[Senate Hearing 107-1012]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-1012
COMMEMORATION OF THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLEAN WATER ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 8, 2002
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont, Chairman
MAX BAUCUS, Montana BOB SMITH, New Hampshire
HARRY REID, Nevada JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
BOB GRAHAM, Florida JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri
BARBARA BOXER, California GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
RON WYDEN, Oregon MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
Ken Connolly, Majority Staff Director
Dave Conover, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
OCTOBER 8, 2002
OPENING STATEMENTS
Bond, Hon. Christopher S., U.S. Senator from the State of
Missouri....................................................... 4
Chafee, Hon. Lincoln, U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode Island 6
Clinton, Hon. Hillary Rodham, U.S. Senator from the State of New
York........................................................... 5
Jeffords, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont.. 1
Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio... 6
WITNESSES
Chin, Jordan, student, Portland, OR.............................. 43
Prepared statement........................................... 83
Chris, Grace, student, White River Junction, VT.................. 41
Prepared statement........................................... 81
Hoeft, Kristen, student, Eagan, MN............................... 45
Prepared statement........................................... 84
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr., senior counsel, Natural Resources
Defense Council................................................ 26
Prepared statement........................................... 67
Mehan, G. Tracey, Assistant Administrator for Water,
Environmental Protection Agency................................ 18
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Responses to additional questions submitted by:
Senator Chaffee.......................................... 62
Senator Jeffords......................................... 57
Senator Voinovich........................................ 63
Mitchell, Hon. George, retired U.S. Senator from the State of
Maine.......................................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 51
Pinault, Paul, president, Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies and director, Narragansett Bay Commission............. 29
Prepared statement........................................... 75
Responses to additional questions submitted by:
Senator Jeffords......................................... 76
Senator Voinovich........................................ 78
Savage, Roberta H., president, America's Clean Water Foundation.. 39
Prepared statement........................................... 80
Stafford, Hon. Robert, retired U.S. Senator from the State of
Vermont........................................................ 9
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Weber, Thomas A., Associate Chief, Natural Resource Conservation
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture........................ 22
Prepared statement........................................... 64
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Letter, Ken Kirk, executive director, Association of Metropolitan
Sewerage Agencies to Senator Jeffords.......................... 86
Statements:
American Society of Civil Engineers.......................... 86
Lee, Robert E., chairman, National Cattlemen's Beef
Association................................................ 89
COMMEMORATING THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLEAN WATER ACT
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m. in room
406, Senate Dirksen Building, Hon. James Jeffords (chairman of
the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Jeffords, Bond, Carper, Chafee, Clinton,
Voinovich and Wyden.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. JEFFORDS, U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF VERMONT
Senator Jeffords. The committee will come to order.
I am very pleased to be here today to commemorate the 30th
anniversary of the Clean Water Act. This statute was one of the
first environmental laws that our Nation adopted, and it has
remained a cornerstone of our efforts to protect and preserve
our Nation's waters.
I am particularly honored to welcome two members of this
body and of the committee who are joining us to celebrate the
event--Senator Stafford of Vermont, who will appear, who is
already there on the screen. Bob, welcome to our show. It is
nice to see you and I am glad you could be with us.
Senator Stafford. Thank you very much.
Senator Jeffords. Senator Mitchell of Maine. Each of them
played a key role in the passage of the 1987 amendments to the
Clean Water Act. Senator Stafford, who is joining us by video
conference from Vermont, was the chairman of the committee when
the amendments were crafted. Senator Mitchell of Maine was the
ranking member of the Subcommittee on Environmental Protection
during the development of these amendments and was the floor
manager of one of the two historic votes which passed these
amendments to override President Reagan's veto.
We are truly lucky that these distinguished members are
joining us today to speak about their views on the progress we
have made with the cleanup of our Nation's waters. Thank you
both for being here.
Sadly, the true steward of the 1987 amendments to the Clean
Water Act, John Chafee, is of course not with us today. Senator
Chafee was one of my closest friends in the Senate. We ate
lunch together almost every Wednesday for about 10 years, and
his contribution to our Nation cannot be overstated. Senator
Chafee's leadership on the environmental issues as a member and
as the chairman of the committee was unparalleled through the
last two decades. His fingerprints can be found on virtually
every major piece of environmental legislation that became law
during those two decades. It was his leadership that brought
the bipartisan 1987 Clean Water Amendments through the Senate,
through the conference with the House, and passed the
Presidential veto and into law. Because of his efforts, our
children and grandchildren cannot imagine a world where excess
pollution can cause a river to burn.
We are also honored to have Senator Lincoln Chafee here as
a member of the committee, continuing his father's important
work.
I also want to make two comments about the witness list for
this hearing. First, due to unfortunate last minute
circumstances, Mr. Tom Morrisey from Connecticut will not be
participating in our hearing this morning. He will be available
to answer questions for the record. Second, I want to give a
warm welcome to our final panel made up of several students
participating in the Youth Watershed Conference, which is being
held this week in celebration of the anniversary of the Clean
Water Act. I particularly want to welcome a fellow Vermonter,
Grace Chris from White River Junction, Vermont.
To understand the significance of the Clean Water Act, one
has to recall the state of our Nation's waterways in the early
1970s. The fact is, our Nation was faced with a water pollution
crisis. The most vivid example was the Cuyahoga River in Ohio,
which became so polluted with chemicals and industrial waste
that it burst into flames. Toxic materials were routinely
dumped into pristine water bodies by industrial polluters. It
was standard practice in municipalities to have underground
pipes deliver raw sewage from homes directly into rivers and
streams without any intervening treatment. Americans began to
ask, is this the best we can do?
I can attest to the fact that Vermonters answered with a
vehement no. They demanded actions to solve our environmental
problems. In 1970, I was the State Attorney General of Vermont.
My office worked to create Vermont's Act 252, which enacted the
toughest water pollution laws in the country at that time. I
had the honor of testifying before the committee during Senator
Muskie's chairmanship during the first phases of the debate on
the Clean Water Act. Some of the concepts in Act 252 are today
part of the Federal water pollution laws.
Congress also answered no to the question, is this the best
we can do. Led by the champions like Senator Muskie and Baker,
they came together on a bipartisan basis to override President
Nixon's veto of the Clean Water Act. Originally enacted in
1948, the 1972 Clean Water Act completely revised the existing
statute and created a clean water program that we know today.
The Act consists of two major parts--regulations on industries
and cities designed to reach a goal of zero discharge of
pollutants; and the authorization of Federal financial
assistance to wastewater treatment.
We have made progress. Virtually every community served by
the publicly owned treatment works is served by a plant that
uses secondary treatment. This progress was facilitated by the
Federal assistance provided for municipal wastewater treatment
plant construction.
Despite progress on these and other issues, it was clear
that without an action on other problems such as toxics and
non-point source pollution, we would not be able to meet the
clean water goals. In 1987, Americans again asked, is this the
best we can do? Again, Congress said ``no''. Champions like
Senator Chafee, Senator Stafford, Senator Mitchell and Senator
Bentsen came together in a bipartisan coalition to override
President Reagan's veto in 1987 amendments, and enacted the
last major reform to this country's clean water program.
Many of the key pieces of the 1987 amendments continue to
resonate in our clean water debate today, in particular non-
point source pollution, storm water, and funding levels. We
have made some progress on these issues, building on the
strength of the 1987 amendments. However, much remains to be
done. Almost half of our Nation's waters are not safe for
fishing, swimming, boating, sources of pollution are
responsible for half of our water quality problems. Just last
week, Administrator Whitman released the Agency's gap analysis,
which identified an enormous gap between current funding levels
and infrastructure needs for the publicly owned treatment
works. In Vermont, there are two dozen streams impaired by
storm water run-off. These issues represent a real daily threat
to public health and to the wildlife that depend on clean water
to sustain life.
On this, the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act,
America again asks, is this the best we can do? The answer is
no. Our Nation still faces many important challenges. Today,
our actions overseas dominate the debate in Congress and
overshadow equally pressing problems here at home. Water
pollution continues to be a clear and present problem. It is
real and it deserves our attention. We must take action to
respond to America's call for cleaner water. We must squarely
address non-point source pollution.
We must also have a strong TMDL program to move States more
rapidly toward cleaning up our impaired waterways. It is
imperative that the TMDL rulemaking being undertaken by the
Administration is a second step in the program, rather than a
step backward. We must invest in our Nation's water
infrastructure. In an effort spearheaded by Senator Graham of
Florida, the committee took action this year to pass the Water
Investment Act. This bill takes a first step toward closing the
gap in investment for water infrastructure.
I have worked with Senators Smith and Crapo and Graham in
the Appropriations Committee to increase funding to SRF. This
year, we succeeded with the first increase in years. I want to
thank Senators Bond and Mikulski for their efforts. I believe
that we must continue to move forward on controlling storm
water and combined sewer outflows. A major element in our
ability to combat these problems is funding. In the Water
Investment Act, we included a separate authority for EPA to
provide assistance to communities in controlling combined sewer
overflows. In September, I joined my colleagues on this
committee in strongly supporting an amendment to the Clean
Water Act proposed by Senator Chafee to ensure that smaller
communities covered by the phase two storm water regulations
taking effect in March will be able to continue the use of
Federal funds to solve storm water problems. It is clear that
if we do not take action to address these issues, progress will
stall.
As Americans ask us on the 30th anniversary of the Clean
Water Act, is this the best we can do, we must answer no, as
our colleagues did in 1972 and 1987. I believe that we are up
to the challenge.
I now will turn to Senator Bond and ask for his comments.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI
Senator Bond. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure to join you in welcoming our former colleagues,
Senator Stafford and Senator Mitchell, and I am particularly
pleased to have the students with us today. I apologize. I am
supposed to be on the floor at 9:45 with Senator Bingaman to
try to get a bill moving, so I am not going to be able to stay
for the testimony. I do want to make my entire statement a part
of the record. We are here today because we all know that clean
water is something we depend upon for a safe and healthy life.
Babies need water, seniors need water, each of them is
vulnerable to water problems. Our agricultural crops need
water. Businesses need water. Wildlife, with whom we share this
beautiful land, needs water. Our boats need water. As a
sometime would-be fisherman, we need clean water for the fish.
We have come a long way in improving the quality of water,
but unfortunately, as you have indicated, Mr. Chairman, we
still have a long way to go. We worked hard in the
Appropriations Committee to try to get the money from very
tight budgets. Working with Senator Mikulski this year, we
succeeded in increasing the money for the clean water State
revolving fund by $100 million over last year's level, to $1.45
billion. We increased the drinking water state revolving fund
$25 million over last year, to $875 million. Over the last 4
years, we have increased funding for section 319 non-point
source grants by 20 percent and increased State water pollution
control programs grants by 66 percent.
I was also proud to introduce a Senate resolution, joined
by many of my colleagues here, to commemorate the 30th
anniversary of the Clean Water Act, but we must do more. The
chairman has already cited a gap analysis which shows about
$500 billion in unfunded water needs, which is too much of a
burden for local towns and cities to bear alone. We are going
to have to do better.
Let me say that I am sorry that this committee passed up
the opportunity this year to contribute constructively to our
Nation's drinking water and clean water funding needs. I was
particularly disappointed that we reported out a water
infrastructure reauthorization measure with absolutely no
chance of passage. In the face of $500 billion in unfunded
water infrastructure needs, the bill, S. 1961, would actually
have cut water infrastructure funding in many States. Under
current spending levels, the bill would cut water
infrastructure funds for New York, Maryland and Missouri by as
much as 50 percent. Frankly, that dog won't hunt. We need more
water dollars, not less.
The proposed infrastructure bill also stripped
consideration of non-point source needs from the funding
formulas. Non-point source problems, such as you have
indicated, Mr. Chairman, like run-off storm water management
and pollution from large livestock operations, are probably one
of the greatest challenges we face now. It is not just in
agricultural States like mine. We have agriculture. We have
cities with shopping center run-offs. The non-point source
pollution can even come from lawns in heavily populated
residential areas. Any water infrastructure bill, to be a good
one to pass Congress, is going to need to include both non-
point source needs and funding increases for the States.
As we continue the commemoration of the Clean Water Act, I
hope we will soon take action that such an anniversary, as well
as our waters deserve. I thank you very much for holding the
hearing.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you for an excellent statement and
all the work that you have done to help this committee to bring
reality to the appropriation process.
Senator Bond. It's tough.
Senator Jeffords. I know.
Senator Clinton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Senator Clinton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit my
complete statement for the record, but I want to thank you for
holding this hearing to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the
Clean Water Act. I am delighted to see by satellite Senator
Stafford, and particularly pleased to see Senator Mitchell
here. I also want to acknowledge and thank one of the
staunchest defenders of our Nation's waterways, Robert Kennedy,
Jr., who serves as the chief prosecuting attorney for the
Hudson Riverkeepers and is the senior attorney for the Natural
Resources Defense Council. He has led the fight to protect New
York City's water supply. As many of you know, his reputation
as a defender of the environment stems from his work on the
Hudson River and the Long Island Sound. We are very grateful
for that. As we hold this hearing, many of us are concerned
that the Clean Water Act, which has done so much to clean up
the waters in our country, is under attack. There is too much
evidence of the Administration attempting to roll back
regulations, undermine their enforcement, and generally undo
the work that was started 30 years ago by people such as
Senators Mitchell, Stafford and wonderful Senator Chafee as
well.
