamation District
Rural Community Assistance Program
Soil and Water Conservation Society
Spill Control Association of America
Sport Fishing Institute
Trout Unlimited
Urban Land Institute
United Shipowners of America
U.S. Army - Corps of Engineers
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
Forest Service
Soil Conservation Service
U.S. Dept. of Commerce - NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service
U.S. Dept. of Interior
Bureau of Reclamation
Fish and Wildlife Service
Geological Survey
U.S. Dept. of Transportation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Vanderbilt University
Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University
Water Pollution Control Federation
Water and Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation
September 1990 Page 73
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APPENDIX C
Water Quality 2000
Steering Committee Members and Their Affiliations
Bob Adler (Vice Chairman)
Natural Resources Defense Council
Judy Campbell Bird
Environment and Energy Study Institute
Brenda Cuccherini
Chemical Manufacturers Association
Clifton Curtis
The Oceanic Society (9/89-7/90)
John Doyle (9/89-3/90)
G. Edward Dickey (3/90-)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Clark Duffy
Kansas Water Office
Linda Eichmiller
Association of State and Interstate Water
Pollution Control Administrators (9/89-6/90)
Nancy Foster
NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service
Chuck Fox
Friends of the Earth
Frank Friedman
Occidental Petroleum Corporation
Margot Garcia
American Planning Association
Jerome Gilbert
American Academy of Environmental
Engineers
Mack Gray
USDA /Soil Conservation Service
Patricia Hill
American Paper Institute/National Forest
Products Association
Carolyn Olsen
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies
Ruth Patrick
The Academy of Natural Sciences
Ann Powers
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Rudy Rosen (7/90-)
National Wildlife Federation
David Stahl
Urban Land Institute
Ernest Shea
National Association of Conservation Districts
Paul Woodruff (Chairman)
Water Pollution Control Federation
Steering Committee Alternates
Walter Bishop, alternate for Jerome Gilbert
Jim Burt, alternative for Mack Cray
Stan Chanesman, alternate for Nancy Foster
Jessica Landman, alternate for Bob Adler
Ernie Rosenberg and Catharine deLacy, alternates for Frank Friedman
September 1990
Page 74
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APPENDIX D
Water Quality 2000: Work Group Participants
AGRICULTURE
American Forestry Association
Gerald Gray
American Society of Civil Engineers
William R. Johnston
Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution
Control Administrators
Linda Eichmiller
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Patrick Gardner
Environmental and Energy Study Institute
Judy Campbell Bird
Farmer, Casselton, North Dakota
Robert Sinner
Fertilizer Institute (The)
Karl Johnson
Heidelberg College, Water Quality Laboratory
David Baker
Lower Colorado River Authority (Texas)
John Hall
Kolleen Wilwerding
National Agricultural Chemicals Association
Thomas Gilding
National Association of Conservation Districts
Ernest Shea
National Association of State Universities and
Land Grant Colleges
Terry Nipp
National Association of Wheat Growers
Margery Williams
National Com Growers Association
David Stawick
National Food Processors Association
Paul Halberstadt
National Research Council, Board on Agriculture
Craig A. Cox
Natural Resources Defense Council
Thomas Kuhnle
Justin Ward
Soil and Water Conservation Society
Norman Berg
Richard Duesterhaus
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Richard Amerman, Agriculture Research Service
Ronald F. Follett, Agricultural Research Service
Mack Gray, Soil Conservation Service
Doral Kemper, Agriculture Research Service
Jack McDougle, Soil Conservation Service
Peter Patterson, Soil Conservation Service
Marc Ribaudo, Economic Research Service
Ed Schlatterer, Forest Service
Peter Smith, Soil Conservation Service
Mark Waggoner, Soil Conservation Service
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Robert Barles, Office of Water
Robert Bastian, Office of Water
Peter Caulkins, Office of Policy, Planning and
Evaluation
Rosanna Ciupek, Office of Water
Rebecca Hanmer, Office of Water (Chair)
James J. Jones, Office of Policy Analysis
Jeanne Melanson, Wetlands Protection
Carl Myers, Office of Water
Clayton Ogg, Office of Policy, Planning and
Evaluation
John Reeder, Office of Water
Lynn Shuyler, Chesapeake Bay, Region m
September 1990
Page 75
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AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS AND HABITAT
Environmental Defense Fund
Rodney Fujita
Mary Voytek
Green Bay Metropolitan Sanitary District
(Wisconsin)
Harold Day
John Kennedy
National Council for Air and Stream Improvement
Dennis Borton
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Stan Chanesman, National Marine Fisheries
Service
National Wildlife Federation
Rudy Rosen
NSI Technology Services Corporation
Robert Hughes
Oceanic Society
Boyce Thome Miller
Sport Fishing Institute
Gilbert Radonski
US. Army Corps of Engineers
Mary Landin, Waterways Experiment Station
VS. Department of Agriculture
Gordon Haugen, Forest Service
VS. Department of Interior
Mary Gessner, Fish and Wildlife Service
VS. Environmental Protection Agency
David Davis, Office of Wetlands Protection
James Giattina, Water Division, Region V (Chair)
Charles Sutfin, Water Division, Region V
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
James Karr
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Scott Hausmann
Woolpert Consultants
Warren High
September 1990
Page 76
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COMMUNITY
American Academy of Environmental Engineers
Walter J. Bishop
American Consulting Engineers Council
Pat Marchese
American Planning Association, Virginia
Commonwealth University
Margot W. Garcia
American Public Works Association
Richard Sullivan
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies
Ken Kirk
Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution
Control Administrators
Chuck Evans
Citizens for a Better Environment, California
Denise Fort
City of Atlanta, Department of Water and Pollution
Control
George Barnes
Carolyn Hardy Olsen
City of San Diego (California)
Susan C. Hamilton
City of Tulsa (Oklahoma)
Lloyd C.Coffelt
Bob Pool
Green Bay Municipal Sanitary District (Wisconsin)
Harold J. Day
Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan
Sewer District (Kentucky)
Bud Schardein
Lower Colorado River Authority (Texas)
David Freeman
Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle (Washington)
John B. Lampe
National Association of Regional Councils
Richard Hartman
National League of Cities
Carol Kocheisen
Natural Resources Defense Council
BobAdler
Jessica Landman
Passaic Valley Sewerage Authority (New Jersey)
Carmine T. Perrapato
Philadelphia Water Department (Pennsylvania)
Dean A. Kaplan
Puget Sound Water Quality Authority (Washington)
Kathy Fletcher
Rock River Water Reclamation District
Ron Holm
Jon Olson (Chair)
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Services
Gordon Stuart
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of
Municipal Pollution Control
Mike Quigley
September 1990
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ENERGY AND RESOURCE EXTRACTION
AMAX
Peter Keppler
American Petroleum Institute
Stephanie Meadows
Columbia Law School
Frank Grad
Edison Electric Institute
Rich Bozek
Environmental Law Institute
BUI Futrell
Jim McElfish
National Wildlife Federation
Cathy Carlson
Natural Resources Defense Council
Lisa Spear
Occidental Petroleum Corporation
Frank B. Friedman (Chair)
Catharine deLacy
Ernie Rosenberg
US. Department of Agriculture
Doreen Christian, Forest Service
US. Environmental Protection Agency
Mahesh Podar, Office of Policy Analysis
John W. Wilson, Office of Policy, Planning, and
Evaluation
Western Governors Association
Philip Shimer
INDUSTRIAL
American Consulting Engineers Council
Eric Lappala
American Electroplaters and Surface Finishers
Society
Erich Salomon
American Paper Institute/National Forest Product
Association
Patricia Hill (Co-chair)
Chemical Manufacturers Association
Jim Baker
Brenda Cuccherini
Citizens For A Better Environment, C A
Denise Fort
Colorado Environmental Coalition
Ross Vincent
Edison Electric Institute
Rich Bozek
Environmental Defense Fund
Ann Maest
Natural Resources Defense Council
Diane Cameron
US. Department of Agriculture
Richard Cline, Forest Service
US. Environmental Protection Agency
Mark Luttner, Industrial Technology
Water Pollution Control Federation
Eugene DeMichele
Carl Huber (Co-chair)
Michael Saunders
LialTischler
September 1990
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LEGISLATION
American Association of Environmental Engineers
Walter]. Bishop
Jerome B. Gilbert
American Petroleum Institute
Stephanie Meadows
American Water Resources Association
Alfred Duda
Madge Ertel
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies
Kevin McCarty
Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies
Diane VanDe Hei
Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution
Control Administrators
Linda Eichmiller
Chemical Manufacturers Association
Dell Perelman
Congressional Research Service
Claudia Copeland
Environmental Law Institute
Lisa St. Amand
Friends of the Earth
Chuck Fox
Great Lakes Commission
Michael Donahue
Harvard University
Peter Rogers
Izaak Walton League of America
David Dickson
National Agricultural Chemicals Association
Jean Toohey
National Association of Conservation Districts
Steve Meyer
National League of Cities
Carol Kocheisen
Natural Resources Defense Counci
Jessica Landman (Co-chair)
US. Department of Agriculture
Warren Harper, Forest Service
US. Environmental Protection Agency
Don Brady, Office of Water Regulations and
Standards
Martha Prothro, Office of Water (Co-chair)
Linda Wilbur, Office of Water Regulations and
Standards
Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association
Dawn Kristof
September 1990
Page 79
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RECREATION
American Fisheries Society
Paul Brouha
American Fishing Tackle Association
Dallas Miner
American Recreation Coalition
Derrick Crandall
American Rivers, Inc.
