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Nearly 40 percent of the streams and almost half of lakes and
estuaries surveyed nationwide were not clean enough in 2000 to support
fishing and swimming, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency report released Sept. 30.

The EPA conducts a national water quality inventory using information
supplied by states, tribes and territories every two years. The results
indicate a slight increase in the percentage of waterways found to be
impaired since 1998, but the difference may represent changes in
assessment methods rather than an actual decline in water quality,
according to the EPA.

The data includes test results from about 33 percent of U.S. waters.

The leading types of contamination include bacteria, nutrients, silt
and metals, primarily mercury, according to the federal government.
Runoff from agricultural lands, emissions from municipal sewage
treatment plants and activities including dredging are the primary
sources of impairment.

The EPA report points out the need for more effective controls to
address the nation's water quality problems, especially those from
agricultural runoff and urban areas, said G. Tracy Mehan, the agency's
assistant administrator for water.

"EPA and the states need to work together as partners to solve this
problem and implement more effective solutions," Mehan said.

The EPA is trying to improve identification and cleanup of impaired
waters and is developing a national monitoring strategy to improve water
quality assessment and reporting. However, under the Clean Water Act,
states have the primary responsibility for water quality monitoring,
according to the EPA.

In a separate report also released Sept. 30, the EPA concluded that
unless governments find additional funding, the nation's wastewater and
drinking water plants will lack necessary funds to maintain and upgrade
their systems.

Assuming no growth in revenue, the nation's wastewater systems could
fall $270 billion short of necessary funds by 2019. For drinking water,
the gap approaches $265 billion for the same period.

If governments can increase funding by 3 percent in real dollars -
that is, 3 percent in addition to the rate of inflation - the
shortfalls shrink by nearly 90 percent on the wastewater side and by
about 80 percent on the drinking water side.

"The actual gap may end up somewhere in between these numbers - and
there are an enormous number of considerations that will go into
determining where the gap ends up," EPA Administrator Christie Whitman
said. "The important thing about this report is that it enables us to
engage the discussion with a better understanding of what the dimensions
of the challenge really are."

Whitman said that meeting the funding challenge will require
"harnessing the power of the public and private sectors both for
financing and for the development of new technologies and innovations."

The EPA report's conclusions prompted a warning from a national trade
association representing publicly owned wastewater utilities.

"Simply put, the EPA report demonstrates that we face a looming crisis
to the nation's wastewater infrastructure, as pipes and systems age and
are in desperate need of upgrade and repair," said Ken Kirk, executive
director of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies.
"Municipalities now shoulder 90 percent of these infrastructure costs,
but, as EPA's Gap Analysis demonstrates, they cannot continue to foot
this massive infrastructure bill alone, especially as local budgets
continue to shrink and municipalities face soaring security costs."

Kirk said the federal government must offer long-term financial
assistance to local sewer agencies.

Both the 2000 National Water Quality Inventory and the Clean Water and
Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis are available on the EPA's
Web site.

The respective Web addresses are www.epa.gov305b/2000report and
www.epa.gov/ogwdw000/gapreport.pdf.

Contact Waste News government affairs editor Bruce Geiselman at (330)
865-6172 or bgeiselman@crain.com.