I hope, Mr. Chairman, that we celebrate this with the
appropriate recognition of all that we have accomplished, but
frankly with a bit of a concern and challenge that we do
everything we can to prevent the importance of the Clean Water
Act on its 30th anniversary from being undermined by this
Administration and its policies.
I look forward to working with you. I, too, unfortunately
am going to have to excuse myself before all of the witnesses
appear, but I have read their testimony and I look forward to
working with you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very much, Senator.
Senator Chafee.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LINCOLN CHAFEE, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF RHODE ISLAND
Senator Chafee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to recognize Rhode Islander Paul Pinault here,
who is executive director of the Narragansett Bay Commission
and is a member of the third panel. Also it is a pleasure to
welcome the authors of the 1987 amendments, Senator Mitchell
and Senator Stafford, who worked with my dad to successfully
override two vetoes--no easy task. I look forward to the
testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Jeffords. Senator Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really
appreciate your conducting this hearing to commemorate the 30th
anniversary of the Clean Water Act. I am pleased to join the
board of Governors for the era of clean water, and to cosponsor
Senator Bond's resolution.
The law and the amendments to it--I am pleased that Senator
Stafford and Senator Mitchell are here--and the early 75/25
money that was made available has been very important to Ohio
and has helped us make a real impact on improving water quality
and restoration of Ohio's waters, particularly Lake Erie, our
Great Lake. Over 30 years ago, I think you mentioned in your
testimony in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, Lake Erie
was dying and the Cuyahoga River, which was the major river
flowing into Lake Erie, caught on fire as a result of an oil
slick. That decline of the lake became an international symbol
of pollution and environmental degradation. I remember BBC
coming to Cleveland to do a program on the dying lake. I
remember Bill Ruckelshaus asking me to go out as a member of
the State legislature to Cheyenne, Wyoming to talk to Rocky
Mountain legislators about the importance of clean air and
clean water, and not to sacrifice their economy on the altar of
degrading their air and water.
In the late 1960s, my district, my northern boundary was
Lake Erie. I made up my mind that I would go to the State
legislature and was committed to what I refer to as fighting
the second battle of Lake Erie, and that was to bring the lake
back and reclaim it. I worked to amend our air and water
pollution legislation. Senator Clinton, we helped stop the
drilling for oil in the bed of Lake Erie. Michigan, Ohio, New
York were all hell-bent to go forward and do it. We got the
Governors to stop it and worked with legislators from four
States to develop the contours of a Environmental Protection
Agency legislation, and was the prime mover in getting that
done in Ohio. At that time, it was interesting, it was moving
across the country and the executive branches of government,
frankly, were not helping us. It is very interesting.
Today, Lake Erie has improved substantially. Because I was
concerned that we had not established baseline information,
before I left the Governor's office, we released the Lake Erie
quality index to kind of quantify what we had done during a 25-
year period to then when the next one would come out, measure
whether or not we had improved it or not. There were 10
indicators--water quality, pollution sources, habitat,
biological, coastal recreation, boating, fishing, beaches,
tourism and shipping. We measured that. That measure showed
that significant progress had been made in most areas. I am
hoping that when the next index is published that we will show
that we have continued to make progress in those areas that
need improvement.
Whether that happens--I think we should recognize--is in
our hands. The Federal Clean Water Act and State water
pollution control laws have contributed to the progress that we
have made. It has been the cooperation between the State and
Federal Governments that have made the difference. I think if
you think about, what was the purpose of the Act, the
objectives were the restoration and maintenance of the
chemical, physical and biological integrity of our waterways.
We have made progress.
Unfortunately, members of this committee know that we have
not provided enough money to get the job done. It is
interesting that President Nixon vetoed this legislation
initially over money, and I am sure that Senator Mitchell may
testify that I think President Reagan vetoed it over money
again. There used to be a song, ``love and marriage, love and
marriage, you can't have one without the other, it's like a
horse and carriage.'' The trouble lately is we have had a lot
of love, but not enough marriage and not enough money----
[Laughter.]
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. Being spent here today. Mr.
Chairman, as you know, we tried to deal with that problem this
year, and a lot of folks were optimistic that we would increase
the money for the State Revolving Loan Fund. It fell apart
because, frankly, many people, including the folks that
implement the laws, felt that we were trying to be too
prescriptive, too much mandating on them. They knew that a lot
more money would not be forthcoming, so they ended up with a
lot more mandates and prescription, and no money. Then we also
had difficulties because of Davis-Bacon and some other issues.
Senator Mitchell, I am going to be interested in hearing
how you and Senator Stafford got together and worked things
out. We have really--if you study what we have been doing the
last year and a half--have spent a time on a lot of legislation
that would cleanup the environment, but we have gotten very
little done. It seems that the reason why we have not is we
have not been able to sit down and figure out how we can
compromise and work together to make progress.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate all of the time you have spent
this year in trying to improve the environment. I am hopeful
that regardless of who is in leadership in the Senate that
somehow next year all of us on this committee and the people
who are represented and the organizations can sit down at the
table and try and figure out how we can compromise and move
forward on some of these areas that are so important to the
future of our country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Senator Voinovich follows:]
Statement of Hon. George V. Voinovich, U.S. Senator
from the State of Ohio
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this hearing to commemorate
the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. In celebration of this
anniversary, I am proud to join the Board of Governors for the ``Year
of Clean Water'' and to cosponsor Senator Bond's resolution marking the
30th anniversary of the Act. I am also pleased that Senator Stafford
and Senator Mitchell are able to join us today, and I look forward to
their comments.
The law, its amendments, and the early 75/25 money that was made
available has been very important to Ohio and has helped us make a real
impact on improving water quality and restoration of Ohio's waters,
particularly Lake Erie, our Great Lake.
Over 30 years ago, Lake Erie was dying and the Cuyahoga River,
which is a major river flowing into Lake Erie, caught on fire as a
result of an oil slick. Lake Erie's decline was heavily covered by the
media and became an international symbol of pollution and environmental
degradation. I remember the British Broadcasting Company--the BBC--even
sending a film crew to make a documentary about it.
In the late 1960's, the northern boundary of my district was Lake
Erie. I made up my mind that I would go to the State legislature and
fight what I refer to as the second battle of Lake Erie--to bring the
lake back and reclaim it. I worked to amend our air and water pollution
legislation. I remember Bill Ruckelshaus asking me to go out as a
member of the State legislature to Cheyenne, Wyoming to talk to Rocky
Mountain legislators about the importance of clean air and clean water,
and not to sacrifice their economy on the altar of degrading air and
water.
I also worked with legislators from four States to develop
Environmental Protection Agency legislation, and I was the prime mover
in getting that done in Ohio. Michigan, Ohio, New York all wanted to
drill for oil in the bed of Lake Erie, but I worked to get the
Governors to stop it.
Throughout my career, I have continued to fight for Lake Erie--as
County Commissioner, Mayor of Cleveland, Governor of Ohio, and United
States Senator.
Today, Lake Erie has improved substantially. Because I was
concerned that we had not established baseline information to document
where we started or to track the progress we had made, one of my last
actions as Governor in 1998 was to release the Lake Erie Quality Index
to quantify the results of our efforts over the previous 25 years to
clean up the Lake.
Ten indicators were developed: water quality, pollution sources,
habitat, biological, coastal recreation, boating, fishing, beaches,
tourism, and shipping. These indicators measured environmental,
economic, and recreational conditions related to the quality of life
enjoyed by those living near or using the waters of Lake Erie. The Lake
Erie Quality Index demonstrates that we have made significant progress
in all these areas. At the same time, it identifies the challenges for
the future.
When the next Lake Erie Quality Index is published in 2004, I am
hopeful that we will have made progress in all areas that need
improvement. Whether and when that happens is in our hands. The Federal
Clean Water Act and State water pollution control laws have contributed
greatly to the progress that has been made to improve Lake Erie and
other waterways throughout the United States. Due to the cooperative
efforts between the Federal Government and the States during the last
three decades, our waterways are once again safe for fishing and
swimming. Unfortunately, members of this committee know that we have
not provided enough money to get the job done. It is interesting that
President Nixon and President Reagan both vetoed clean water
legislation over money.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, we tried to deal with that problem this
year, and a lot of folks were optimistic that we would increase the
money for the State Revolving Loan Fund programs. It fell apart because
many people, including the folks that implement the laws, felt that we
were too prescriptive. They also knew that a lot more money would not
be forthcoming, and they would be left with more mandates and no money.
Also, there are a number of outstanding issues we ought to be
compromising on, such as Davis-Bacon.
I am very interested in hearing from Senator Mitchell and Senator
Stafford on how they got together and worked things out. We have spent
a lot of time in the last year and a half on legislation that would
cleanup our water and the environment, but we have gotten very little
done. It seems that the reason for this inaction is because we have not
been able to sit down, compromise, and work together to make progress.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate all of the time you have spent this year
in trying to improve the environment. I am hopeful that regardless of
who is in leadership in the Senate next year, all of us on this
committee will sit down at the table with all interested parties to
figure out how we can compromise and move forward on some of these
areas that are so important to the future of our country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you. You have been invaluable in
your help on this committee and I appreciate your leadership in
a number of areas, and look forward to continuing to work with
you.
Now to give us all the answers, we will move back in
history a little bit to our two honored guests here that have
come to be with us today. I will first go to my good friend
from Vermont, Senator Stafford, who is with us by virtue of the
modern methods and technology to bring us together. Bob, it is
a pleasure to have you with us. Just coincidentally, he and I
grew up about 150 yards apart--not the same years--so we have
many stories to tell about growing up there on Kingsley Avenue
and Main Street. I had also the challenge of my life, which was
following in your footsteps. I have wandered off a few times
and stumbled a few times, but I have always looked to you to
bring me back in the right direction and you have been
successful in many cases in doing that. Bob, why don't you tell
us how you got it done?
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT STAFFORD, A RETIRED
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT
Senator Stafford [testifying by means of video-conferencing
technology from Rutland, VT]. Jim, it is a real pleasure to be
here in front of this committee which you now chair, as I
appreciate this chance to speak with you and your members and
whatever the public may hear as to what I have to say.
We have come a long way, I think, since 1972. It is almost
impossible to imagine there was a time in Vermont when rivers
were turned the color of the dye used in the woolen mills and
when untreated human sewage flowed directly into the waters of
our State. That is part of history. Certainly, the students
with you today do not know the time, Mr. Chairman, and I hope
they never will know that experience we had back then.
The Clean Water Act changed the national attitude toward
our rivers and instructed us on how to manage our waste.
Passage of the Clean Water Act in 1987 was the culmination of
the greatest bipartisan--let me underscore bipartisan, because
I think that is the key to making progress in the future,
putting aside partisanship and working purely for the good of
the country is the key. It was in my day. I think it still is.
Passage of the Clean Water Act in 1987 was the culmination
of the greatest bipartisan environmental issue and effort of my
tenure as chairman of this committee. It took 4 years of
grueling work, hearings, negotiations and compromise--and
compromise, negotiations and hearings and so on and so on. It
survived, as has been pointed out, two Presidential vetoes. The
result is a law at the heart of our national environmental
framework.
There is one man who has been mentioned already--a dear
friend of mine, as well as the chairman's and others--and that
is Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island, whose son is sitting on
the committee today. It was Senator Chafee who presided over
the hearings on this issue. It was Senator Chafee who led the
conference committee to produce a package that passed, believe
it or not, unanimously in both the House and the Senate. It was
Senator Chafee who championed the cause and the Nation is
better for his service. I was proud to serve with him on this
committee and proud to count him as a friend. His work and
dedication must not be and will not be forgotten.
It is a very special honor for me to testify today before
John's son, Senator Lincoln Chafee, who as I pointed out is now
a member of this committee, and whom I am pleased to see
continuing his father's legacy of environmental protection.
The 1987 amendments took several main steps to reduce water
pollution. Funding was the main point of debate in 1987. We
reached a compromise that year to phaseout Federal funding for
the construction grants program and to create a financing
mechanism called the State Revolving Fund, or SRF. At the time,
we thought it was a modest down payment on the investment we
were making in the States, cities and municipalities across
this Nation over the next decade. It turns out that the Federal
investment in the SRF has not ended, and the funding needs for
wastewater treatment facilities have grown. I am aware that the
Environmental Protection Agency recently released a report
citing, ``a gap of $270 billion in funds available for clean
water needs.'' This is a huge gap. It deserves the attention of
this committee and this Congress.
I understand, Mr. Chairman, you and Senator Graham of
Florida led the committee's efforts to pass S. 1961, the Water
Investment Act. I commend your efforts and I urge the full
Senate to take action to provide additional financial support
for clean water needs.
In my comments upon the final passage of H.R. 1, the Water
Quality Act, I highlighted the portion of the bill dealing with
non-point source pollution. This was one of the key gaps in the
1972 Act that we sought to fill in 1987. We authorized a new
program to develop best management practices to control
nonpoint sources of pollution that often prevent the
attainable--that is, fishable, swimmable, water quality. Since
that time, Congress has provided close to $1.8 billion to
combat non-point source pollution. Yet, this remains a major
challenge for this Nation for the future of the Clean Water
Act. I understand EPA estimates the nonpoint pollution is
responsible for close to 50 percent of our current water
quality growth problems. It must be addressed if we are to take
the next step in cleaning up our waters.