Susan Wilkins
Living Lakes
Tim Adams
National Recreation and Parks Association
Barry Tindall
New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation
Ron Miller
North American Lake Management Society
Jerry Filbin
Resources for the Future
Carol Jones
Soil and Water Conservation Society
Mel Bellinger
Sport Fishing Institute
Gilbert Radonski
Trout Unlimited
Bob Herbst (Co-chair)
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Elizabeth Estill, Forest Service (Co-chair)
US. Department of Commerce
Wylie Whisonant, Jr.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Mary Jo Kealy, Economic Analysis
Ralph (Skip) Luken, Economic Analysis
Brett Snyder, Economic, Analysis
George Walker, Chesapeake Bay Program
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation
Ray Felton
TRANSPORTATION
American Association of Port Authorities
Joseph Birgeles
Richard Gorini (Co-chair)
American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials
Francis Francois
Mel Thomas
Great Lakes Commission
Michael Donohue
Steve Thorp
National Association of Dredging Contractors
Mark Sickles
National League of Cities
Nicholas Yaksich
Oceanic Society
Clifton Curtis
Spill Control Association of America
Marc K. Shaye
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
David Barrows
Robert Engler
Dave Mathis
U.S. Department of Agriculture
David Badger, Forest Service
U.S. Department of Transportation
Joseph F. Canny (Co-chair)
Larry Isaacson
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Ken Mittelholtz, Office of Federal Activities
Vanderbilt University
Edward L Thackston, Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering
Water Pollution Control Federation
Walter A. Lyon
September 1990
Page 80
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WATERSHED
American Public Works Association
Pam Bissonnette
American Water Resources Association
Raymond Herrmann, National Park Service
(Co-chair)
Charles Mosher, US. General Accounting Office
Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution
Control Administrators
Linda Eichmiller
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Ann Powers
Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin
Roland Steiner
Kansas Water Office
Clark Duffy
NSI Technical Services
Andrew Kinney
University of Michigan
Jonathan Bulkley, Natural Resources and Civil
Engineering
University of Washington
Dennis Lettenmaier, Department of Civil
Engineering
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Karl Otte, Soil Conservation Sendee
US. Department of the Interior
Stephen Ragone, Geological Survey (Co-chair)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Thomas Davenport, Nonpoint Sources,
Region V
Tudor Davies, Office of Marine and Estuarine
Protection
Michelle Hiller, Office of Marine and Estuarine
Protection
WATER SUPPLY
American Planning Association
Margot Garcia
American Water Works Association
John Sullivan
Edward Tenny (Chair)
Association of Drinking Water Administrators
G. Wade Miller
Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies
Diane VanDe Hei
City of Portland, Bureau of Water Works
Jeanne McCormick
Environment and Energy Study Institute
Janet Edmond
National Association of Towns and Townships
Amie Edelman
National Association of Water Companies
Jim Groff
National Rural Water Association
John Trax
Philadelphia Water Department
Dean Kaplan
University of North Carolina
Daniel Okun (retired)
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Warren Harper, Forest Service
US. Environmental Protection Agency
Mike Cook, Office of Drinking Water
Joe Cotruvo, Office of Health and
Environmental Review
Water and Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers
Association
Dawn Kristof
September 1990
Page 81
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APPENDIX E
Water Quality 2000: Vision Statement and Goal
Vision Statement: Society living in harmony with healthy natural systems.
Goal: To develop and implement and implement an integrated policy for the Nation to protect and
enhance water quality that supports society living in harmony with healthy natural systems.
To achieve this goal, this policy should
CONSIDER:
• all phases of the water cycle, including groundwater, surface water, and atmospheric
water;
• water as one part of a total environmental management plan, to avoid transferring
problems from one environmental medium to another;
• the link between water quality and land use;
• the relationship between water quality policy in the United States and global
environmental issues;
• the need to maintain a healthy economy.
PROMOTE SUCH STRATEGIES AS:
• source reduction and waste minimization;
• water conservation and reuse;
ASSURE:
• healthy aquatic, estuarine and marine ecosystems;
• healthy drinking water supplies and adequate water quality for other uses;
• protection of human health from water quality hazards associated with recreation, fish
and shellfish consumption, and other water uses.
Adopted 5/19/89
September 1990 " Page 82
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APPENDIX F
Summaries of Work Group Reports
The attached documents are summaries of Water Quality 2000*5 ten Phase n work group reports.
These work groups included more than 150 environmental professionals. These summaries are
products of the individual work groups and may not reflect the views of the Water Quality 2000 Steer-
ing Committee or the participating organizations. The Steering Committee used the work groups' full
reports as background for this Phase D report. Copies of the full reports of the work groups are available
on request from Tim Williams, Water Quality 2000,601 Wythe Street, Alexandria, Virginia, 22314-1994,
(703) 684-2416.
We wish to thank all the work group participants for their efforts and look forward to their con-
tinued contribution in Phase HI of Water Quality 2000.
September 1990 Page 83
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Agriculture Work Group
Executive Summary
In many areas of the United States, agricultural pollution creates water quality problems that result
in ecological damage, economic losses and health risks for humans and livestock. Termed "nonpoint,"
agricultural and other diffuse sources of pollution are increasingly viewed as important environmental
problems.
The Agriculture Work Group's Phase II Report identifies sources of agricultural pollution — soil
erosion and sediment, nutrients, irrigation, conversion and loss of wetlands and riparian habitat, pes-
ticides and animal production — and discusses the scope of the problems and impediments to solving
them, including costs of management practices, gaps in information and institutional impediments.
Scope of the Problems
Surface Water
Assessments by states under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act and sampling by the U.S Geological
Survey provide considerable insight into pollution problems. More than half of the nation's rivers and
lakes have yet to be assessed, but, of those that have been studied, a third of the river miles and a fourth
of the lake acres were found to be impaired for some designated uses. Polluting sources include:
• Sediment from agriculture and other nonpoint sources, which accounted for 42 percent
of the impaired river miles, while pesticides accounted for 10 percent. Economic studies
place costs of sediment damages in the billions of dollars per year.
• Nutrients accounted for 49 percent, sediment for 25 percent and pesticides for five
percent of impaired lake acres. More recent findings suggest that pesticides occur in
surface waters, including drinking water, more widely than previously realized.
• Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of phosphorus loadings, which are often the
limiting nutrient for lake eutrophication problems. Sediment and animal wastes are
major contributors to phosphorus loadings; animal wastes can also cause serious
localized pathogen problems.
• Agricultural practices have destroyed a large amount of wetlands and have damaged
vegetation on streambanks, eliminating areas that filter sediment and nutrients and
provide many other ecological benefits.
September 1990 Page 84
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In several western states, irrigation-related damage from salt costs downstream urban, industrial
and agricultural water users hundreds of millions of dollars yearly. Irrigation can also leach toxic chemi-
cals into surface waters and groundwater.
Groundwater
Less is known about the affect of agricultural practices on groundwater. Nitrates in groundwater ex-
ceed current health standards levels in virtually all states and occur in 5 to 20 percent of sampled wells
in the Western Corn Belt and Mid-Atlantic states. Pesticides have also been found in groundwater in
most states; however, pollution levels are usually below health advisory standards of contamination.
• A primary cause of nitrate problems is poor synchronization of nitrogen supply with
crop needs.
• The lack of data on health risks from consuming nitrate-nitrogen and pesticides,
especially for low levels of concentration, complicates assessments.
