Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Senate scopes CWA challenges
CLEAN WATER
Greenwire
10/09/2002
Damon Franz, Greenwire staff writer
(A longer version of this story ran in this morning's Environment & Energy
Daily.)
In the 30 years since Congress passed the Clean Water Act, the law has
revitalized many of the nation's polluted waterways, but much work remains to be
done before the goals of the act are fully realized, former congressmen, federal
officials and interest groups told the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee yesterday.
"The 1972 Clean Water Act has sharply increased the number of waterways that are
once again safe for fishing and swimming," said Environmental Protection Agency
Assistant Administrator for Water Tracey Mehan. "The act launched an all-out
assault on water, and it worked well. It enabled us to improve water quality all
across the nation while experiencing record economic growth and a sizable
expansion of our population."
According to some estimates, 60 percent to 70 percent of the nation's waters
were not fit for swimming or fishing when the act was passed in 1972. Today, the
latest figures estimate that about 40 percent to 50 percent of lakes, rivers and
estuaries are impaired for those uses. The witnesses at yesterday's hearing said
those numbers are not good enough. "Clearly, we must intensify our efforts,"
said retired Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), who helped write the 1987
amendments to the Clean Water Act.
To finish the task laid out by the CWA of "restor[ing] and maintain[ing] the
chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters," Mehan said
water administrators should shift the focus of their regulatory efforts from
point source pollution -- factories' and power plants' end-of-pipe-pollution --
to non-point source pollution, the runoff from farms, roads, developments and
cities.
For most of the past 30 years, efforts to implement the CWA have focused largely
on the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a program that uses
technological standards to control pollution from factories and other point
sources. Since most major pollution sources have acquired permits under this
program, many regulators feel it is time to focus on the CWA's mechanism to
clean those waters that remain polluted after the point sources have been
controlled -- the Total Maximum Daily Load program, which requires states to
devise pollution budgets for all their waterways.
"It is time, not so much for a change in course as a shift in focus: from a
point source-oriented program to a non-point centered one; from relying largely
on technology-based standards to complementing past progress by a water
quality-based approach, and from emphasizing inputs to focusing on environmental
outcomes," Mehan said.
Recent EPA data released by an environmental group, however, disputes the notion
that there is little room for improvement in the point-source program. The
report released in August by the U.S. Public Interest Research group found that
nearly 30 percent of 1,798 major facilities examined were in serious violation
of their CWA permits.
According to one EPA official interviewed by Greenwire last month, the agency
does not have good data to support the notion that the best future gains lie in
non-point-source programs. "Some people say the wet-weather and non-point source
stuff is a bigger piece of the pie," he said. "The problem with point sources is
that the data doesn't support that the problem has been solved. There is a very
high rate of non-compliance among permitted sources. A lot of sources are out of
compliance, but enforcers are shifting their focus to other sources" like sewage
overflows, concentrated animal feedlots, and runoff from building and
construction sites.
Current and former EPA employees, as well as environmentalists, say a large part
of the problem lies with a lack of enforcement resources and state enforcement
officials that do not aggressively punish polluters. Most of the states have
been delegated authority to enforce the CWA, but declining budget revenues have
crimped their enforcement resources in recent years.
Environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr., however, said states often do not have
the political muscle to enforce the CWA when paired against powerful companies
that threaten to take their business elsewhere unless pollution standards are
waived. "EPA should revoke Clean Water Act authority from those states that
don't enforce the act," he said. "That power is included in the statute, but
they're just not doing it."
A lack of funding is not only hindering adequate pollution enforcement,
according to a new EPA study; it will also deter the nation's efforts to support
adequate wastewater and drinking-water infrastructure. EPA's gap analysis,
released last week, found that the nation's wastewater and drinking water
infrastructure over the next 20 years will face upwards of a $534 billion
funding gap between projected investment and operations and maintenance needs
and current spending.
Legislators and the Bush administration appear to be at an impasse on how to
deal with this problem. A $41.5 billion water infrastructure bill that boosts
funding levels for the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund and the Drinking
Water State Revolving Loan Fund has cleared the EPW Committee but is currently
on hold because of disputes over the allocation formula.
And while the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in March
advanced a $25 billion wastewater-only reauthorization bill, H.R. 3930, House
GOP leaders put a hold on that bill due to its pro-union language. The Bush
administration, meanwhile, opposes both bills because of the cost.
At yesterday's hearing, a representative of the Association of Metropolitan
Sewerage Agencies said the funding shortfall is the most pressing clean water
challenge facing the nation. "Although operating efficiencies and rate increases
can provide some relief, they cannot and will not be able to fund the current
backlog of capital replacement projects plus the treatment upgrades that will be
required in years to come," he said. "Federal support for wastewater
infrastructure is critical to safeguard the environmental progress made during
the past 30 years under the Clean Water Act."