At this time, as the committee looks to the future, I ask
you not to forget the days of color dyes in our waters and the
seemingly insurmountable challenge that the 92d Congress faced
when enacting the Clean Water Act. They took the challenge, and
the results speak for themselves. In 1987, we confronted
another challenge and the results are likewise quantifiable.
Today, this committee and this Congress have a similar
opportunity. I urge you to reauthorize this important Federal
program to bring us closer to the day when all our rivers and
streams are swimmable and fishable.
I urge you, if I may, to follow the same bipartisan
approach to these problems that we did in 1972 and again in
1987. I think tasks and the results that we need are more
important than any partisanship in this Congress, and I hope
that is the way it will be played.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to come
back and be with you for a moment on this committee.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
Senator Jeffords. I must say, you are some act to follow,
Bob. I have tried to fit into your footsteps, but they always
seemed a little bit big for me. I also just want to remind the
members that not only was it clean water and other areas that
Senator Stafford enacted, but I found out that in this year of
this horrible event that we had on September 11 as I became
chairman 2 weeks before that, I opened the book to find out
what we should do, and it was the Stafford Act, relative to
taking care of the emergency situations and the creation of
FEMA. You have left many, many footprints. It is a challenge
for me, but anytime I am in trouble I just take a look to see
what you did.
Thank you very much.
Now, we turn to another great, one of our past Senators who
has done so much for this Nation, and still even takes care of
the baseball and all the other problems of the world. It is a
pleasure to have you with us, Senator Mitchell. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MITCHELL, A RETIRED
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE
Senator Mitchell. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to join
you today on the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Clean
Water Act, especially in the company of my friend and
colleague, Senator Stafford.
We have made progress since 1972 in meeting the goal of the
Act, which is, as Senator Voinovich noted, to restore and
maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the
Nation's waters. Our Nation has invested nearly $75 billion to
construct municipal sewage treatment facilities, nearly
doubling the number of people served with secondary treatment
to almost 150 million. However, there is much more to be done.
The EPA's Assistant Administrator for Water said recently that
about 40 percent of our Nation's waters do not meet fishable,
swimmable standards. That bears repeating. After 30 years of
implementing the Clean Water Act, 40 percent of our Nation's
waters remain impaired. Clearly, we must intensify our efforts.
I would like first, Mr. Chairman, to recognize the
contribution of one of our Nation's great pioneers in
environmental legislation, my friend and mentor, Senator Edmund
Muskie. Senator Muskie was the greatest public figure in
Maine's history and one of the great legislators in our
Nation's history. He was the principal author of the 1972 Clean
Water Act, which is a cornerstone of our Nation's environmental
law. He appeared before this committee in 1992 in celebration
of the Clean Water Act on its 20th anniversary, and I am
honored again to follow in his footsteps.
I will focus my remarks today on our progress on the issues
that were addressed in the 1987 amendments to the Clean Water
Act. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Environmental
Protection in that year, I was privileged to manage the bill on
the floor of the Senate. As Senator Stafford has noted, that
legislation was a heartening example of bipartisan cooperation.
This committee put it together over a 4-year period. Senator
Stafford and Senator Quentin Burdick of North Dakota led the
committee during that time. I had the pleasure of working on
the bill throughout those 4 years with Senator Dave Durenberger
of Minnesota and with Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island.
Senator Chafee in 1986 was chairman of the subcommittee and I
served as ranking member.
It is clear beyond doubt that without bipartisan
cooperation, the bill would never have become law. I want to
join others in especially recognizing Senator Chafee's role as
a principal author of what became the Water Quality Act of
1987. I congratulated him on that day 15 years ago and I would
like to repeat those words today. Senator Chafee is the
architect of this legislation. He chaired the hearings, he
managed the bill on the Senate floor, he spoke for the Senate
conferees during the long and intense conference with the
House. The high quality of this legislation is largely due to
his efforts. It is, of course, gratifying that Senator Lincoln
Chafee is here today as a member of this committee to continue
his father's legacy.
As I prepared my testimony for this hearing, I was struck
by the similarity in the debate over clean water in 1972, 1987
and today. In those early years, we debated the appropriate
roles of the Federal Government and the State Governments. We
faced opposition to pollution control requirements and
implementation schedules. We struggled to find the appropriate
level of Federal financial commitment, and we worked to ensure
that the Clean Water Act remained relevant to current pollution
issues. Each of those concerns remains a vibrant part of
today's debate.
The 1987 amendments can fairly be described as gap-filling
measures. We looked at the 1972 law, identified areas where
additional action was needed, and sought to create the legal
infrastructure needed to further the clean-up of our Nation's
waterways. Two key issues in 1987 included funding level and
addressing non-point source pollution. There were, of course,
many other actions taken in that legislation, such as the
creation of the National Estuary Program, the Chesapeake Bay
Program, the Great Lakes Program. We reinvigorated the Toxics
Program by among other things requiring numerical standards for
priority pollutants. We increased the penalties for violations
under the Clean Water Act, and we established the first permit
program for control of storm water discharges.
Because time does not permit a discussion of all of these
subjects, I will focus today on the key issue of funding. Mr.
Chairman, I would ask that the full text of my statement be
placed in the record.
Senator Jeffords. Without objection.
Senator Mitchell. In 1972, Congress chose to significantly
increase Federal participation in clean water programs. It
peaked at $5 billion in 1979 and 1980. In 1981, President
Reagan proposed the elimination of all funding for clean water
unless Congress reduced the size and scope of the program. The
Congress attempted to respond to the President's demand. Clean
water funding was reduced from $5 billion a year to $2.4
billion a year. We reduced the types and numbers of projects
that were eligible for Federal funding, and we reduced the
Federal share of the cost for construction projects from 75
percent to 55 percent.
A further step to reform Federal involvement was the
adoption of a transition strategy to move the country away from
construction grants toward what was then seen as an innovative
mechanism called the State Revolving Fund. The 1987 amendments
authorized almost $10 billion over 5 years for the phase-out of
the construction grants program and $8.4 billion over 5 years
for the SRF. We knew at that time that this level of funding
was inadequate to fully meet our Nation's clean water needs,
which then were estimated at between $75 billion and $100
billion. This was a compromise struck between those who favored
and those who opposed any Federal investment in clean water.
Regrettably, despite our efforts, President Reagan vetoed the
bill in 1986. In 1987, the Congress reenacted the bill. The
President vetoed it again, but this time Congress overrode the
veto and the Water Quality Act became law.
In 1987, we envisioned a situation where after the initial
5-year period of Federal investment, the SRF would begin to
revolve on its own and the Federal investment in clean water
programs would no longer be necessary. That was not the first
choice of many of us, but it was necessary to get some
legislation enacted to keep the process moving. Mr. Chairman,
as you and the members of the committee know, Federal funding
has continued, now at an annual rate of about $1.3 billion a
year. I understand that the debate continues over the level of
and the mechanism and the formula for distribution of the
Federal investment in clean water. There is much debate on
that, but there is little or no debate on the need. Just last
week, Administrator Whitman announced the results of the EPA's
gap analysis, which indicates a gap of over $270 billion for
our clean water needs.
The role of Federal funding in protecting our Nation's
waters was at the center of the debate in 1987. It remains
there today. In 1987, we knew that we could not possibly fund
all that was needed to clean our waters. That is still true. We
provided all that we could in 1987 under the circumstances
which then existed. You must do so again, because
unfortunately, despite all of our efforts, the estimated gap is
larger today than it was then. The infrastructure is that much
older. Much of it is nearing the end of its useful life, and
failure to replace it could threaten public health and our
economy.
I believe the conclusion is clear. Although to act on it
will, as always be difficult, there must be an increase in
funding for clean water if our Nation is to continue its
progress in implementing the goals of the Clean Water Act.
In 1972 and in 1987, the bills survived Presidential
vetoes. In each case, cost was a significant issue. In each
case, the Nation's desire for clean water overshadowed all
other issues. I believe that is still the case. The words that
Senator Muskie used in 1972 in urging passage of the original
Clean Water Act apply to today's challenges, and I would like
to quote them for you briefly. Senator Muskie said,
``Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes
and streams and oceans which continue to make life possible on
this planet? Can we afford life itself? The answers are the
same. Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the
waters of our Nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally
move to restore and renew them. The questions answer
themselves. We have reached a point in our struggle against
water pollution, as we say in New England, `we must either fish
or cut bait.' If we are serious about restoring the quality of
our Nation's waters to a level that will support life in the
future, then we ought to be prepared to make some sacrifices in
that effort now.''
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I conclude by
saying that in 1972 and in 1987 the Nation and the Congress
rose to meet the challenge. I hope they will do so again.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be pleased to answer
any questions you may have.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you so much, Senator Mitchell. It
is wonderful to have you here. The message you have given us is
one of challenge and one which I certainly believe we should
heed and should match your requests.
I want to thank you for coming, and I want to state that
working with you all these years, and having the chance on
clean air when you were a real hero on that score, when we
needed an upgrading of our air situation, it was one of the
most wonderful moments of my life--it wasn't moments; it was
weeks, I guess.
Senator Mitchell. The outcome was wonderful. The process
was not, Senator.
Senator Jeffords. Yes. That was a tough one. It sure was.
I am just glad to have you here and to reminisce. I am sure
Bob Stafford who has been listening--Bob, would you like to say
a word to Senator Mitchell?
Senator Stafford. It was a delight to listen to Senator
Mitchell, and I treasured the years we worked together in
Washington on environmental issues and other issues of
interest. I see he is as eloquent as ever and it is a great
pleasure to be here with you. I do not want to take up your
time with reminiscence, but I will. I remember once somebody
offered an amendment to the Clean Water Act that I disapproved
of, so when the member sat down I spoke against it. The member
rose in some anger and spoke to me about the amendment and my
attitude, and at that point Senator Muskie arose, and I had
told the author of the amendment when he said, would I support
it, I had said, ``no''. Muskie got up and said, after a brief
pause, ``When the Senator from Vermont says no, he means no.''
That was the end of that particular amendment and I never have
forgotten that.
I do want to wish you much luck in the days ahead, and as
the theme that has been developed already is what I think will
lead to success now and in the future, and that is when members
on important matters that affect the welfare of this Nation
like clean air and clean water come up, it is time to forget
partisanship and work together for the good of the Nation. That
is how we got the Clean Water Act as far as we did, and that is
how we will get it further along.
Thank you.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you, Bob.
Senator Mitchell, do you want to say anything for Bob?
[Laughter.]
Senator Mitchell. Well, Mr. Chairman, Senator Stafford, it
was a great pleasure to work with you while you served as
chairman of the committee. I appreciate very much the great
contributions you made to this and much other important
environmental legislation. Of course, we are all pleased that
your successor is now serving as chairman of the committee,
carrying on your legacy.
Senator Jeffords. Let me ask you a question, Senator
Mitchell.
Senator Mitchell. Yes.
Senator Jeffords. In your testimony, you stated very
clearly that we need to substantially increase funding for the
clean water program if we are to realize the goal of fishable
and swimmable waters. You mentioned that back in 1987,
Americans accepted the financial sacrifice of having clean
water. Do you think Americans are still willing to make that
sacrifice and increase the funding?
Senator Mitchell. I believe even more so, Mr. Chairman.
There has been since 1972 a dramatic change in the attitude of
the American people toward protection of the environment,
fueled by a growing awareness of the threat to the environment
that had accumulated over many years prior to that time. I find
that when the issues are explained clearly to the American
people, the choice of the vast majority is to strongly support
protection of our environment and the clean-up of our air and
our water. I emphasize again, I do not think this is a partisan
issue. I think the majorities hold largely true across all
political, geographic, social and other categories. I believe
the American people by overwhelming majorities strongly support
the need for the protection of our environment. I can tell you
in my own experience in my own State, as Senator Stafford
mentioned in Vermont, that the changes that have occurred in
the past 30 years have been dramatic, positive, and the people
do not want to go back to the days before the Federal Clean
Water Act.
Senator Jeffords. Senator Chafee. Again, it is always great
to have you on this committee. I have such fond memories of
your dad, and you are a chip off the old block, I tell you.
Senator Chafee. Mr. Chairman, I thank the two Senators for
their kind words. I know my father greatly enjoyed working with
you both over the years. It seems like the recurring themes of
your testimony are the need for bipartisanship, and that is how
we are going to get success on these important issues, and
then, of course, also working on the difficult issues of
funding. Those are the challenges in front of us. Thank you
very much.
Senator Jeffords. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Senator Mitchell, the issue of how
people feel about the Clean Water Act I think has a lot to do
with their perception of some of the regulations and rules that
are being required by the Federal Government. Several years
ago, we revisited the Safe Drinking Water Act and made some
changes in it. At that time, many communities were being
required every 3 years to add 25 new pollutants to their work,
and a lot of smaller communities just did not have the money to
do the job that was needed, and there was some revisiting about
the technology that they needed to install because in some
instances they required the highest and best technology, when a
cheaper technology got the job done.
The problem that seems to be today is that you talk to
farmers and other people today that, you know, in the old days
were really behind it, now it is starting to impact on them.
Based on your experience over the years, how would you go about
putting something in place that could garner the support of the
American people, and at the same time perhaps set up some type
of grant program based on local participation? In other words,
how do you get everybody to the table?