Impediments to Solving Problems
Economic Impediments
Agricultural producers are driven by the profit motive, therefore economic realities determine, to a
large extent, the way they run their farms.
• Agricultural producers are generally subject to substantial risks for which they receive
relatively small returns. Significant impediments to reducing agricultural pollution
include the unavailability of technical expertise and perceived or actual economic risks
associated with adopting more environmentally oriented farming practices. However,
alternative methods of farming that reduce production costs may stimulate the
adoption of more water quality protection practices.
• Because they operate within a competitive system, individual farmers are generally
unable to pass the incremental costs of environmental remediation on to consumers,
which reduces their ability to adopt best management practices (BMPs) economically.
• Increased agricultural productivity across the U.S. has intensified fanning practices.
When chemicals are used and livestock are concentrated in small areas, the increase in
wastes and related pollutants elevates the risks of water pollution. This kind of
intensified agriculture poses a serious challenge to improving water quality.
September 1990 Page 85
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Political Impediments
Farmers are strongly affected by government at all levels. Some government programs have already
been modified to support wetland preservation and soil conservation, with a greater emphasis on at-
taining water quality goals. Nonetheless, the work group identified gaps in these efforts and conflicts
with environmental goals.
• Farm programs often inadvertently operate to frustrate or undercut environmental
policies by encouraging intensive production that, at times, occurs on environmentally
sensitive lands. Current program rules that base payments on recent planting of grains
encourage monoculture at the expense of crop rotations that may require the use of
fewer pesticides and increase the benefit to the soil. This problem has been recognized,
and there are a number of legislative proposals under consideration in the U.S. Senate
and House of Representatives.
• Even with the expansion and targeting of soil conservation expenditures based on
control of erosion, a remaining impediment is the difficulty of coordinating these
federal soil conservation programs with state-led programs to improve water quality.
• State water quality programs are beginning to address agricultural nonpoint source
issues. However, much work remains to be done on water quality standards, localized
risk assessments and management planning.
• Mandatory environmental regulations often exempt agriculture, reflecting a general
preference for voluntary programs. Reliance on voluntary approaches makes it difficult
to target remediation efforts to the worst problems. Continued reliance on voluntary
programs without increased government funding is a key impediment to achieving
national water quality goals.
• The lack of resources for controlling nonpoint source pollution, generally, and
agricultural pollution, in particular, is a serious impediment.
Information-related Impediments
Effective water quality protection programs require sufficient data to establish goals, fix respon-
sibility and design and implement pollution abatement practices. The work group identified a number
of information impediments.
September 1990 Page 86
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• Since agricultural pollution emanates from millions of locations, the states and the
federal government have been unable to pinpoint the absolute and relative
contributions of various sources. This has impaired government's ability to design
effective remediation programs based on area-specific water quality objectives.
• There is incomplete farm-level information on water quality BMPs and alternative
agricultural systems. For example, data are needed for quantifying the effectiveness of
different kinds of BMPs, and dissemination of the substantial knowledge that does exist
is limited.
• Data gaps for many pesticides include information on health risks, especially at low
levels, risks from break-down products and risks from exposure to multiple pesticides.
There are significant gaps in data on pesticide-use patterns and the extent of surface
water and groundwater contamination.
• Additional information on nitrates is needed for more comprehensive soil tests and
related data to allow fanners to meet but not exceed plant nitrogen requirements;
improved methods for irrigation water management to reduce leaching; and data on
health effects, especially on cancer risks.
September 1990 Page 87
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Aquatic Ecosystems and Habitat
Executive Summary
The Aquatic Ecosystems and Habitat Work Group was assigned the task of describing the ecological
effect of human activities that degrade this nation's freshwater, estuarine and marine surface water
resources. To accomplish this task, we looked beyond water quality from a purely chemical standpoint
and examined the full range of physical, chemical and biological factors that contribute to the degrada-
tion of aquatic ecosystems. In doing so, the work group concluded that aquatic resource management
programs have not used biological indicators — such as the health of aquatic organisms and the ter-
restrial life that depends on these organisms — to identify problems and develop solutions and there-
fore have failed to adequately protect the biological aspects of those resources. The result of this over-
sight is a fragmented and, at times, contradictory approach to aquatic resource management.
Scope of the Problems
Aquatic ecosystems have been degraded and destroyed by a broad range of human activities that
have occurred locally, regionally and globally. In particular, urbanization, agriculture, silviculture and
livestock grazing have drastically altered the integrity of the landscape, resulting in runoff of soil and
chemicals to receiving waters and affecting essential aquatic and terrestrial habitat. Further, alterations
of waterways (damming, channeling, sedimentation and mining) and water withdrawal for human con-
sumption and agricultural and industrial use have altered and eliminated important habitats and
destroyed major fisheries.
Population growth and the resultant disposal of wastes and by-products of human activities has led
to extensive toxic contamination of water and sediment, creating lethal conditions for aquatic life and
threatening human health. Finally, overharvest of fish and shellfish resources and introductions of
species have altered native aquatic communities, often reducing natural biological diversity. Evidence is
mounting that disparate impacts are cumulatively resulting in alterations worldwide such as global
warming and ozone depletion. In addition, pristine environments are jeopardized by the atmospheric
transport of pollutants.
Work Group Recommendations
To reverse this history of aquatic resource degradation, the Aquatic Ecosystems and Habitat Work
Group urges the Water Quality 2000 Member Congress to adopt the goals of achieving no net loss of the
functions and values of aquatic ecosystems and expanding the resource base by restoring damaged
aquatic ecosystems. The Member Congress should then encourage the immediate adoption and im-
September 1990 Page 88
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plementation of these goals by federal and state executive order and, ultimately, should work toward
their adoption as national policy in all federal and state legislation affecting aquatic ecosystems.
To effectively work towards the achievement of these goals, we must better understand and protect
the structural and functional integrity of aquatic ecosystems, attributes that are intimately related to the
values of those systems, and recognize the cumulative, degrading effect of seemingly disparate, and
often minor, impacts. Furthermore, we must be more aware of the potentially destructive ecological af-
fects of human actions while addressing equally complex social and economic problems.
The factors responsible for the massive degradation of aquatic resources can often be identified. Al-
though we know how to reverse some trends towards resource degradation, other trends seem to be ir-
reversible. As a society, we must engender understanding and respect for natural resources. By foster-
ing enhanced stewardship through knowledge, we can gamer the public mandate and financial
resources to ensure the continued existence of pristine environments (Le. areas virtually unimpacted by
human actions), healthy aquatic and marine ecosystems and sustainable aquatic resources.
September 1990 Page 89
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Community Work Group
Executive Summary
A community's water quality can be affected by waste management problems that create ongoing,
cross-media pollution. The Community Work Group identifies these water quality problems by physi-
cal sources—effluent discharges, surface runoff, groundwater pollution and air pollution—and ex-
amines the problem of resources lost or wasted as a result of certain community water use and waste
disposal practices. Finally, the work group discusses the political, financial and cultural impediments
that community decisionmakers and officials will face when they attempt to solve water quality
problems.
Scope of the Problems
Effluent Discharge
Communities discharge trillions of gallons of effluent each year after treating wastewater from
homes, businesses and industries that release their wastes into public sewers. If inadequately treated,
the effluent received into waters will produce problematic levels of suspended solids, nutrients and
toxics and cause a wide range of health and environmental problems.
• A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) survey taken in 1988 indicated that
almost 70 percent of the nation's treatment and collection facilities had caused
documented water quality problems. Therefore it is reasonable to suspect that the
existing publicly owned treatment works will experience additional difficulties as they
attempt to cope with the volume and composition of sewage generated by communities
in the 21st century.
• Treatment-induced problems generated through processes such as dechlorination and
disinfection through chlorination can be significant, as the final effluent may contain
unacceptable levels of toxics. Community discharge can also introduce nontoxic
problems such as turbulence and temperature disparity into the receiving waters.
• Pretreatment can leave waste generators with highly toxic sludge residues that, if not
disposed of properly, harm water quality. Additional problems result when
pretreatment programs are delegated to the local level where enforcement ordinances
are sometimes weak.
September 1990 Page 90
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• Combined sewer overflows are problematic in times of wet weather when combined
sewer flow, possibly containing unacceptable pollutants, is discharged directly into
receiving waters. Older cities, especially in the northeastern U.S., are often served by
combined sewers.
