Search

Click Here to see previous Fax Alerts.

February 20, 1998

Clinton and Gore Release Clean Water Action Plan

Both President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were in Baltimore, MD yesterday for the release of the Clean Water Action Plan: Restoring and Protecting America's Waters. The Plan was promoted as a new initiative that will focus additional resources ($2.3 billion over five years) on the nation's remaining water quality problems. The President has proposed the first installment of $568 million to be distributed in 1999 among the key agencies involved in the development of the plan.

The Action Plan focuses attention on many issues that AMSA hoped would be addressed, such as watershed management and the control of nonpoint sources of pollution. The agricultural community's increased responsibilities will begin with increased funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to implement its programs. One of 17 "Key Action" items under a section called "Strong Polluted Runoff Controls" states:

    EPA and, in coastal states and territories NOAA, will promote by the year 2000 the establishment of enforceable state and tribal authorities needed to ensure the implementation of nonpoint source controls to achieve water quality standards. EPA, in consultation with NOAA, will publish guidance describing existing and potential models of enforceable authority related to polluted runoff and will assist states and tribes in this effort.

Under the Action Plan, water quality problems will be identified, programs modified, and solutions implemented on a watershed basis. The Action Plan's watershed approach is built on several key elements: Unified Watershed Assessments, Watershed Restoration Action Strategies, Watershed Pollution Prevention, and Watershed Assistance Grant. By the time that Congress addresses reauthorization of the Clean Water Act, the Action Plan should already have shifted the majority of the national clean water programs to a watershed basis.

Most of the Action Plan's initiatives will be implemented at the state level. The level of progress made over the next few years by the states and agricultural community will determine the effectiveness of the Action Plan in addressing remaining clean water problems. At yesterday's event, it was suggested that a Clean Water Action Plan Federal Advisory Committee be created to help with the Plan's implementation.

While many of the relevant Key Action items are in areas that AMSA had been hoping the Plan would address, there are also items addressing the POTW community, such as:

    EPA will direct enforcement and compliance assistance efforts, together with state and local authorities, at regulated sources contributing to conditions leading to closures of shellfish areas. These efforts will address sanitary sewer overflows, combined sewer overflows, storm water discharges, wet-weather discharges that contain substantial amounts of contaminants, and other point sources that are not in compliance with applicable requirements.

AMSA staff has begun its review of the Action Plan with an emphasis on Key Action items effecting the membership. Those Key Action items of primary interest to the membership are highlighted in today's Regulatory Alert RA 98-3, which has been forwarded to AMSA members along with a copy of the Action Plan. The Plan can also be accessed online at http://www.epa.gov/cleanwater/action/toc.cfml.