Senator Mitchell. The process that was established
initially by Senator Muskie and followed in the 1987 amendments
contemplated always a Federal investment and a substantial
State role in implementation, with a fairly high level of
flexibility at the State level to deal with whatever problems
of implementation occurred. I think that one of the factors
that has created difficulty is, as you have suggested, the
establishment of national standards that go beyond the basic
necessities and attempt to resolve every issue in advance,
which I think cannot be done in a country of the size,
diversity and competing interests as large as this one.
Now, that is an easy formulation to state and very
difficult to implement because in the minds of each of us here,
what is or is not essential as a Federal standard may differ,
and how much flexibility for the State and local governments
will also differ in the minds of each person. It is in that
area that I believe the greatest contribution can come from
members of this committee. When we did this in 1987, as both
Senator Stafford and I have noted, it took 4 years. John
Chafee, Dave Durenberger, Bob Stafford, myself, Quentin Burdick
and a few other members of the committee worked at it over a
very long period of time through debate, discussion, trial,
error--trying to find the right process of formulation.
We encountered a difficulty that I hope you do not
encounter, and that was, of course, the President's demand for
a complete end of the program. We struggled to keep the program
alive in a way that we hoped would meet the President's
approval, even though we believed it ought to be much more than
it was at the time. I do not think anyone can--I know I cannot,
and I am not sure anyone can be more precise than that in
response to the question--but on the Safe Drinking Water Act,
Senator, I come from Maine where many small towns had precisely
that problem. What we found was--in dealing with it in Maine--
is that there had to be a substantial degree of flexibility in
dealing with particular problems because so much of this
depends upon local circumstance.
It is, as I repeat now, the greatest contribution this
committee can make is in finding the appropriate balance
between a broad Federal mandate supported by substantial
Federal investment, and a sufficiently high degree of
flexibility at the State and local level so you do not get
decisions that appear to ordinary American citizens as contrary
to common sense, which is what happened in the case of some of
the application of the Safe Drinking Water Act and in other
areas of environmental regulation. I think it all has to pass
in the minds of the average American a common sense test. I
think you will agree, and I think it is clear beyond dispute,
that there is a broad reservoir of support in this country for
meaningful, sensible environmental legislation to protect and
to enhance our Nation's waters and air.
Senator Voinovich. Our problem this year is that we had
this bill that increased the SRF, and all of the local people
that were administering the program rose up and just said, this
is just more command and control and prescriptiveness. I
suspect that they might have been more willing to accept it,
but they knew that the amount of money coming from Congress
probably would not be very much more, if anything. In terms of
that, do you think it would be wise for us to try and set up
some kind of a--we have the 75/25 program, if we are looking at
a grant program of setting down some specifics as to
identifying what the role, percentage of the Federal Government
ought to be? Then maybe use the carrot approach to saying, ``if
you want this money, you are going to have to come up with it
locally?'' Because local officials--I think when I was mayor,
we increased water rates 300 percent I think--that is a lot of
money. Of course, the rates were lower, very low. What do you
think about that?
Senator Mitchell. The only reason we reduced the Federal
share initially and narrowed the criteria for eligibility was
to try to meet the demands of the President. Most of the
members of the committee at the time would not, on their own
initiative, have proposed such a reduction in funding and a
narrowing of the scope. We talked quite a bit at the time.
Senator Chafee and I had many long personal discussions about
trying to figure out a way to have a varying level of Federal
investment, depending upon the nature of the criteria, but we
finally concluded that it would create complexity of
implementation that would probably do more harm than good. That
is, it could not be successfully implemented.
You, of course, continue the same problem, which will
always exist in these Federal programs, of the formula by which
funds are distributed. The same committee, of course, handled
the transportation legislation and it is more acute there, at
least it was more acute every time we had a transportation bill
and we got into the formula distribution process because there
is so much more money involved and it is so important to
States. I think that you might want to revisit that subject. We
thought about it at the time, having 50 percent for some, 60 or
75 percent, depending upon whether or not you could provide
flexible criteria. As I said, we finally abandoned the effort.
It may be that over the passage of time, enough information has
become available and it might be a way of helping you solve
some of your formula problems, but it does go against the grain
of simplicity that I think also is a desirable objective.
Senator Voinovich. One last question, and that is, I think
that it would be worth our while--I know a couple of years ago,
I asked GAO to do a report on the infrastructure needs of the
country. It wasn't that in-detail, but it seems to me that if
the country realized the infrastructure challenges that we have
and it were put on a chart and we started looking at it and,
one, you are talking about highways funds. We need more money
for highways, and right now we are using all the trust fund and
we are borrowing money for it. To just go to the people and
say, ``here is the situation and how do we go about doing it?''
To try and do it on a bigger level, rather than just looking at
this area and then looking at this area, but to get the
comprehensive picture. What would you think of an approach like
that that was done really good and then sold on the basis of
the facts, and then say, ``what are we going to do about this,
or how do we come to grips with it?''
Senator Mitchell. I think it would be invaluable, Senator,
for the reason you suggested and for other reasons as well. For
example, when the Nation goes into recession, there is always
some pressure to increase public investment or Federal spending
as a counterweight in terms of economic policy. Whenever that
occurs, there is a hastily drawn list of things that could be
done, almost invariably including many proposals not as
significant, not as readily supported by the public as this
type of infrastructure program. I think that the American
people are prepared to make the necessary investment if they
can be presented with the facts in a clear and understandable
way. I think the suggestion you have made would be invaluable
for the reasons both of us have suggested, and probably for
others that do not come into my mind now or that have not been
spoken. I think it is a very important thing to do.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Mitchell, thank you so much. You have been
extremely helpful and gave us a lot to think about.
Senator Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very much for coming.
Senator Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank all
the members of the committee for your courtesy.
[Applause.]
Senator Jeffords. We have another panel who will be
speaking. Bob, I see you are still listening. We are happy to
have you join us. We are going to go and have some more
witnesses. I want to thank you again for being with us today.
It has been extremely helpful.
The next panel is Mr. Tracey Mehan, Assistant Administrator
for Water, Environmental Protection Agency of Washington, DC.;
also, Thomas A. Weber, Associate Chief, Natural Resources
Conversation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
Mr. Mehan, ready to go?
Mr. Mehan. I am, Senator, Thank you.
STATEMENT OF G. TRACEY MEHAN, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR
WATER, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Mr. Mehan. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. I am Tracey Mehan, Assistant Administrator for Water
at USEPA. I want to first of all congratulate the chairman and
the members of the committee for this tremendous opportunity to
celebrate the last 30 years of successes under the Clean Water
Act, as well as reflecting on the challenges ahead. As somebody
who is in the water business, this is an invaluable
contribution to elevating and showcasing these issues, not just
for the Washington arena, but for the Nation as a whole.
I certainly appreciate this opportunity to join in this
celebration. October 18, 2002 will mark the 30th anniversary of
the Clean Water Act, and thanks in no small part to this
landmark legislation and the amendments, we have accomplished
so much over these 30 years. I will not recount the horror
stories that are always mentioned regarding the state of our
waters 30 years ago. The fact was, many of our Nation's
waterways were little more than open sewers. The 1972 Clean
Water Act sharply increased the number of waterways that are
once again safe for fishing and swimming. It enabled us to
improve water quality all across the Nation, while experiencing
record economic growth and sizable expansion of our population.
The law included new controls over point-source discharges,
the traditional pipe in the water, including the setting of
strong Federal standards to control both municipal and
industrial pollution sources, as well as a major investment by
the Federal Government to help communities build sewage
treatment plants, and of course support for State efforts to
reduce polluted run-off. It established the National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System--the NPDES program--to ensure that
those standards were put into place by cities and industries.
Municipal sewage treatment plants were required to upgrade to
secondary or advanced levels of treatment. To help local
governments with this effort, the Federal Government, as has
been noted at great length in this hearing today, provided over
$80 billion in wastewater assistance to municipalities over
these three decades. This was through both grants, and then of
course the evolution into the State revolving loan funds, or
SRFs.
The SRFs were designed to provide a national financial
resource for clean water that would be matched and managed by
States and provide a funding source at the time, it was
thought, in perpetuity. Now, because of the revolving nature of
these funds, dollars invested in the SRFs provide, at least on
the basis of our calculations, four times the purchasing power
over 20 years, compared to what would occur if the funds were
distributed directly to municipalities as grants. We get quite
a bit of bang for the buck through the SRFs program.
As a result, pollution from industrial sources and
municipal sewage treatment plants plummeted. By any measure,
pounds of pollution abated, stream segments improved, fisheries
restored, tremendous load reductions from point sources
occurred, resulting in significant improvements in water
quality across the Nation. In 1968, only 86 million people were
served by secondary or advanced treatment facilities. Today, of
the 207 million served by wastewater facilities, more than 97
percent, about 201 million people, far more than double the
pre-Clean Water Act number, are now served by secondary or
better treatment.
The news, however, is not universally good. As indicated by
many of our improved monitoring techniques which enable us to
monitor more water bodies, it naturally gives rise to the
question on the part of many citizens, what have you done for
me lately? National water quality monitoring data reported by
the States in the year 2000 shows that approximately 45 percent
of waters assessed by States are not clean enough to meet basic
uses such as fishing or swimming. In other words, they do not
meet the water quality standards as set up under the Clean
Water Act regime.
The remaining problems impacting water quality are not
easily remedied. They come not just from pipes--the traditional
discharge pipes, the point sources--but from diffuse sources of
run-off such as farming and forestry operations, construction
sites, urban streets, automobiles, atmospheric deposition, and
even suburban homes and yards. While some of these diffuse
sources are considered nonpoint sources under the Act, others
are regulated as point sources as in the current NPDES storm
water program. It is immensely challenging to manage these
sources using traditional regulatory tools because they are not
well-suited to end-of-pipe treatment, and the sources are so
numerous and widespread, reflecting all the myriad uses that
human beings make of the land which surrounds the waters.
Nor are the great variety of pollution sources just
chemical in nature. There are physical and biological threats
to our Nation's waters that we must address as well if we are
to truly achieve the stated goal of the Clean Water Act, ``to
restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological
integrity of the Nation's waters.'' Physical integrity can have
numerous dimensions, again, just affecting the physical
boundaries of the stream, the quality of the riparian zone, the
elimination of vegetation cover and erosion, the overall
erosion that can result basically in putting a stream in a
concrete box, which has so often been the way we have dealt
with some of the storm water issues.
Invasive species are an example of a real and growing
threat to the biological well-being of our Nation's aquatic, as
well as our terrestrial resources, as well as to the health of
our economy. For example, more than 160 invasive aquatic
organisms of all types--plants, fish, algae, and mollusks--have
become established in the Great Lakes since the 1800s. The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the potential economic
impacts of one of these species, the zebra mussel, will be $5
billion over the next 10 years to the United States and
Canadian water users within the Great Lakes region.
The past decade has seen a shift toward an emphasis on what
is commonly referred to as the watershed approach--certainly
not a new approach, but hopefully one that is becoming more
widespread. EPA has been promoting, and many have been
practicing, a watershed approach in their work, which
encourages a holistic take or view on identifying problems and
implementing the integrated solutions that are needed to
overcome multiple causes of water quality. EPA views the
watershed as the basic unit to define and gauge the Nation's
water qualities, and we try to gauge all our actions, however
imperfectly, toward this end.
Now, there are several specific tools I would like to
mention that we can bring to bear to address the more
complicated nature of these water quality problems relating to
nonpoint source, broadly defined. One of these is the total
maximum daily load, or TMDL program. In enacting the Clean
Water Act, Congress retained a water quality-based strategy for
waters that remained impaired after the application of
technology-based standards--the technology-based standards
being the first wave of regulation under the Clean Water Act.
The TMDL program contained in section 303(d) essentially tells
States to establish a water quality clean-up budget for such
waters. EPA has been encouraging States to develop and
implement TMDLs on a watershed basis. Our hope is that this
approach will greatly increase collaboration and support for
needed pollutant controls.
TMDLs are water quality based, not technology based. They
are information based, requiring widespread and systematic
monitoring to identify and characterize problems and
priorities, and to track progress in solving them. Public
involvement can contribute to this information process both
directly and through increased visibility for problem solving
in the watershed. It will help make sure that TMDLs get
translated from allocations into action, because information
brought before the public is itself a driver of action.
Now, TMDLs and watershed approaches will provide additional
opportunities to take advantage of other programs, including
the non-point source grants under 319 of the Clean Water Act,
as well as the conservation provisions of the newly
reauthorized Farm bill, an absolutely huge addition to our
resources to deal with run-off, as well as the source water
assessment requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act and many
other Federal, State and local programs.
Non-point source 319 grants are a fundamental tool to
address impairments because they can be targeted as part of a
TMDL prioritization and thus can be used as part of a State's
cumulative strategy to clean up impaired waters. Farm bill
funds are a broad resource and need to be capitalized and
targeted consistent with the TMDL, as are 319 funds. Finally,
we are also looking forward under the Safe Drinking Water Act
to the source water assessments that will be completed in 2003
to see how these mesh with the concept of watersheds and TMDLs
generally.