Surface Runoff
Materials placed on the land or erosion from land development become major contributors to water
quality problems when surface water runoff carries them into waterbodies.
• Pollution assimilated from a variety of sources on community surfaces can contaminate
receiving waters. Such runoff includes asbestos and lubricants from roads, materials
from construction sites and fertilizers and pesticides from lawns. Runoff from
agricultural impoundments, golf courses and domestic plots can also contain toxics and
problematic levels of nutrients.
• Environmental changes can result in nonpollutant water quality problems. Construction
activities, for instance, can increase sediment runoff to receiving waters and thus block
sunlight to biota, clog fish gills and disturb spawning beds. Drainage system
modification, floodplain development and wetland development can adversely alter a
system that once efficiently removed many pollutants and controlled hydrological
patterns.
• Planning and land use decisions contribute to water quality problems if made without
consideration of geographic impacts. Examples of such decisions include insufficient
setbacks from waterbodies, excess densities and high intensity land uses near sensitive
waters.
Groundwater Pollution
The integrity of the nation's groundwater is threatened by landfilling of solid and hazardous wastes
and sludges, badly maintained septic systems and deteriorating sewage collection and treatment
facilities.
• Moisture leaching through landfills can contaminate groundwater. Although landfill
lining can reduce leachate, only 15 percent of the nation's landfills are lined and 5
percent incorporate leachate controlling systems; less than 30 percent of landfills are
equipped with groundwater monitoring systems. Operators attempt to prevent
leaching by capping off the landfill and pumping, but the process is expensive and
often only partially successful Alternative methods such as incineration still require
September 1990 Page 91
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some landfill space and consume large amounts of energy, while recycling can create
sludge with high concentrations of hazardous constituents that may eventually leach
into groundwater.
• On-site septic tank systems are used by about 25 percent of all U.S. housing units;
however, only about 30 percent of the nation's soil is suitable for on-site systems, and it
is reasonable to assume that some systems are installed in unsuitable sites. Many of
these systems are poorly designed or outdated for handling the wide range of chemicals
in today's household water. Inadequate permitting and inspection procedures can
exacerbate the problem.
• Exfiltration from defective or deteriorating sewage collection lines and treatment
facilities is increasingly a problem as more and more of the nation's sewer structures
approach the end of their useful lives.
• Special hazardous waste may add to future water quality problems. Such waste
includes post-incineration treatment facilities' sludge ash containing high
concentrations of inorganic pollutants, household solid waste containing hazardous
materials and some cleaning supplies and paints containing toxic solvent. Improper
disposal of such wastes can also threaten water quality.
Air Pollution
Much of the pollution in the air falls on surface waters and the land, where it eventually infiltrates
into groundwater. Other contributors to water pollution include new compounds, which form air-
suspended particles that react with other chemicals (acid rain), and improperly incinerated solid waste,
which creates toxic organic compounds.
Potential to Turn Waste Materials Into Resources
Communities sometimes ignore the potential for using waste materials as productive resources,
thereby aggravating the pollution problem. The work group highlighted several waste materials that
are potentially useful resources including wastewater, sewage nutrients and solid waste.
September 1990 page 92
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Impediments to Solving Problems
Political
Increasingly, local governments are relied on not only to legislate improvements to water quality
but also to implement, enforce and finance such improvements. In many cases, this responsibility places
local authorities in the difficult position of creating and enforcing laws that can cause hardships such as
citizen disapproval, industry relocation or job loss for authorities or their constituents. In addition,
when the pollution problem crosses boundaries, the local government may need to relinquish its
autonomy to the regulatory power of a state or regional authority.
Financial
EPA estimates that $84 billion will be required to construct treatment and collection facilities and to
enlarge, upgrade and replace existing treatment works. The estimate approaches $150 billion when
solutions to other problems such as premature wastewater system deterioration, inadequate was-
tewater reserve capacity, runoff pollution, combined sewer overflows and stormwater inadequacies are
considered.
Meeting these needs presents a significant financial burden for society and, more specifically, com-
munities. Communities must balance water quality solutions with many other pressing social needs. In
addition, many local governments that have used landfills have the additional burden of retroactive
liability. With growth and technological advances, communities will face additional expenses for con-
struction and maintenance of community water quality facilities. Furthermore, many local communities
have no funding mechanisms for coping with such problems as combined sewer overflows and
stormwater management.
Cultural
Part of the overall problem is the public's lack of understanding about the nature of the environ-
ment, including its fragility and society's impact on the environment. Furthermore, there is a tendency
to focus on the short term—to thoughtlessly consume resources and produce waste. Only an informed
minority is aware of the severity of the problems and need for solutions. Federal, state and local govern-
ments play an increasingly critical role in environmental education, but the problems must be ad-
dressed societywide.
September 1990 Page 93
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Energy and Resource Extraction
Work Group
Executive Summary
Energy and mineral extraction activities may have a variety of impacts on water quality, many of
which are controlled by a large and complex body of regulations and project review procedures. Some
adverse impacts on water quality still occur, however, because of past practices, gaps in the existing
regulatory system and lack of enforcement. Moreover, existing regulations generally do not address or
support energy and mineral resource conservation or the use of alternative energy sources, both of
which would contribute toward reducing water quality impacts.
The Phase II Report of the Energy and Resource Extraction Work Group identifies water quality im-
pacts associated with exploration and production of energy and mineral resources but does not discuss
impacts associated with activities further down the production process, such as petroleum refining and
mineral smelting. The report notes the potential for energy conservation and efficiency—as well as
materials re-use and recycling—to reduce water quality impacts.
Scope of the Problems
Oil and Gas Industries
The location, assessment and recovery of oil and gas resources entails operations that inherently
cany the potential for affecting surface water and groundwater resources, as well as species that
depend on them. Although the effects of these operations are controlled directly by various federal,
state and local regulations and indirectly through environmental review procedures, adverse water
quality impacts may still result from oil and gas operations. The report identifies the following
problems, which are not yet resolved:
• Lower energy prices in recent years have reduced incentives to implement energy
conservation technologies to improve efficiency. Technological efficiencies can reduce
pressures to develop new energy resources or rely on marginal reserves, thus
decreasing the water quality impacts potentially associated with mineral extraction.
September 1990 Page 94
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Small operations producing oil and gas from marginal reserves often may not be as well
maintained and may create greater water quality impacts than large operations.
Ineffective facility designs allow stonnwater runoff from oil and gas facilities to collect
and transport pollutants to surface or ground waters. Where facilities are inadequate,
stonnwater runoff from oil and gas facilities can collect and transfer pollutants.
Improper containment and disposal of wastes from oil and gas exploration and
production activities may result in contamination of surface and ground waters or the
marine environment. A1987 EPA report to Congress documented numerous cases of
inadequate containment and improper disposal of drilling and production wastes
associated with oil and gas extraction activities.
Current regulations, if not adequately enforced, do not adequately control the water
quality impacts resulting from disposal of produced waters from oil and gas extraction
activities.
If improperly managed, oil and gas production wastes may severely contaminate
sediments.
Improperly closed and abandoned oil and gas wells, which can seriously impact
underground sources of drinking water.
Spills or leaks from storage tanks can contaminate surface waters, soil, and
groundwater. Existing regulations for aboveground storage tanks are inadequate to
minimize risks of such contamination.
In addition to platform and tanker accidents, discharges or runoff from offshore
exploration or production operations can impact quality in marine waters.
Coal and Mineral Extraction and Processing
Most of the water quality impacts from processing of mining and minerals are problems associated
with nonpoint source runoff. Surface waters are contaminated by stonnwater runoff from mining sites,
and groundwater is polluted by seepage from waste impoundments and storage areas.
Problems occur with direct discharges of wastewater from mining and minerals processing ac-
tivities because many states do not apply water quality-based permitting to mining operations. Other
problems identified by the report relate to acid mine drainage from coal mines and trace metal pollution
September 1990 page 95
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from metal mining operations. Coal mining can potentially conflict with wetlands preservation when
deposits are located below or near these waterbodies.
Impediments to Solving Problems
Improvements in energy conservation and efficiency and materials re-use and recycling have the
greatest potential to reduce water quality impacts from energy and mineral development Implementa-
tion of these practices, however, is often not amenable to regulatory mandates. Furthermore, conserva-
tion technologies may not be available or economically practicable. Lack of communication regarding
the benefits of conservation measures hinders reorientation of pollution control efforts to incorporate
such measures.
The need to protect water quality in areas subject to energy or mineral extraction often conflicts with
society's need to use energy and mineral resources. The difficulty of choosing how to improve efforts to
protect water quality without excessively restricting development of energy or mineral resources is a
major impediment to strengthening the existing regulatory system. In general, enforcement efforts are
hampered by difficulties in identifying those operations that will potentially cause water quality
problems.
September 1990 Page 96
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Industrial Work Group
Executive Summary
Despite considerable progress in cleaning up industrial discharges—most notably in controlling
conventional pollutants such as oil and grease and suspended solids—many waters in the US. still suf-
fer from industrial pollution. Among the many human and natural activities contribute to water pollu-
tion, industrial discharges can cause considerable problems in some waterbodies. Toxic wastes have
contaminated both ground and surface sources of drinking water, affecting human health and the
vitality of many aquatic species and resulting in economic and aesthetic losses.
Several impediments hamper effective protection of water quality from industrial pollution:
• Institutional limitations, such as lack of sufficient resources at all levels of government;
• Inadequate scientific bases for developing criteria and standards;
' Regulatory reliance on technology-based, end-of-pipe effluent controls rather than
pollution prevention;
• Inadequate public education and inadequate professional training; and
• A lack of cohesion and consistency in federal regulatory programs that gives rise to key
policy problems with respect to industry and water quality.
Scope of the Problems
The nation's waters continue to be affected by contaminants from a variety of sources, including sig-
nificant contributions from industry, municipal discharges, agriculture and urban runoff. These con-
taminants can adversely affect both human health and the integrity of ecosystems.
Although there are monitoring gaps in evaluating the impact of discharges on both human health
and ecosystems, data from several sources and sites around the country suggest that both ongoing and
past industrial activities continue to threaten water quality. For example, in 1988,21 states issued a total
of 135 bans on fishing in selected waterways and 39 states reported a total of 586 fishing advisories,
restrictions that represented major economic and recreational losses. The pollutants most commonly
identified as causing advisories or bans were PCBs, chlordane, mercury, dioxin and DDT.
Many wildlife species suffer from the often subtle and long-term impacts of exposure to industrial
toxins. Instances of high rates of liver tumors in bottom-dwelling fish such as bullheads and white suck-
September 1990 " Page 97
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ers have been correlated with the presence of poh/nudear aromatic hydrocarbons, which are found in
industrial wastewaters, some of which are carcinogens.
Industrial land use practices also stress aquatic ecosystems. Construction and use of industrial com*
plexes can create severe watershed impacts such as erosion and sedimentation, higher stonnwater flows
in local streams, loss of riparian habitat and, with the loss of natural infiltration, increased loadings of
pollutants in stonnwater runoff. In addition, some developers site facilities in wetlands, thus destroying
these valuable aquatic resources.
Insufficiently treated industrial wastewater discharges are a significant source of adverse ecological
effects in U.S. waters. The dean Water Act established a goal of zero discharge by 1985, but it also
created a permitting system that allows discharge of pollutants up to certain limits. States have only
recently begun to adopt water quality-based standards for toxics and have barely begun to insert water
quality-based limits or monitoring requirements for toxics in industrial discharge permits. As a result,
there are varying incentives among states for industries to reduce discharges of toxic wastes.
In addition, states have focused on the outfall pipe as the source of contamination, and placed less'
emphasis on other modes of industrial water pollution such as surface runoff from industrial sites
where toxic pollutants are spilled or stored, leachates from landfills and deep well injections that con-
taminate groundwater on or off industrial sites, and deposition of airborne industrial emissions. Lastly,
scientific research into past industrial practices has identified previously unrecognized residual toxic
contaminants that must now be addressed.
Impediments to Solving Problems
Institutional
Implementation of water quality goals has been hampered by a variety of institutional impedi-
ments, including lack of resources, lack of a coordinated permitting process for all environmental media
and an institutional focus on point sources. The resulting institutional situation impedes development
of innovative solutions to industrial pollution problems.
Scientific
The lack of scientific understanding of the release, fate and transport of contaminants in ecosystems
restricts assessment of the impacts of pollutants on ecosystem components. As a result, there is a lack of
scientific knowledge upon which to base water quality criteria and standards. Moreover, the absence of
effective and inexpensive analytical procedures for monitoring environmental releases contributes fur-
ther to this lack of scientific knowledge.
September 1990 Page 98
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Conventional risk assessment approaches only partially incorporate the full range of impacts to
human health and the environment. Many risk assessments focus solely on cancer, even though it is
only one of many human health effects caused by waterbome pollutants. Furthermore/ human health is
not the only area to consider—effects on ecosystems must also be fully considered in risk assessments.
Incorporation of these additional factors is restricted by lack of scientific understanding, which results
in impretisions in modeling the fate and transport of contaminants in surface and ground waters.
One of the most prevalent factors that clouds the use and interpretation of scientific information is
inadequate, conflicting or imprecise data. Generally, there is little or no data on the generation of in-
dustrial hazardous waste that is consistent nationally; deficiencies in monitoring programs may also
create significant data gaps. As a result, basic information about the relative health or degradation of
waters nationwide is unavailable.
Technological
The historical emphasis on end-of-pipe treatment technologies for industrial water pollution control.
has resulted in a focus on control objectives that are specific to a single medium—air, surface water or
groundwater—without giving adequate attention to cross-media transfer of contaminants. This focus on
treating wastewaters prior to discharge has not of itself, provided a stimulus for preventing pollution
before it is generated. The lack of innovative technologies to facilitate adoption of multi-media ap-
proaches and pollution prevention is a significant impediment to improving water quality in the U.S.
There continue to be impediments to the adoption and expansion of industrial practices that can
reduce generation and discharge of wastes and wastewaters. Opportunities for source reduction and
recycling are impeded by the lack of adequate technologies as well as by interpretation of regulations by
permitting authorities and limited technology transfer, especially between large and small companies.
Adoption of best management practices is also hindered by both technological and informational bar-
riers.
Educational
Industry, regulators, scientists, environmental groups, the media and the public are not well-in-
formed about most aspects of environmental pollution, in part through gaps in scientific knowledge but
also because of inadequate education and training and the difficulty of communicating available infor-
mation about complex dynamic issues in easy-to-understand terms without political bias. Consequent-
ly, as a nation we have not yet sufficiently institutionalized an environmental ethic that incorporates a
concern for human health and healthy ecosystems or the concept of pollution prevention. An additional
problem is the shortage of trained professionals in many environmental disciplines.
September 1990 Page 99
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Policy Problems Related to Industrial Discharges
Federal regulatory programs suffer from a lack of cohesion and consistency. Because of the way
regulatory and statutory programs have evolved, the method for regulating a pollutant depends on the
media to which it is discharged. Differences also exist in requirements for direct and indirect dis-
chargers. In addition, the flexibility discretion given states in establishing water quality standards has
resulted in uneven water quality protection from state to state and even within individual states.
These and other issues, such as the appropriate use of risk assessments, the lack of coordination be-
tween land use planning and water quality policies and the need for dedsionmakers to act in the ab-
sence of complete scientific information, pose significant challenges for policymakers at all levels of
government
September 1990 Page 100
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Legislation Work Group
Executive Summary
Since 1960s, the catalog of legislation to restore water quality has grown, as has public concern
about water pollution. Recently, legislation has stressed increased regulatory responsibilities for the
federal government, attempts to fill gaps left by previous legislation, increasingly explicit requirements
for the treatment of toxics, and precisely detailed statutes. However, despite an intensified focus on
water quality issues, legislation is often a patchwork with conflicting objectives.
The Phase n Report of the Legislation Work Group identified a number of areas where legislation
has either created problems or failed to address important issues:
• Statutory gaps, overlaps and conflicts;
• Inadvertent conflicts and inappropriate incentives or disincentives;
• Inadequacies in assessing progress;
• Legislative and regulatory impediments to timely action;
• Intergovernmental conflicts;
• The gap between funding levels and the national mandate for dean water;
• Multimedia pollution; and
• Control of contaminated runoff.
Jurisdictional conflicts in both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government im-
pede solution of these water quality problems.
Scope of the Problems
Protecting Environmental Values
Laws related to water quality often have unclear objectives. Competing concerns among environ-
mental issues — and between environmental issues and other national priorities — can lead to ineffi-
cient overlaps and inconsistencies among the various laws.
September 1990 Page 101
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• Four categories of environmental values compete for prominence: ecological effects,
cancer and non-cancer health risks and welfare effects. Often there is no dear
delineation or agreement as to the relative importance of these categories.