Maintaining high environmental standards and sustaining a
healthy economy require that we optimize costs and conserve our
natural resources. Economic incentives can be an important tool
to help meet this challenge. We must take advantage of market
forces to provide incentives for voluntary reductions, emerging
technology, and greater regulatory flexibility. We believe
water quality trading, for example, holds great promise as a
market-based tool for addressing water pollution. Trading is an
innovative way for water quality agencies and community
stakeholders, including State and local governments, point-
source dischargers, contributors to non-point source pollution,
citizens groups or other agencies, and the public at large to
develop common sense, cost-effective solutions for water
quality problems in their watersheds. Trading is a tool
communities can use to grow and prosper, while retaining their
commitment to water quality.
Mr. Chairman, it is time for a shift in focus from an
exclusively point-source oriented program to a non-point-source
centered one; from relying largely on technology-based
standards to complementing past progress by a water quality-
based approach; and finally, from emphasizing inputs to
focusing on environmental outcomes. These tools I have
described are some of the means to make this shift. We must
build on the older programs, but go beyond them.
I should say a word about the funding gap that has been a
topic of some discussion today. Because the infrastructure and
the aging of the infrastructure is such a huge issue, we have
of course moved forward and issued the recent gap report.
Again, much has been said on that already. I just want to say
that the methods and data used in the analysis were subject to
peer review by a diverse panel of external reviewers drawn from
academia, industry and think tanks, as well as a robust
interagency review process. The analysis focused on a no-
revenue growth scenario, which is useful to understand the
extent to which spending might need to increase relative to the
status quo. This scenario estimates a total capital payments
gap of $122 billion, or about $6 billion per year for clean
water. The clean water O&M, or operation and maintenance gap,
is estimated at $148 billion, or $7 billion per year. It is
important to recognize that the funding gaps would occur only
if capital and O&M spending do not increase from present
levels.
In reality, increasing needs likely will prompt increased
spending and thus hopefully a smaller funding gap. Thus, if one
assumes that spending on clean water infrastructure increases
at 3 percent annually over and above the rate of inflation, and
I realize that is a big if, but anyway if you assume that
revenue growth scenario, the capital gap then becomes $21
billion or about $1 billion per year, and the O&M gap is
estimated at $10 billion, or $500 million per year. This
revenue growth scenario makes no assumptions about who would
provide the additional revenues, but it is included in the gap
report to illustrate further dimensions of the fiscal challenge
ahead.
Both scenarios look at the supply side of infrastructure
financing, that is how to pay for needs, but ignore the demand
side--how to reduce infrastructure costs and make the most
efficient use of our capital facilities. Demand-side measures
adopted by some utilities include asset management and
administrative restructuring to reduce capital and O&M costs,
as well as rate structures that better reflect the cost of
service.
Senator Jeffords. Are you about to complete?
Mr. Mehan. I am, Senator.
Basically, we look forward to convening a forum on this in
January to look at innovative approaches. I would just
conclude, Senator, that these are exciting times. These are
challenges that can be met and they are significant challenges,
but the ones that I know we at EPA look forward to working with
you and the committee in meeting.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you, Mr. Mehan.
Mr. Weber.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS A. WEBER, ASSOCIATE CHIEF, NATURAL RESOURCE
CONSERVATION SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Weber. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am
pleased to be here today before you to present the Department
of Agriculture's perspective on the Clean Water Act.
As we celebrate the past 30 years, we also are reflecting
on USDA's natural resource conservation heritage, and upon that
significant work ahead of us as we enter into the new century.
We at the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service are proud
of our efforts and those of our State and local partners,
including conservation districts.
I would like to begin by placing the Clean Water Act in a
larger perspective of soil and water conservation on private
land. USDA has played a key role in the management of non-point
source pollution for nearly a century, long before the word
``nonpoint'' was part of our vocabulary. In the 1920s and
1930s, Congress responded to natural resource degradation and
formed the Soil Erosion Service, later named the Soil
Conservation Service, and now called the Natural Resources
Conservation Service, and enacted a national conservation
program. Many of the new initiatives were in response to the
devastation caused by drought and poor land management
resulting in the dust bowl. For more than 60 years since, USDA,
in cooperation with State and local partners, have made
significant gains in soil and water conservation on private
land.
When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, it triggered a
new national emphasis on the problems created by poor land and
water management. Congress appropriately recognized the
differences between point and nonpoint sources of pollution,
and established differing approaches to solving these distinct
problems. New emphasis on water quality concerns also occurred
at USDA. It has been of critical importance to our work ever
since. This work, performed in partnership with local soil and
water conservation districts, State and Federal agencies, and
owners and operators on our land, have been instrumental in
protecting our soil and water resources. Indeed, on working
cropland, soil erosion caused by wind and water has been cut by
38 percent since 1982. Reduced erosion means cleaner water,
improved fish and wildlife habitat, and more fertile and
productive soils.
On the subject of conservation buffers, since 1997 over 1.2
million miles of conservation buffers--about 4 million acres--
have been established nationally on farms and ranches to
protect water resources and establish wildlife habitat.
Locally, in the Chesapeake Bay watershed for instance, the goal
of establishing 2,000 miles of conservation buffers by the year
2010 will be completed this year, 8 years ahead of target. In
addition, I would add that farmers and ranchers have reduced
the rate of wetland conversion from agriculture to nearly zero,
while restoring over 1 million acres of wetlands under the
Wetland Reserve Program. The 2002 Farm bill will result in
another 1.25 million acres being restored, an area roughly the
size of Delaware.
I would like to shift gears now for a moment and look
toward the path ahead. Last September, Secretary Veneman
released the Department's policy document for food and
agriculture. This document provided guidance on future
agriculture policy, and identified emerging challenges facing
farmers and ranchers across the Nation. A key component dealt
with the environment and natural resources, and highlighted
policy options for meeting a breadth of conservation
challenges, including water quality and quantity. A central
aspect of the conservation portion of that document was that
solutions should be developed and implemented as a means to
achieve conservation goals. The document also pointed out that
farmers and ranchers need voluntary conservation opportunities
commensurate with the regulatory challenges they face.
Congress responded this year with the 2002 Farm bill that
provides for significant program authorities and funding
levels, and a portfolio approach to conservation, including
cost-share, incentive, land retirement and easement programs.
In closing, I believe we have made and continue to make
impressive gains with respect to soil and water quality. We are
optimistic about the future and believe that the 2002 Farm bill
will result in one of the largest conservation efforts on
private lands in this Nation's history. We must continue
striving to achieve the high aspiration of our clean water
goals, and to continue to help the public adopt a sound land
ethic.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee
for inviting USDA to participate in today's hearing.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you, Mr. Weber. I think I will
start with you for questions.
According to the latest water quality inventory report from
EPA, non-point source pollution is identified as the largest
cause of water quality impairment with agriculture, identified
as the largest cause of non-point source pollution. What is
USDA doing to help farmers address the non-point source
pollution?
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
USDA is aggressively working with landowners, farmers and
ranchers, using many of the tools in the former Farm bill, as
well as the 2002 Farm bill, to improve water quality on the
landowner's property, including conservation reserve program
and buffers; including the Environmental Quality Incentives
Program and all of the water quality provisions in that program
to address water quality issues, including conservation
buffers, including diversions, water waste systems for animal
waste operations, and distribution systems to keep pollutants
away from the water systems. It is a tremendous investment--two
of many tools that the Department has and will continue to use
in its work.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you.
Mr. Mehan, in your recently released gap report, EPA
estimated a capital funding gap of $122 billion for the next 20
years, or around $6 billion per year if funding levels do not
go up. The report's conclusion states,
``The gap analysis concludes that clean water and drinking
water systems will need to use some combination of increased
spending and innovative management practices to meet the
projected needs.''
However, when your colleague Ben Grumbles testified before
this committee on S. 1961, a bill to increase the funding
levels to $20 billion over the next 5 years, he stated that EPA
did not support an increase in funding for clean water. Is the
Administration now ready to support increasing our financial
commitment to clean water to the levels addressed in the gap
report?
Mr. Mehan. Mr. Chairman, the gap report, you are right, is
somewhat agnostic as to ways to solve the problem. Its main
function was to inform the public dialog so that we had an
adequate grasp of what the challenge was ahead, whether it be
achieved by private capital, governmental spending, State and
local government, demand-side management, et cetera. At this
point, the Administration has not revisited its position so
there is no change, especially in light of the present
exigencies dealing with the war on terrorism and of course the
current economic challenges we face.
At this point, we are standing on our request, which is a
record request for the 2003 budget in terms of the SRF funds
generally, but no change since Mr. Grumbles has testified.
Senator Jeffords. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. This clean water and drinking water
infrastructure gap analysis--you have got capital, 122;
operation and maintenance, 148; total 271; and drinking water
comes out to be 263. Do you think that these--was a lot of work
put into arriving at these numbers? How accurate do you think
they are?
Mr. Mehan. Well, the basic data for it is derived first of
all from the needs surveys that have been done by the Agency
before, and then as I say, there was a robust peer review
process. Generally, there is some variation between the various
other studies that have been done, but I think they are all
working off the same formulas and the same equations, if you
will, sometimes plugging in different assumptions. Generally,
the reception we are getting--the Administrator announced this
at the Water Environment Federation meeting in Chicago--and
from the other stakeholders, we are not getting, at least I am
not getting yet any push-back that we are off the mark here.
Admittedly, you can plug in different assumptions and take it a
different way, but I think all of us are on the same page. I
personally feel very good about the work that our staff has
done, especially in light of the positive peer review process
that we went through.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I share Senator Jeffords' concern.
What are you going to come back with in terms of a
recommendation on how to deal with the problem? There is a
problem there and I think it is a responsibility to figure out
a way to deal with it.
Mr. Mehan. Well, I can tell you that on the occasion of the
release of the report, Governor Whitman stated her intention to
convene a stakeholders forum probably in January--we think we
will be able to get it on, that will focus on the whole raft of
responses to this report. Hopefully, a number of these will be
in the realm of innovation, whether it is technology, use of
private finance, consolidation of systems, asset management. No
doubt, stakeholders will want to engage on the subject of what
is the appropriate governmental response, be it local, State or
Federal. My charge is to move forward with that forum right now
so that we at EPA and the Governor in particular can have the
benefit of that input in response to this gap report.
Senator Voinovich. You also talk about one of the
innovations--``water quality trading holds great promise as a
market-based tool for addressing water pollution.'' Could you
explain to the committee what the thinking is in that regard?
Mr. Mehan. The references there are primarily in the
context of watersheds and non-point source pollution. There are
certainly places, say, on Long Island Sound where point-to-
point source trading has been very successful and continues to
be a contribution. The key thing is that in the area of non-
point source pollution, there is a huge cost differential
between, say, controlling phosphorus through best management
practices on the land, as opposed to building a big black box
at the end of the pipe. Because of that cost differential, it
opens up a situation where, say, a point source to meet its
water quality permit needs or a community that wanted to invest
in water controls can get tremendous economies by looking at
the non-point source side, the best management practices,
whether it is vegetation strips, contour farming, fencing
animals out of the stream, reforestation--whatever it may be.
Those can be a fraction of the cost of building a huge
wastewater treatment plant.
We feel that this has advantages both in terms of achieving
water quality standards, which is our performance-based outcome
under the Clean Water Act, similar to the NAAQ standards under
the Clean Air Act, as well as preserving water quality where it
exists now, but allowing for economic growth, which will come
inevitably, at least in any vibrant community. Essentially it
is taking advantage of that huge cost differential between
reducing pollution from nonpoint sources versus the point
sources.
Senator Voinovich. Do you have any good role models in
terms of watershed approach that we could----
Mr. Mehan. There are maybe a dozen around the country in
various ways, and sometimes it was put in place and other
solutions were found--but Dillon Reservoir and Cherry Creek in
Colorado; Tar-Pamlico in North Carolina; the Lower Boise in
Idaho. We have seen selenium trading in California that looks
very good. The Long Island Sound, again, that is point-to-point
sources, but that is a very good example of sort of generically
how trading works. We think that next year we will be able to
announce another 10 or so pilots where we think we are going to
have more success at this.
It is a great opportunity, but again it is just going to be
one tool in the toolbox. It will not fit--it is not going to be
the tool for every problem, but given the thousands of
watersheds, given the thousands of TMDLs to be done, we think
it is a tool that probably bears more use than it has to date.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you both for very helpful
testimony.
Our third panel is Mr. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., senior
counsel to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington,
DC.; Mr. Paul Pinault, the president of the Association of
Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies and director of the Narragansett
Bay Commission, Providence, RI.
Mr. Kennedy, nice to have you here. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., SENIOR COUNSEL, NATURAL
RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
Mr. Kennedy. I am very happy to see you, too, Senator. I
want to thank you for holding this hearing, for your leadership
on environmental issues. I took part in the battle during the
Gingrich Congress to stop the assault on our environmental
laws, and your leadership during that period was absolutely
critical to the success we ultimately had. Your home State of
Vermont is regarded by environmentalists as the State with the
finest environmental commitment, and I am proud of you for
upholding that commitment. Vermont also is famous for its great
cheeses, its milks and its outstanding women, one of whom I
have married, and my brother married another one. My wife is
from the Northeast Kingdom, so I commend you for all of your
commitment to that sense of community in Vermont.