• Environmental values must compete with other goals such as administrative efficiency,
competitive equity among states and industry, economic vitality, private property
rights, national security and human health needs. Powerful constituencies battle over
the relative importance of each goal which hinders the aggressive pursuit of
environmental values.
Statutory Gaps, Overlaps and Conflicts
Environmental laws do not cover water quality issues efficiently because the complicated commit-
tee system in Congress impedes coordination. Since the focus on these issues varies, laws can be need-
lessly repetitive in some areas, while leaving gaps in others.
• Unclear jurisdiction among congressional committees leads to multiple referrals that
can slow passage of a bill.
• Legislation often addresses specific constituencies and fails to be comprehensive. For
example, there are at least 15 federal statues on water quality. This piecemeal approach
can leave important gaps in some regulations, yet create redundancies in other areas.
Inadvertent Conflicts and Inappropriate Incentives or Disincentives
Legislation not related to water quality can have adverse effects on environmental goals. Examples
include changes in the U.S. tax code that inadvertently restrict local governments' ability to use tax-ex-
empt financing for water infrastructure needs and farm programs that often conflict with water quality
goals.
Inadequacies in Measuring Progress
Laws often do not require baseline data collection to measure environmental results. Inadequate
data can contribute to such program problems as lack of accountability, inadequate oversight and poor
focus.
Legislative and Regulatory Impediments
Statutory deadlines, essential to timely regulatory action, can become so numerous that they exacer-
bate an already slow regulatory process.
September 1990 Page 102
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• When too many deadlines are placed upon federal agencies, the result can be a "triage
approach" to programs in which only the most important deadlines are met
• Complicated EPA rule-writing procedures, combined with Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) clearance requirements, greatly impede the timeliness of the regulation
writing process.
Intergovernmental Issues
Both interstate and interagency issues can be barriers to successful local state and federal partner-
ships.
• Interstate issues: States have difficulty agreeing on the best way to protect shared
waterbodies; they also tend to be less aggressive in abating pollution when there
are only downstream impacts.
• Interagency issues: Federal agencies have different missions, mandates and
priorities. Legislation often fails to define linkages between agencies that are
required to work together, making interagency cooperation difficult
Funding-Mandate Gap
Since 1980, constant dollar funding in the EPA budget for water quality programs has dropped 12
percent. In the future, financial restraints wiH reduce the ability of all levels of government to meet their
water quality mandates.
Multimedia Pollution
Current legislation tends to be focused on identifiable sources of pollution on a media-specific basis.
As a result, programs that solve one pollution problem can create others of a cross-media nature.
Contaminated Runoff Control
Contaminated runoff accounts for an estimated 60 percent of the remaining water quality problems.
The types of regulatory mechanisms that work for point source pollution will not be effective in control-
ling diffuse sources.
September 1990 Page 103
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Impediments to Solving Problems
Jurisdictional Conflicts
Jurisdiction^ conflicts over water quality issues occur in both the legislative and executive branches
of the federal government, as well as among state governments. Developing comprehensive and effec-
tive water quality programs is difficult when responsibilities are not dearly delineated.
• Multiple jurisdictions among congressional committees will continue to prevent a
comprehensive approach to water quality legislation. As a result, legislation aimed at
new issues is likely to have gaps and overlaps that will prevent effective action.
• In the executive branch, there is no dear delineation of responsibilities among the
various agencies that have an interest in water quality issues. This makes writing
legislation difficult because it is not always dear who should administer new programs.
• On the intergovernmental level, water quality laws are not dear as to when federal
responsibility ends and state responsibility begins. Similarly, states often cannot agree
on the division of responsibility for shared bodies of water.
Cumbersome Bureaucratic Procedures
Effective regulation writing cannot take place until bureaucratic procedures are streamlined. Cum-
bersome internal rule writing at EPA is exacerbated by OMB requirements.
Fiscal Restraints
Competing national priorities ensure that the budgetary crisis will not ease soon. Legislators will be
reluctant to allocate new funds for water quality programs in the face of pressure to cut the budget This
period of fiscal tightness comes during a time of demands for increased funding to confront new water
quality issues.
September 1990 Page 104
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Recreation Work Group
Executive Summary
Participation in outdoor recreation, especially water-based recreation, is an American way of life.
Ninety percent of US citizens use the out-of-doors for recreation. In addition, our outdoor recreation
sites attract an increasing number of foreign visitors every year.
Scope of the Problems
The water quality and quantity of this nation's lakes, rivers and streams affects the demand for and
supply of these recreational opportunities. On the other hand, since so many people participate in out-
door recreation, there can be potentially adverse environmental impacts from these activities, including
pollution from both water- and land-based point and nonpoint sources and land use problems.
Water-based recreational activity can have an adverse impact on water quality, particularly when
activities attract large numbers of participants. Compared to the more widespread effects from most
sources of pollution, degradations in water quality that result from recreational activities generally are
localized. Such degradation can be significant if it occurs in sensitive and pristine areas. For example,
participating in recreational use of rivers has increased to the extent that certain prime river recreation
areas have experienced extreme overuse.
The UJS. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have readily available data on water
quality trends that can be used to determine the national recreation benefits from its program-induced
water quality improvements. Such information would be extremely useful both for assessing progress
in reducing and avoiding damage from pollution and for strategic planning at all levels of government.
Impediments to Solving Problems
Before there can be improvements in both the quality and quantity of water-based recreational
resources, impediments to change must be identified. Obstacles, which can be both institutional and
political, include the lack of information needed for sound management, inadequate financial resources
and insufficient public education about recreation's effect on water quality. Illustrations of both the im-
pediments and programs to overcome them are given in sections on the Great Lakes and Chesapeake
Bay. In addition, since most decisions about recreational water resources are made by the states and
local governments, their dean water strategies are discussed in detail.
With a few exceptions, the development of organized and comprehensive water resource manage-
ment policies has not been encouraged at the state leveL Therefore, practical and economic sue
September 1990 Page 105
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have been poorly documented, leaving no foundation for policy development This general lack of data
and the poor dissemination of information are major impediments to environmentally sound recrea-
tional development Similarly, there is not a comprehensive water resource management policy at the
national level Therefore, a national central information system and center for water data that could be
used for education and training is of primary importance.
Finally, since development of recreational water resources will be impeded by lack of state and
federal funding, local communities must be prepared to shoulder the costs of many future projects.
September 1990 Page 106
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Transportation Work Group
Executive Summary
Almost every aspect of the transportation sector can affect water quality adversely. In its Phase n
Report, this work group identified the most serious impacts from transportation activities and
categorized them in the following three areas:
• Runoff from transportation facilities;
• Spills of harmful substances; and
• Impacts from dredging and/or filling.
Although not all of these impacts can be eliminated, most can be reduced through greater attention
to proper planning, design, construction, maintenance and operation.
The term 'transportation facilities" includes all equipment and facilities for moving goods and
people, including highways, railroads, airports, pipelines, harbors, cars, waterways, parking lots,
trucks, trains, ships and other carriers, as well as the associated storage facilities, maintenance facilities,
fuel storage and transfer areas.
Scope of the Problems
Runoff from transportation facilities degrades water quality. The magnitude of the pollution
depends on planning decisions and the design and construction of facilities as well as their operation
and maintenance. The actual impact of runoff on water quality depends on such factors as volume, flow
(peak rate and total discharge) and constituents. Other environmental characteristics that determine the
seriousness of the impact include land use patterns in an area, characteristics of the transportation mode
and infrastructure, the geography, geology and plant cover of the drainage basin and the hydraulics,
chemistry and biology of the receiving waters.
Transportation facilities must be planned, designed and constructed carefully or they will be a
threat to water quality, especially if they are built near sensitive waters. Appropriate structures and
methods of construction to minimize potential adverse effects, such as best management practices
(BMPs) to control runoff, erosion and sedimentation are usually specified in the planning and design
stages, but at times they may be neglected as the project advances into construction.
Almost all maintenance and operation activities have the potential to harm water quality, such as
those related to building yards; storage and dispensing of fuel, oil and antifreeze; and application
September 1990 Page 107
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methods for maintenance materials. The lack of collection facilities contributes to the problem by im-
peding collection of small quantities of by-product materials.
Spills and unplanned discharges occur frequently but randomly. Since large quantities of petroleum
products and other chemicals are produced, transported and used annually, every community is at
some risk. While large spills often capture the attention of the media and the public, smaller spills,
often overlooked, may have equally serious cumulative impacts, and most could be prevented.