Today, as we approach the 30th anniversary of the Clean
Water Act, it is not a cause for celebration. It is not a cause
for self-congratulations. It is a cause for great concern. This
Administration has declared war on the Clean Water Act. It is
our most important, most successful environmental statute. This
week, we received disturbing news that the EPA's annual water
quality assessment for the first time in the 30-year history of
the Act shows a dramatic decline in national water quality.
There are more degraded streams, more degraded miles of lakes
and waterways that are degraded. The trajectory of that trend
appears very, very disturbing.
I represent on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense
Council and Riverkeepers, I represent and have done so for 20
years, fishermen, commercial fishermen and recreational
fishermen. They run the range of the political spectrum from
right-wing Republican to left-wing Democrat, but without
exception they see the initiatives that are now coming out of
the White House, which I have described in my written
testimony, as the gravest threat not only to their livelihoods,
but to their sense of values, their sense of community, their
sense of citizenship and what it means to be a resident and a
citizen of this country.
If the current initiatives that are being promoted by this
Administration, particularly the four that go to the core
values of the Clean Water Act, are actually enacted--one of
them already has passed the regulatory process--we will
effectively have no Clean Water Act left in this country. That
is not exaggeration. That is not hyperbole. That is a fact. Our
law, the beautiful language of the law and the aspirations of
the law will remain on the books, but the law itself will be
unenforceable, and it will be like Mexico, which has these
wonderful environmental laws, with beautiful poetic language,
but nobody knows about them and nobody complies with them
because they cannot be enforced.
If you ask the people who are promoting these kind of
initiatives, why are you doing this, what they invariably say
is this, ``well, the time has come where we have to now direct
our economic resources toward fighting terrorism and we have to
choose now between economic prosperity at home and
environmental protection.'' That is a false choice. In 100
percent of the situations, good environmental policy is
identical to good economic policy. If we want to measure our
economy, and this is how we ought to be measuring it, based
upon how it produces jobs and prosperous, dignified communities
over the generations, prosperity over the long term; if on the
other hand, we want to do what the White House is now asking us
to do, which is to treat the planet as if it were a business in
liquidation, to convert out waterways to cash as quickly as
possible, to have a few years of pollution-based prosperity, we
can generate an instantaneous cash-flow and the illusion of a
prosperous economy because we are going into capital. Our
children are going to pay for our joyride, and they are going
to pay for it with denuded landscapes and poor health and huge
cleanup costs and degraded water bodies. Those costs are going
to amplify over time and they are never going to be able to pay
them.
The environmental injury and water pollution particularly
is deficit spending. It is a way of loading the cost of our
generation's prosperity onto the backs of our children. Let me
give you one example of that from my experience on the Hudson
River. I represent people on the Hudson River whose
livelihoods--some of the fishermen I represent come from
families that have been fishing the river continuously since
Dutch colonial times. It is a traditional, sustainable fishery.
They got together back in the 1960s in an American Legion hall.
Almost all of them were former Marines. They were combat
veterans from World War II and Korea. They started talking
about blowing up pipes on the Hudson River because they had
been to the government agencies that are supposed to protect
Americans from pollution, and they were given the bum's rush by
the Corps of Engineers and the Conservation Department and the
Coast Guard. They thought that the only way they could reclaim
the river for themselves is if they confronted polluters
directly. The Clean Water Act, which was passed in 1972, gave
them the ability to do that. Today, as a result of their work
and as a result of that Act, the Hudson River, which was a
national joke in 1966--it was dead water for 20 miles stretches
north of New York City, south of Albany; it turned colors
sometimes two or three times a week, depending on what color
they were painting the trucks at the GM plant in Tarrytown--
today that waterway is an international model for ecosystem
protection. It is the richest water body in the North Atlantic.
It produces more pounds of fish per acre, more biomass per
gallon than any other waterway in the Atlantic Ocean, and it is
the last major river system left on both sides of the Atlantic
that still has strong spawning stocks of all of its historical
species of fish.
The people who are trying to dismantle the law that allowed
this to happen will say to you, ``well, we have got to get rid
of the Federal laws and we will return control to the States.''
After all, that is local control, community control and the
States are in the best position to patrol and protect and
police their own environment. The real outcome of that
devolution will not be local control, it will be corporate
control, because these large corporations can so easily
dominate the State political landscapes. We remember in the
Hudson Valley the 1960s version of community control before
Earth Day and before the Clean Water Act, when the General
Electric Company--and this tale can be told 10,000 times across
this Nation--came into these poverty-stricken upstate towns
like Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, NY, and said to the town
fathers,
``We are going to build you a spanking new factory; we are
going to bring in 1,500 new jobs; we are going to raise your
tax base. All you have to do is waive your environmental laws
and let us dump our toxic PCBs into the Hudson and persuade the
State of New York to write us a permit to do it. If you don't
do it, we will move to New Jersey, across the river, and we
will do it from over there, and they will get the taxes and
they will get the jobs, and you will still get the PCBs.''
Fort Edward and Hudson Falls took the bait, and two decades
later General Electric closed those factories and they fired
the workers and they left town with their pockets stuffed with
cash, the richest corporation on earth. They left behind a $2
billion cleanup bill that nobody in the Hudson Valley can
afford.
I have 1,000 commercial fishermen--my clients--who are now
permanently out of work because although the Hudson is loaded
with fish, the fish are still loaded with General Electric's
PCBs and they are too toxic to legally sell in the marketplace.
The barge traffic on the upper river has dried up because the
shipping channels are too toxic to dredge. All of that
beautiful shoreline property that was occupied by General
Electric's factory, with tax breaks from the grateful
localities, is now permanently off the tax rolls, robbed from
those communities as a source of revenue and recreation, and
every woman between Oswego, NY and Albany has elevated levels
of PCB in her breast milk, and everybody in the Hudson Valley
has General Electric's PCBs in our flesh and in our organs.
What the Federal Clean Water Act was meant to do was to put
and end to that kind of corporate blackmail and to stop these
corporations from coming in and whipsawing one community in New
York against another in New Jersey, or one in Vermont against
another in Massachusetts, to get them to race to bottom, to
lower their environmental standards, to recruit these filthy
industries in exchange for the promise of a few years of
pollution-based prosperity, and to ransom our children's
futures in the process.
I would just say one other point, which is this. There are
people out there now who say we have to choose between economic
prosperity. An investment in our environment does not diminish
our Nation's wealth. It is an investment in infrastructure, the
same as investing in telecommunications, in road construction.
It is an investment we have to make if we want to ensure the
economic prosperity of our generation and the next generation.
There is no stronger advocate for free-market capitalism
than myself. I believe that the free market is the most
efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the
land. In a true free-market economy, you cannot make yourself
rich without making your neighbors rich, and without enriching
your community. What polluters do is they make themselves rich
by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living
for themselves by lower quality of life for everybody else.
They do it by cheating the free market, by forcing the public
to pay their production costs, by unloading it on the public
waterways which we own. The Governor does not own the Hudson
River. The legislature does not own the Hudson River. The U.S.
Senate does not own it and General Electric does not own it. We
own it. That is what the constitution of New York State says.
The people of the State own that waterway. Everybody has the
right to use it. Nobody has the right to use it in a way that
will diminish and injure its use and enjoyment by others.
When they dump this stuff in the river, it is an act of
theft. They are stealing something from the public, and it has
always been wrong and it has always been a theft, and thank God
that the Senate and the Congress overrode President Nixon's
veto in 1972 and gave these rights back to the American people.
Thank God they were here again in 1987 when President Reagan
tried to overrun it again. Thank God they were here in 1995
when the Gingrich Congress tried to dismantle with their dirty
water bill the Federal Clean Water Act from the outside
congressionally.
Today, what you have is something much more insidious and
dangerous--an Administration that is absolutely committed to
eroding, eviscerating this wonderful, wonderful successful Act
from the inside.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very much.
Mr. Pinault.
STATEMENT OF PAUL PINAULT, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF
METROPOLITAN SEWERAGE AGENCIES, AND DIRECTOR,
NARRAGANSETT BAY COMMISSION
Mr. Pinault. Good morning, Chairman Jeffords and Senator
Voinovich. It is a pleasure to be here this morning to
represent AMSA's membership of 280 publicly owned treatment
works across the country.
As environmental practitioners, we treat more than 18
billion gallons of wastewater each day and service the majority
of the U.S. population. The success of the Clean Water Act is
due in large part to the hard work, ingenuity and dedication of
local wastewater treatment officials. In fact, it has been 32
years since a group of public wastewater officials banded
together and founded AMSA.
From the early 1900s, municipal governments have provided
the majority of financial support for water pollution control.
In the early days, cities financed and built collection systems
that conveyed wastewater to primary treatment facilities.
Eventually, outbreaks of cholera and typhoid and the decline of
fish populations led to the passage of the 1948 Water Pollution
Control Act and the first Federal funding program that would
help cities address the enormous challenge of treating of
billions of gallons of wastewater each day.
Then on June 22, 1969, Ohio's Cuyahoga River became
engulfed in flames, a sign that the country's water quality was
in crisis. This and other environmental problems resulted in
enactment of the Clean Water Act of 1972. Mr. Chairman,
America's greatest water quality improvements were made during
the 1970s and the 1980s when Congress boldly authorized and
funded the Construction Grants Program, providing more than $60
billion for the construction of publicly owned treatment works,
pumping stations and collection and interceptor sewers. The
Construction Grants Program was directly responsible for the
improvement of water quality in thousands of rivers, lakes and
streams nationwide.
As our waters once again became fishable and swimmable,
recreation and tourism brought jobs and revenue to local
economies. Unfortunately, the Federal commitment to fund
continued water quality improvements declined drastically with
the end of the grants program and the implementation of the
1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act. As Federal funds
dramatically declined in the 1990s, the complexities of our
challenges and the cost of implementing regulations continue to
rise exponentially. Over the past year, the committee has
received substantial testimony that has documented the coming
funding crisis in the wastewater industry.
As the measurable gap between projected clean water
investment needs and current levels of spending continues to
grow, local rate-payers will be unable to foot the bill for the
costs associated with increasingly stringent requirements of
the Clean Water Act. In the report entitled ``The Clean Water
and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis'' that was
released last week, EPA estimated the 20-year gap for clean
water could be as high as $442 billion, depending upon the
assumptions made.
At the Narragansett Bay Commission, an estimated $471
million is needed for projects that are ongoing right now. Our
average cash expenditures are expected to be $100 million
annually. We anticipate receiving approximately $60 million
from the Rhode Island State revolving fund, leaving an annual
gap for us of $40 million a year for at least the next 5 years.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, I would like to take this
opportunity to thank you for working with AMSA this year on
important legislation that would significantly increase the
authorized levels of funding under the Clean Water Act.
Unfortunately, the world has changed significantly from when
this process began with the series of hearings in 2001. At that
time, AMSA had targeted the Federal budget surplus as the
logical source of funding to increase the Federal investment in
wastewater infrastructure. In light of our current budget
deficit and the continued costs associated with our Nation's
defense, we believe that the authorized levels of funding
proposed in S. 1961 and S. 2813 would not be available to
appropriators out of the general revenue for many years to
come.
As a result, AMSA is exploring alternative dedicated
sources of revenue to fund future water quality improvements.
Our municipal wastewater treatment systems are critical pieces
of national infrastructure, and as such should be financed
through a long-term sustainable and reliable source of Federal
funds. Although operating efficiencies and rate increases can
provide some relief, they cannot and will not be able to fund
the current backlog of capital projects, plus the treatment
upgrades that will be required in the years to come. Federal
support for wastewater infrastructure is critical to safeguard
the environmental progress made during the past 30 years under
the Clean Water Act. As water pollution control solutions move
beyond political jurisdictions to a broader watershed approach,
and as we address a wider array of pollutants and pollution
sources, the national benefit of improved water quality will
more than justify the larger Federal contribution.
As we look to the future, we see that the challenges facing
the leaders of today's wastewater treatment agencies include
polluted run-off from every source imaginable. Non-point source
pollution, along with the challenges posed by combined and
sanitary sewer overflows and storm water system discharges are
going to cost this country billions of dollars and take several
decades to control.
On behalf of AMSA's members, we look forward to working
with you to solve these problems together. The bipartisan
nature of the committee over the 30-year history of the Clean
Water Act has undoubtedly contributed to the Act's success.
Thank you for this opportunity to present our views, and we
look forward to participating in the celebration of the 30th
anniversary and continuing to work with you in the future.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you, Mr. Pinault.
Mr. Kennedy, the environmental community has expressed
significant concern over the draft rule to change the TMDL
program. Can you elaborate on those concerns?
Mr. Kennedy. The TMDL program is--the way that the Clean
Water Act is structured is that it is based upon--the primary
frontline mechanism for controlling pollution is point-source
pollution, through effluent guidelines and industrial standards
that are set by EPA in order to establish technological
controls for the various kinds of pollution. Sometimes that
does not work because if you have 20 pipes going into a small
tributary or if you have a lot of point-source discharges going
into that tributary, the point-source control on that one
factory is not going to solve the problems of degradation in
that creek.
There was a backup mechanism put in the Clean Water Act
that is called the total maximum daily load that says to the
States when there is a degraded water body, you have to measure
it; find out what pollutants are in it; figure out under the
natural process how much pollution that stream can assimilate;
and then come back and establish caps on all of the pollution
that is going into that stream. This is absolutely critical. We
still have half the stream miles in this country that are still
degraded, even with the point-source controls. You have got to
have TMDLs. What the Administration is doing now is it has
established or it has proposed an initiative that will
essentially or effectively get rid of the TMDL program. This is
at a time when water quality is now declining in our country
for the first time in 30 years. We should be strengthening and
implementing that program, which has never been done.