To further complicate the problem, the known principles of spill prevention and mitigation are still
not widely understood or adopted at all operational levels, which sometimes results in avoidable spills
from equipment failure and human error. Furthermore, research on new mitigation methods has been
drastically reduced in recent years. Therefore, response to spills is often inadequate.
The dredging and filling issues that have received the greatest attention are
• The types and concentration levels of contaminants present in the sediments;
• The potential for contaminants to be stirred up or made bioavailable to aquatic
organisms;
• The short-term and long-term effects of such bioavailability; and
• Alternative placement sites and methodologies.
Alternative placement sites for dredged material include confined disposal facilities. However, im-
proper design and operation of these facilities can result in overflow that carries suspended solids and
associated contaminants back to the waterways. Runoff from rainfall on a confined disposal facility can
erode dredged material, carrying contaminants to surface waters or leaching them into the
groundwater. Relocating "dean" sediment in water environments instead of using it for beneficial uses
(beach nourishment, wave attenuation and wetland creation and restoration) may also contribute to
short-term water quality problems such as turbidity and interference with aquatic life, and, in addition,
fails to take advantage of a valuable resource.
Dredging or filling, especially for new facilities, often impacts wetlands. In spite of general support
for a goal of no net loss, citizens still have problems with its application, the decisionmaking process,
and with understanding terms such as "wetland value/ "mitigation" and "no net loss."
Secondary impacts from development stimulated by or made possible by new transportation
facilities are usually much greater than those from the facilities themselves. The public seems to favor
low-density development, which requires more individual, private transportation. There has been an
overall institutional failure to integrate transportation planning and land use planning and to recognize
and respond to secondary growth-related water quality impacts.
September 1990 Page 108
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Impediments to Solving Problems
There are many impediments to solving problems created by tansportation activities, including the
following:
• Lack of collection facilities for used ou, antifreeze and other materials used for
transportation maintenance by individuals and small maintenance and repair shops.
• Lack of knowledge about how (and how much) individual pollutants and pollutant
combinations affect wetlands and their functions.
• Inadequate response teams for handling major hazardous material spills.
• Inadequate research funds for developing better methods for preventing and
controlling spills, especially in the open ocean.
• Lack of standards on levels of contamination of sediments that might require special
handling.
• Lack of sound technical basis for interpreting the ecological significance of contaminant
uptake from sediments.
• The continued public desire for dispersed, low-density development, which forces
reliance on more highways and more travel by individual cars and produces more
pollutants than would high-density, planned development served by mass transit
September 1990 Page 109
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Water Supply Work Group
Executive Summary
Achieving an adequate, safe, potable water supply is getting more and more difficult as increased
pressure is placed on current sources. The Phase n Report of the Water Supply Work Group identifies 12
problem areas that need to be addressed: infrastructure, institutions, technology, water quality, water
quantity, sources, small systems, human resources, legal issues, economics, conservation and public
education.
Scope of the Problems
• Infrastructure. The annual investment in capital and operation and maintenance
for water supply facilities relative to the total value of plants reflects an on-going
disinvestment in the nation's water supply infrastructure. This disinvestment is
exacerbated by several factors, including numerous infrastructure needs competing
for scarce funds; changes in tax laws restricting funds for capital investment* public
undervaluing of drinking water; inadequate distribution systems; decentralized
and fragmented water supply industry; and lack of a comprehensive public water
systems program.
• Institutions. Institutions responsible for water delivery include private
corporations, municipal corporations, special utility districts, cooperatives and
individual owners. Such fragmentation has inhibited a rational water plan based
on watershed or aquifer boundaries.
• Technology. Technology development and demonstration in water supply lags
behind the need for new, cost-effective methods, procedures and equipment for
controlling contaminants. As EPA develops new regulations to protect the public
from new contaminants, the gap between available technology and technology
needs increases.
• Quality. Many communities do not provide an acceptable standard of water
service. Some basic causes include inadequate treatment technology; lack of fully
established, cost-effective technology for certain contaminants; inadequately
protected watersheds; and lack of adequate monitoring of drinking water quality.
September 1990 Page 110
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Quantity. Many factors have increased pressure on the available quantity of
potable water, including population growth, lack of conservation, contamination,
legislation precluding developing available sources, inability to resolve competing
demands, an inadequate framework for development planning and lack of
incentives to maximize efficient use.
Sources. Many watersheds, rivers and aquifers are fully committed. Watershed or
basinwide planning for water supply is lacking nationally, resulting in inefficient
use of water.
Small Systems. Community water systems serving less than 3,300 people commit
over 90 percent of Safe Drinking Water Act violations. Small system managers,
operators, boards and consumers are not well informed about the state and federal
regulatory requirements or of the implications of poor quality water supplies.
Efforts to upgrade and monitor small systems are also limited by insufficient
technical expertise, financial resources and basic management skills.
Human Resources. Jobs in the water industry require sophisticated technical and
management skills. There is some concern that the work force is not adequately
prepared for such highly skilled jobs.
Legal Issues. The complexity of the legal environment can inhibit rational
detisionmaking by both the private and public sectors, which frequently interferes
with attainment of water quality and water supply goals.
Economics. Government subsidies have hidden the true cost of providing safe
drinking water. Elected officials and regulators are reluctant to raise rates to cover
capital costs for small system upgrades that can be prohibitively expensive.
Despite the lack of federal assistance for municipal systems, tax incentives do not
promote privatization of utilities.
Conservation. Conservation attitudes vary across the country. While many citizens
desire conservation, they are unwilling to accept higher prices, creating conflicting
social values.
Public Education. The public is not well informed about water supply issues. For
instance, the public is unaware of the true cost of providing potable water; the
dose relationships between water supply, water use and water pollution; and the
concept that water is a depletable resource that must be used efficiently.
September 1990 Page 111
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Impediments to Solving Problems
Federal and State Technical and Financial Support Federal support of the water
industry has been insufficient and has dampened progress in several areas:
• Research and demonstration projects to enable technology to keep pace with new
regulations;
• Centralized and comprehensive approach for contaminant removal; and
• Strong enforcement at both the federal and state levels to force technology
application.
• In addition, small system managers and operators have found it difficult to obtain
financial and technical assistance at the state and federal level.
Legislative Support. Legislative and judicial bodies support the "not in my back
yard" phenomenon, impeding new water supply projects. As tax payers and rate
payers continue to resist funding the supply and treatment projects mandated by
legislation, cooperation among levels of government is becoming difficult.
Political Support In the political arena, water issues have not been high on the
agenda. State lawmakers and the public are unclear as to how to handle the
tradeoffs between cost, quality and quantity. In addition, without an immediate
crisis, it is difficult to generate support for immediate action to deal with future
water scarcity problems. Changes in water use or water supply tend to create
political turmoil (development that is viewed as environmental degradation;
transfer of water rights that creates economic dislocation; interbasin transfers that
are viewed as lost future opportunities in own area; and patchwork laws that
inhibit movement of water to its highest economic use). In general, political leaders
have not accepted strategies for maximizing the existing water supplies, such as
conservation methods or rate incentives.
Public Education. Attitudes and traditional practices are difficult to change
because the current system of water pricing hides the true cost of water use; the
public is accustomed to cheap water and not readily accepting of rate increases;
and the sense of crisis, necessary for change, has not been reached. In addition, the
public does not have a sound understanding of the costs and benefits of
conservation.
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Industry Fragmentation. The fragmented nature of the water supply industry and
the generally small size of systems make it difficult to provide the necessary
resources to assure quality. In addition, the water supply industry does not have a
sufficient number of qualified employees (engineers, chemists, microbiologists).
Fragmentation among states and institutions in water policy and law also inhibit
coordinated planning for water development and use.
September 1990 Page 113
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Watershed Work Group
Executive Summary
Progress has been made in cleaning up the nation's waters since the passage of the dean Water Act
Amendments of 1972, but the quality of our surface water and groundwater is still seriously threatened
by a broad range of pollutants and pollution sources. The Phase E Report of the Watershed Work Group
identifies a number of issues affecting basinwide water quality management, including fragmented ap-
proaches, responsibilities and accountability as well as conflicting laws, the predominance of a local
planning focus, the lack of analytical techniques and the incorporation of risk.
Scope of the Problems
Fragmented Approaches
Total pollutant loadings from nonpoint and point sources within a river basin are not adequately
addressed by existing pollution control programs, which are inefficient and economically wasteful
These piecemeal efforts to address multiple sources result in fragmented approaches to control that fan
to reduce pollution and may simply transfer contamination from one medium to another. Examples in-
clude incineration of solid waste, which has polluted both air and water, and improper pretreatment of
industrial wastewaters entering municipal sewers, which has created a new problem associated with
the disposal of contaminated sludge.
Fragmented Responsibilities
The responsibility for water pollution abatement and control is divided among a number of federal
and state agencies and local governments. Moreover, even within individual government agencies and
organizations, responsibility for water pollution control programs is frequently divided among several
divisions. Therefore, it is difficult to hold any single agency or group of agencies accountable for most
water pollution problems.
The lack of federal funding and leadership often places these burdens entirely upon local units of
government. Within the current system, decisionmakers tend to focus on local pollution concerns that,
in many cases, may be of lower priority than regional concerns. Moreover, solutions devised to address
only local water pollution concerns are a fragmented approach that cannot effectively protect water
resources.
September 1990 Page
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Fragmented Accountability
Measures of success that are currently being used to evaluate progress toward meeting pollution
abatement goals and objectives may not be appropriate; in fact, many are not reflective of the basic
tenets of the dean Water Act. For example, accountability systems currently used by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to evaluate and redirect water pollution control programs are oriented toward
bureaucratically derived measures of success rather than true measures of environmental results. It is of
little value to measure program success on the number of discharge permits if issuance of those permits
has little impact on the overall improvement of water quality or protection of living resources within a
watershed.
Conflicting Laws
Conflicting laws and programs that are inconsistent with national environmental goals and objec-
tives are also problems that undermine federal state and local governments' ability to protect water
quality. In this time of declining federal funds, many environmental laws are not adequately imple-
mented by water quality agencies to protect watersheds expediently and cost-effectively by noting and
attacking priority problems first and preventing future problems.
Local Focus
Recent federal policy places the burden for planning and executing pollution controls at the state
and local level but has not established clear accountability or responsibility for those programs. Fre-
quently, the responsibility is not matched by the financial resources or political independence necessary
to accomplish the job. For example, the federal grant program funding construction of municipal
sewage treatment plants is being phased out. It has been replaced with a program that encourages
financing of plant construction through state revolving loan funds. Establishment of these funds has
posed some difficult political and financial questions for both state and local governments. Problems
can be anticipated in implementing any new program or approach to pollution control; however, cur-
rent national management systems may not be flexible enough to respond to them.
Lack of Analytical Techniques
An additional problem confronting federal and state water pollution control agencies is the slow
pace in developing and using new scientific techniques to address broad water pollution problems. The
less flexibility we have to focus on broad and complex priority problems, the more planning suffers be-
cause local peculiarities cannot be factored in. When new methodologies are not employed and
problems are not approached on a watershed basis, it is difficult to determine not only impacts but also
sources of pollution.
September 1990 Page 115
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Incorporation of Risk
The current approach to water quality management exercised by EPA through its various program
offices should be revised to comprehensively address priority issues that focus on environmental as
well as human risks. Existing environmental programs generally focus on specific media such as air or
water and not on geographic regions. This does not make scientific or programmatic sense from a
watershed perspective and exacerbates the fragmentation of efforts, making it extremely difficult to
clearly define priorities, develop integrated solutions to pollution problems and carefully cany out
comprehensive strategic planning.
Impediments to Solving Problems
The previously addressed problems resulted from the lack of a holistic watershed approach to
basinwide water quality management These issues can be characterized by the following deficiencies:
• A fragmented approach to planning and management;
• The lack of cumulative impact analysis on a watershed basis;
• The lack of strategic planning;
• Lack of connection between data collection and dedsionmaking; and
• The lack of attention given to public outreach, education and public involvement.
Fragmented Approach to Planning and Management
There are several layers of governmental responsibility that are often accompanied by an additional
layer of regional authorities. Because these political jurisdictions usually do not coincide with water-
shed boundaries, there are often conflicting management decisions. Clearly, there is a need for a nation-
al coordinating institution that would provide necessary connection and communication between the
layers of government
Lack of Cumulative Impact Analysis on a Watershed Basis
The majority of controls in point source permits are primarily based on achieving a certain con-
centration in the water at a specific site instead of using a total pollutant loading analysis for the
tributary, river, or downstream lake or estuary. Downstream concentration or uses to be protected are
not considered and bioaccumulation of pollutants has not received the attention that it deserves.
September 1990 Page 116
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Lack of Strategic Planning
Environmental regulators axe often unable to anticipate present and future problems. Requirements
of laws have focused institutions' concentration on point source reduction rather than overall preven-
tion that would include waste recycling, nonpoint source reduction and general waste control
programs.
Lack of Connection Between Data Collection and Decisionmaking
Institutions fail to use existing information and regularly call for more studies or plans before
making a decision that will result in action. In addition, data collection is not always timely and often
does not include the information needed for effective environmental management dedsionmaking.
Lack of Attention Given to Public Outreach, Education
and Public Involvement
Environmental education curricula should be developed for all levels of education. An informed
public can provide the impetus for governmental action on water quality problems. For example, in the
Chesapeake Bay area, public involvement has not only forced government to take action on both
nutrient reduction and living resource restoration but also has carried the momentum between political
administrations.
September 1990 Page
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APPENDIX G
Major Milestones in Federal Water Quality Legislation
SURFACE WATER
1899
Rivera and Hubon Act
Water Pollution Control
Act
Federal Water Pollution
Control Act
Federal Water Pollution
Control Act Amend
Water Quality Act
Federal Water Pollution
Control Act Amaodmenu
dean Water Act
Prohibited discharge of refuse into waterways that would interfere with
navigation without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
1948 Provided limited federal financial assistance to local governments for
construction of municipal wastewater treatment facilities
1956 Increased federal financial assistance for municipal wastewater treatment
facilities
1961 Increased federal financial assistance for municipal wastewater treatment
facilities
1965 Required states to develop state water quality standards for interstate
waters, and created the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration
to establish broad guidelines and approve stale standards
Increased federal financial assistance for municipal wastewater treatment
facilities
1972 Greatly increased federal financial assistance for municipal wastewater
treatment facilities
Instituted uniform technology-based effluent limitations for industrial
dischargers and a national permit system for all point source dischargers
Designated the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as the permitting
authority over discharge of dredged or fill material into U.S. waters
1977 Encouraged states to accept delegation of the national permit system and
assume management of the construction grants progiam
Added control of priority toxic pollutants to the federal program
Municipal Waatewater
TVeaunent Construction
Orant Amendments
Food Security Act
Water Quality Act
1981 Reduced federal financial assistance for municipal wastewater treatment
facilities
1985 Established erosion control programs for agricultural lands
1987 Phased out federal grants for construction of municipal wastewater
treatment facilities; provided capitalization grants to state revolving
funds
Required EPA to develop regulations for stormwater runoff control
Required states to prepare non-point source management programs
September 1990
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Major Milestones in Federal Water Quality Legislation
DRINKING WATER
Sato Drinking Water Act
1974
Safe Drinking WIRY Act 1986
Amendment!
Required EPA to establish national drinking water standards and
regulations tat state underground injection control programs
Required EPA to establish drinking water standards for additional
contaminants
Required states to establish wellhead protection programs to protect
iground drinking water sources front contamination
MARINE WAIflftS
Federal Water Foliation
Control Act,
Act
Marine Protection. 1972
Research and Sanctuaries
Act
National Ocean Pollution 1978
Planning Act
Water Quality Act
1961 Redefined interstate waters to include coastal waters
1972 Provided federal grants to coastal slates for developing and
implementing state coastal zone management programs and plans
Provided federal grants for state acquisition of estuarine sanctuaries
Established a system to regulate dumping of materials into die oceans
Authorized federal designation of marine sanctuaries through National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Required NOAA to establish a comprehensive ocean pollution research
and development and monitoring program
1987 Created the National Estuary Program to develop die-specific
management plans for significant estuaries
WETLANDS
Migratory Bird Hunting 1934
Stamp Act
Federal Water Pollution 1972
Control Act Amendments
Food Security Act 1985
Emergency Wetlands 1986
Resources Act
Authorized the sale of duck stamps to hunters to help fund federal
acquisition of waterfowl habitat, primarily wetlands
Required permits for discharge of dredged or fin material into U.S.
waters, including wetlands
Denied federal farm benefits to farmers harvesting an annual crop on
converted wetlands
Increased federal funding for wetlands acquisition and conservation
September 1990
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