The Clean Water Act is such a wonderful statute. If it were
actually enforced, we would have clean water in this country.
The Clean Water Act promises in its introduction to eliminate
all point-source discharges of pollution by 1985. That never
happened. The Act simply has not been enforced, and the TMDL
part of the Act has never been enforced whatsoever. The EPA
now, because of a series of lawsuits, is being forced to
enforce that section. What the Administration is doing now is
getting rid of that section of the Act so it will never be
enforced and we will never have clean water in this country.
Senator Jeffords. Mr. Pinault, in your testimony you
recommended that the Federal Government consider a dedicated
funding source to address the capital funding gap for water
infrastructure. If such a system were adopted, it would likely
function as many other Federal trust funds where certain
products and services related to the area of concern are taxed.
In such a system, it is probable that the wastewater treatment
works would be charged in some way to generate the funds. Do
you believe the municipal wastewater community would be willing
to accept such a charge in order to generate those funds?
Mr. Pinault. I think it would depend on the specifics of
the program. When I became President of AMSA in May, one of the
first things I did was put together an infrastructure funding
task force, which is being chaired by Bill Schatz from the city
of Cleveland, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. We met
last week in Chicago as part of the WEF conference. We are
working very hard to put together some money that is being
raised by our members to come up with solutions to the problem;
to come up with a dedicated source of revenue. We will look at
all viable options, including options that you just mentioned.
Hopefully, after the first of the year, we will be in a
position to start discussing the specifics of our findings with
your staff.
Senator Jeffords. We will follow up with you on that.
Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. First of all, Mr. Kennedy, I would like
to say to you that thank God things are not as bad in Ohio as
they are where you described on the Hudson. I never thought I
would see the day when I could catch a steelhead on a fly in
Ohio. Today, we have some of the best steelhead fishing
anywhere in the country. Euclid Creek, that I walked by this
past weekend, was terribly polluted. Today, we have steelhead
in that creek. We have seen some significant improvement in the
water quality of Lake Erie in terms of fishery. We have seen
tremendous development along the lake because it is now not the
dirty lake anymore, it is the clean lake. It has just been
fantastic for our State.
In terms of business's involvement, one of the things I did
when I was in the legislature was create the Ohio Water
Development Authority that issues revenue bonds to help
businesses cleanup their effluent. We have seen significant
improvement in that regard.
The problem that I see is somehow reaching some level of
compromise in terms of where we are going. Mr. Pinault, your
Association I think really cares about dealing with waste
treatment, and yet were strongly opposed to the
prescriptiveness in S. 1961. Obviously, from the chairman's
point of view, there must have been some organizations pushing
him that this prescriptive language be in this reauthorization
of the State revolving loan fund. It just appears that there is
not any area where we can get compromise. Your Association
should be fully behind increasing the amount of money for the
State revolving loan fund. Your group should be fully behind
grants to help communities meet the requirements of the law.
There is a disconnect here, and I would like you to comment on
that from your perspective.
Mr. Kennedy is talking about total maximum daily load.
There seems to be some real concern among people in your
business in my State that are concerned about fully
implementing that, because they feel in some instances it
defies common sense. Where is the compromise that we can reach
so that we can get on with this?
Mr. Pinault. Unfortunately, all of these topics are
extremely complicated and there are many issues involving each
of them. When it comes to the specific mandates that were
included in S. 1961, it differed from the House bill which
basically had similar issues, but they required the applicants
for the SRF to certify these mandates, versus how they were
handled in the Senate bill. Asset management alone will not
solve the problem. I think many people think that has been the
new buzz word in the last year or so, that asset management
will control and eliminate the gap. Well, we have been doing
asset management for years. We did not call it that, but we
have controlled our assets and managed them and done a good job
at it. We also have reduced our operating costs.
In the meantime, infrastructure is aging. There are new
Federal requirements. Ten years ago, we had to put in at least
two milligrams per liter of chlorine to disinfect our effluent
and still meet coliform levels. Now it is no more than .65
micrograms per liter, which you cannot even measure, which
means we have to add chlorine and then take it out. This was
something that we did not think about 5 years ago. It cost us
$15 million to design and build it. We were given 9 months to
do it.
There are a lot of issues, and we have tried to work with
your staff on both sides to try and come up with a compromise.
We are willing to do that in the future.
Senator Voinovich. Well, it seems to me that we ought to
get back to the table again to see if that cannot be worked
out. I will be very interested in your recommendations on these
dedicated sources of revenue. I think part of the problem where
we have seen in some areas some degradation is the fact that
local communities have not had the dollars to expend to get the
job done. Storm flow overflow and some of the other things that
are being required to do is just a matter of the local capacity
to deal with it. Some communities refuse to do it, but I think
most communities--I know from my experience as mayor in
tackling water and sewage treatment, that if you make the case,
people are willing to pay for it in terms of increased rates,
but not to the extent that it is astronomical an increase.
There has got to be some--and I would be interested in
recommendations about what percentage of this do you think the
Federal Government should be willing to pick up.
Mr. Pinault. I would think, based on what happened in the
early days, 50 percent would not be unreasonable if you want to
try and achieve the water quality improvements that we have
been talking about. In our case, we are raising our rates 25
percent a year. We raised them 25 percent in January of 2001;
24.8 percent in June of this year; November 1, we will be
applying for another rate increase. That is just to pay off the
SRF loans, which still are inadequate because they cannot meet
all of our needs, so we have to go to the open market to obtain
funding.
One of the problems we have is 60 percent of our customers
are in the older urban cities, and they have the least ability
to pay. Over 40 percent of our accounts receivable are in the
urban cities, and they are struggling now to pay those rates
and they are going up at 25 percent a year. That does not
include the additional O&M cost to operate the new facilities
once they come on-line. It is a problem. The rating agencies
that rate us, Standard & Poor's and Moody's, have warned us
that it is going to get to the point where our rating could be
affected, which means if they downgrade our rating the amount
of money that we pay in interest will go up, which just
aggravates the situation further. We are committed, and my
board is committed to putting in the CSO control measures and
upgrading our treatment facilities to meet our requirements,
but it is a problem.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Kennedy, would you like to respond?
My time is up.
Senator Jeffords. Go right ahead.
Senator Voinovich. Would you like to comment about how we
can try to--the organization that you represent has been a very
responsible organization. I dealt with them when I was Governor
and we were dealing with them in regard to a couple of projects
with the Great Lakes Governors Association in terms of some of
the paper mills that were polluting the lake. Is there some way
where we can kind of reconcile some of these differences and
reach a common ground so that we can go forward?
Mr. Kennedy. I think that those decisions were made when
the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. Congress said then--it
was a visionary Act that said the waters belong to the people.
You do not have a right to pollute them. What we are going to
do is we are going to get rid of all pollution of waterways,
but we are going to do it over a period of time, which is going
to take 13 years, until 1985, and by then there is not going to
be pollution anymore. That is what Congress said, and I still
think that that goal is a legitimate goal and we should not be
thinking of ways to get out of the goal by rolling back the
Act. We should be thinking of ways of funding communities who
need the money to comply with it, which is what Congress
originally did. We rolled back that funding, and if you look at
our other national priorities for where funding is going, I do
not think you can find a national priority that has more to do
with our national security, our national prosperity than clean
water, than investing in this kind of infrastructure.
I do not think that the solution is to roll back the Act
and just pretend that the problem does not exist, but to say,
``OK, this is our objective; it is an objective that as a
Nation we have to be able to afford.'' There is no--look what
the Israelis pay for their water. They pay thousands of times
more than we do because it is a precious commodity. We
undervalue it, and we ought to be recognizing that really it
has a lot to do with our national security, our national
health, our quality of life, and our prosperity in this
country, and not be scared of continuing to persist for those
objectives that these visionary leaders set out back in 1972.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I think that part of the problem
is that just this legislation that I am talking about, trying
to reconcile the differences. We have problems here, for
example, that come up like Davis-Bacon becomes a big issue. I
tried to get a compromise that says on the first loan, that is
Davis-Bacon, then when it gets into the revolving loan fund, it
does not require Davis-Bacon. Some people around here bring the
bill down over Davis-Bacon. It seems to me that groups like
yours and others that are interested should be standing up and
saying, ``can't you guys work out a compromise?'' It may not be
perfect, but there just seems that one group says, ``this is
the way it is going to be, and if it is not this way, then by
golly, it is not going to happen.''
Then we have people in our State like the woman who is the
mayor of a little town, Mansfield, OH, who is going to have her
rates increased 100 percent because she is being required to
take this holding tank that she has where she holds water and
returns it to the stream at a higher quality than what the
stream is, she is being told that she has got to increase that
even more than what she is doing. She is putting in this
enormous investment to make that possible. She thinks this kind
of defies common sense, and so does the people in her
community.
Then you start to develop a resistance for people to
improve some of the requirements because they feel that some of
them do not make sense. It just, as I said, there seems to be
some disconnect here. Maybe we ought to revisit this, Mr.
Chairman, as we did the Clean Water Act, or the Safe Drinking
Water Act, several years ago. We came up with I thought a
reasonable approach to it.
I can remember when we got started with it, many in the
environmental community accused the Senate and House and some
of us being at the White House when President Clinton signed
that bill, and talked about it as being a responsible piece of
legislation. There were some people that were not happy with
it, but the fact was it was a compromise. Again, I am going to
reiterate this. I am hoping that as we move forward into this
next year--we are not going to get anything done this year--but
I think as we go on. I mean, it was interesting to me, it gave
me some hope. They worked on this for 4 years, didn't they--the
1987 amendments. I am hoping that somewhere along the line we
can get people in the room and start to move on this, and do
not allow one group who takes a position and maybe has a very
strong lobbying effort to say, ``by golly, it does not meet our
standards and therefore we are opposed to this''; that those of
us in the Senate and some of the reasonable groups that are out
there can kind of try to move toward the center and try to
figure out how we can--what are the things that bring us
together, rather than trying to find those things that divide
us. That is key.
Then the other is, we have got to find the money. We have
got to find the money. If you do not have the money, you are
not going to be able to get the job done. That is another
reason we are not doing what we should be doing, is we are not
spending the money. I think your point, Mr. Kennedy, is well
taken. I do not think we do value water enough. We ought to be
spending more money locally and in terms of our Federal
Government.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had to be late
because of the Intelligence Committee's meeting this morning,
but I particularly wanted to come to have a chance to introduce
Jordan Chin in a moment, who is here from Oregon, but to spend
just a quick moment with Robert Kennedy, and to tell you now
much I appreciate all that your leadership and your willingness
to speak out on these clean water issues. I will tell you that
at home in Oregon prior to the last year and a half or so,
where it seems that the machete has come out for the Clean
Water Act, people in Oregon thought this statute worked very
well, and thought that it struck a reasonable balance between
the Federal Government in effect saying we are not going to
compromise on our waters; we are not going to compromise on our
precious treasures. Where a State is capable like ours in
showing that it can carry out these Federal rules and comply
with the type of strict criteria we want to have to protect
water bodies, the States would be given a wide berth.
My sense is, you very much agree with that. I just would
like to get on the record your thoughts on this kind of
Federal-State balance. My understanding is you have got no
problem at all with a State when they are willing, like Oregon,
to follow the Federal rules, follow the strictures that are set
out in the statute, having the wide berth to do it. What
troubles you, and frankly it troubles me very much, is that
some of what is going on now in terms of States rights is
really a back-door attempt to hotwire a rollback in the law and
give these powerful interests a chance to do it far away from
Washington, DC. where they can have a broader way over it. Is
that something resembling you view?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, if the Clean Water Act were enforced, we
would have clean water in this country today. It is a wonderful
statute. The issue is, who is enforcing it? The enforcement was
divided between the States and the Federal Government, and both
of them have dual responsibility for enforcing the Act, but the
States have primary responsibility. What we saw beginning in
1995 was that many of the State governments simply stopped
funding Clean Water Act enforcement. In my own State, Governor
Pataki came in, who has very strong environmental bona fides,
but he cut down immediately by 50 percent the enforcement
moneys available to the Department of Environmental
Conservation in the State.
In States like Virginia, that year there was a single
ticket issued to a polluter in the entire State of Virginia in
1996, and it is the third most water-polluted State in the
country. I could take you on a walk anywhere in Virginia within
20 minutes from here and show you people who are violating the
Clean Water Act. These are criminals. These people should be
prosecuted, but the State simply stopped prosecuting them in
order to recruit polluters to the State. In Senator Voinovich's
State, there is a polluter, Buckeye Farms, that has been
violating the law openly for 20 years and has destroyed a river
system there which is dead for 20 miles, and his State has
almost completely stopped enforcing the environmental laws.
I had a cop in my office the other day, an environmental
police officer, and he had just issued a ticket to a used car
dealer who was cleaning toxics off imported Japanese cars and
dumping them into a trout stream, causing fish kills. That
trout stream feeds into the New York City reservoir system that
is drank by 10.5 million people. He came to me and he said that
the district attorney of Westchester County refused to take the
case; that the State attorney general--this is when Vaca was
attorney general--refused to take the case. He said, ``anybody
in this country, any prosecutor--if a kid throws a rock through
a window or steals a car, any prosecutor in this country will
prosecute them because it is recognized as a crime. If you dump
pollution into a waterway, you cannot get anybody to prosecute
them because they do not look at it as real crime.''
In fact, when you put toxics in the water supply for 10.5
million people, that is assault and battery, and when children
drink that water, that is child abuse. You are stealing
something that belongs to the public, and that is theft. These
people ought to be treated as thieves. Yet what we have is, we
have regulatory agencies at the State level--not in your State,
because your State is famous for having cleaned up the Tualatin
and the Willamette and the other rivers, and having that
commitment out there--but in many States, the priority is
recruiting polluters to the States for short-term prosperity
that is going to pose these long-term costs on the people of
the State.
Senator Wyden. My time is up. I only want to say, Mr.
Kennedy, I very much share your view, and the only reason for
my asking the question is I want us to be able to say, because
I think you are championing exactly what needs to be said right
now. I think there really is a significant effort underway by
the executive branch to roll back this Act, and I just want our
message to be that when a State like mine is willing to make
the tough calls and to protect the Clean Water Act, I want it
understood that the advocates, particularly people like you who
put so much into this, are willing to give those States an
opportunity to really carry out these laws. When they are not,
then we ought to come down with hobnail boots and make sure,
just as you say, that the laws are enforced and we take
whatever steps are necessary.
Mr. Kennedy. You know, it puts Oregon at a disadvantage, a
competitive disadvantage----
Senator Wyden. You bet.
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. If they are the only ones
enforcing the law. That is not fair. We ought to have a uniform
law across the country, have a level playing field, and have
everybody playing on it, and nobody cheating the free-market
economy.
Senator Wyden. Thank you for the work you do.
Senator Jeffords. Let me intercede here. Vermont does not
cede to you that you are the best.
[Laughter.]
Senator Wyden. Fair enough. We will get the rest of the
country to follow the Vermont-Oregon axis, and as Mr. Kennedy
has correctly pointed out, when States are not willing to do
it, we have to have tough Federal enforcement. I look forward
to working with my chairman, as always.
Senator Jeffords. We have had fun with Oregon to race to
see who is doing the most, the best. We both disagree on the
answer to that, but thank you very much for very, very helpful
testimony.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Jeffords. We now have our final panel. I understand
that the Senator from Oregon would like to introduce a member
of the panel.
Senator Wyden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, I
am sorry that I had to be late, but this a real privilege for
me to be able to introduce a special member of the generation
that is going to inherit the responsibility of protecting our
Nation's waters. Jordan Chin, who is a student from my hometown
of Portland--she was selected to appoint this week's National
Youth Watershed Summit and is truly an exceptional 16-year-old.
She is a straight-A student, a professional singer, active in
political and environmental causes, and somehow is still able
to find time during what must be few waking hours to take
university-level courses in Mandarin and political philosophy.
Jordan, we are very glad you are here.
As you could tell from the discussion that I just had with
Mr. Kennedy, we are very proud in Oregon of the Clean Water Act
and the fact that we really see this as an opportunity to work
with the Federal Government, to address what is most on the
minds of Oregonians in natural resources, and that is to
protect our treasures, and particularly our clean water.
Pollution control efforts began in 1938, which was well before
I was born, certainly before you were born, and pre-dated the
Clean Water Act by 10 years. As you could see with the little
discussion with my good friend the chairman, we take special
pride in the fact that Vermont and Oregon consistently lead the
country in terms of cleaning up polluted run-off and meeting
water quality standards.
Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to you for holding this hearing
and for all of the vigilance that you have had all these years
to protecting the Clean Water Act. I think we are going to see
in Jordan Chin, and I expect the other young people who will be
testifying this morning, we can feel good that we are handing
the reins over to your generation that I know is going to pick
up on the Oregon-Vermont traditions.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the chance to make this
introduction.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you.
I want to welcome our final panel. We are so pleased to
have students from around the country who are attending the
Clean Water Foundation's Youth Watershed Summit, here to share
their thoughts on clean water and issues, and describe the
results of the watershed studies that they have completed. I,
of course, want to specially recognize Grace Chris from the
good State of Vermont. I hope you and Ms. Chin will work hard
to convince the rest of your panel to be as good as your
States. Thank you.
Our first witness is Ms. Savage.
STATEMENT OF ROBERTA H. SAVAGE, PRESIDENT, AMERICA'S CLEAN
WATER FOUNDATION
Ms. Savage. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Robbi Savage. I am the president of America's
Clean Water Foundation. I am also, as you know, the executive
director of the Association of State and Interstate Water
Pollution Control Administrators.
Sitting here listening to the debate about States, there is
a part of me that wishes I was here representing ASWPCA because
I have a few things to say about those issues. Today, we are
here to talk about the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act.
Our Foundation was created in 1989. I created it for the
purpose of celebrating the 20th anniversary, and I was so
pleased to go to Mr. Howard Baker and Mr. Ed Muskie and Bill
Harsha and John Blatnik who were the House and Senate floor
managers of the 1972 bill who were willing to serve as our
original Board of Governors. Two of those gentlemen have since
passed, and on our Board of Governors for the 30th anniversary,
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being a member of our Board of
Governors, as is Mr. Voinovich and Mr. Bond. Mr. Stafford, by
the way, was very involved in those days as well, as you know,
and Mr. Chafee, Mr. Carper. Mr. Baker, who is now the
Ambassador to Japan, is chairing our Board of Governors to
celebrate the 30th anniversary.
One of the important components of the Year of Clean
Water--and the Foundation is serving as the national
coordinator for the 30th anniversary--is our Youth Watershed
Summit. We have four major activities taking place this month.
We start with the Youth Watershed Summit that is being
coordinated and sponsored by our Foundation and the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center out at SERC. We are all kind of
here today in our camp clothes, Mr. Chairman. We apologize for
not being in suits and ties, but we are having a lot of fun and
they would not necessarily go with the rest of our colleagues.
There are 250 students that were appointed by their
Governors to come to the Summit. They all brought a teacher,
and I would like to introduce Ms. Chris, Grace's mother. She is
also from Vermont and she came as an adviser to our group. We
have all these students that are out at the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center. They are not only learning about
clean water, taking them out into the Chesapeake Bay, taking
them up in cranes above the canopy so they can see what the
water line is all about. We took them to the National Aquarium
last night for the dolphin show, and to see the seahorses. We
have an astronaut coming, Roger Crouch, tonight to talk to them
about NASA's work in looking at water quality from space, and
what we can do in that regard. Then we will be meeting in the
morning with you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Bond, on the Capitol
steps for a picture. Then we will go to the Smithsonian to meet
with the Administrator of EPA, the Deputy Administrator, Deputy
Secretary of USDA, NOAA, U.S. Geological Survey and the Corps
of Engineers, so they can get a broad understanding of what is
involved in trying to keep our waters clean.
From there, we are going to go to National Water Quality
Monitoring Day, and I see the Tracey provided you with one of
our kits. We are delighted. What we are asking is that citizens
across the country on the 18th of October test for turbidity,
temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH. As you know, there are
not enough government monitors in this country to tell us if
our water is clean enough, and we need the help of students
like these, as well as citizens all across the Nation to help
us. This will be our first annual, so we hope we can come back
in 10 years and have 10 years of documentation.
Then we go into the Senior Watershed Summit. Ten years ago
when we did the 20th anniversary, I never would have thought of
a Senior Summit, but now that I am one, I am delighted to work
with the Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement for the
Senior Watershed Summit. They have 250,000 volunteers across
this Nation--seniors that are in the water taking samples and
working for clean water.
Then we will summarize and culminate our activities the
last week in October for the World Watershed Summit here in
Washington, DC. We have invited the President and all the
leaders of the major agencies to be there and participate, and
a number of your staff will be here. I suspect you will be out
of town at that time.
We have a number of activities that are taking place across
the country. In addition to what we are doing, Governors,
communities, local groups, public organizations are sponsoring
cleanups and festivals, competitions, video programs all across
this country. It is just amazing. You can go to
www.yearofcleanwater.org and see the incredible work that
people are doing to celebrate the 30th anniversary.
I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for inviting us here
today, for sponsoring this hearing. We talked a little bit in
the beginning about the wonderful work of the Senators. I would
like to at least recognize Mr. Bob Roe, who was the floor
manager on the House side for the 1987 amendments and the
wonderful staff--Leon Billings, who staffed Mr. Muskie in the
1972 bill, and Bob Hurley that staffed Senator Chafee. They did
a wonderful job, and of course, without excellent staff a lot
of the work does not get done.
It is a wonderful opportunity and I would like to then turn
it back to you so that you can introduce the students.
Thank you very much.
Senator Jeffords. I cannot thank you enough for what you
are doing, and especially to help the young people of this
country become leaders and tell us what to do. We have got a
lot of improvements to make.
Ms. Savage. I have been with these girls for the last
several days, and Mr. Senator, I think they will tell you what
to do.
[Laughter.]
Senator Jeffords. I hope so.
This is a question for all three of the students. First of
all, I am going to let you testify, and then I will ask you a
question.
Ms. Chris, would you like to start?
STATEMENT OF GRACE CHRIS, STUDENT, WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VT
Ms. Chris. Good morning, and thank you, Senators, for
allowing me to speak about clean water before this committee
while I am attending the Youth Watershed Summit.
My name is Grace Chris and I am 13 years old and I live in
Vermont. I am both very honored and very, very nervous this
morning.
I came here from the State of Vermont, also known as the
Green Mountain State for the beautiful hills that cross the
State north to south. Throughout the Green Mountains and its
adjacent lowlands are miles of streams and rivers and acres of
ponds and lakes. These waterways nurse the green of the
mountains and in turn support the wildlife, farm life and human
life whose habitat is the State of Vermont. The fall foliage
for which Vermont is famous draws water from Vermont earth and
creates jobs for Vermonters involved in the tourist industry.
The sweet maple syrup from the Vermont sugar maple trees starts
out as clean water in many Vermont watersheds. Cows drink the
Vermont water and give us world famous Cabot cheese and Ben and
Jerry's ice cream.
Agriculture, hunting and fishing, trees and tourists,
recreation, business and industry, and daily Vermont quality of
life all depend on maintaining the abundance and cleanness of
Vermont waters. My classmates and I and all the other kids
attending the Youth Watershed Summit are doing something back
home to protect the waters that bring life to our States. This
week in Maryland, we have all come together to share evidence
of our efforts to protect our water. We already know that 30
years ago you did something very important by creating the
Clean Water Act. For 30 years, Americans have benefited from
that important legislative accomplishment.
My teacher was a senior in high school when you passed the
Clean Water Act in 1972. This week, he is here with me and
other students and teachers at the Summit to share in the
celebration of what the Senate helped create 30 years ago. We
are hoping to demonstrate that the effort to protect the
world's waters continues through us and the work we do back
home.
I am an eighth grade student at Hartford Memorial Middle
School in White River Junction, VT. My school is located about
1.5 miles from the point where the White River flows into the
Connecticut River. Upstream from us, the White River watershed
collects rain and runoff from the many, many tributaries that
flow through the forests, farmlands and towns of Bethel,
Randolph, Rochester, Stockbridge and Sharon, and many, many
other beautiful small villages of Central Vermont. The
activities we conduct and allow along these waterways determine
the present and future health and abundance of these waters.
The work of our State and Federal employees and many local
volunteers is very important in protecting the White River
watershed. My classmates and I are part of that group effort,
and I am here to tell you a little about what we are doing to
fulfill the Clean Water Act's goals.
As water flows through my watershed, it is drawn out for
various uses and then returned in various states of
contamination. Also, rainwater and snow melt carry manure, road
salt and many other chemicals from fields and roads and parking
lots into the watershed through non-point source pollution.
Business, industry, breweries and cider mills, sewage treatment
plants, schools, hospitals, private homes and vacation homes
often add materials and chemicals to the waterways through
identifiable pipes or point-source pollution. The disease-
causing bacteria, E. coli, cancer-causing heavy metals,
poisonous industrial waste and road salts all contribute to
changes in the water quality in my watershed.
Fish and other animal populations drink water sources, and
favorite swimming holes benefit or suffer from what you and I
and others do or fail to do around our waterways. Most of the
water uses are necessary and very important and need to
continue. Volunteers and professionals follow the fate of these
waters through water quality monitoring programs and stream
bank restoration programs. Small towns pass budgets to upgrade
sewage treatment plant facilities or adopt low-salt policies
for their roads. Student collect tires and trash from streams
and ponds during Vermont's Green Up Day on the first Saturday
in May. Together, we use and sometimes abuse our watershed
through our daily activities. Together, we have a
responsibility to undo the damage that our waters are subjected
to every day. The Clean Water Act gives us the authority to
clean up our waters, but it is we individuals who must put
forth the effort to repair, restore and maintain our watershed
water quality.
I want to thank you for all you do as Federal leaders and
lawmakers, and I want to tell you about what we are doing. My
school is a pioneer in the use of Geographic Information
System, or GIS, and Global Positioning Systems, or GPS,
technologies in Vermont. We are learning how to collect data
and display it in spatial or map formats. We can take fish
collection data, E. coli population data, soil type and land
use data, or pH and water temperature data collected in our
watershed and show it as a map. We can ask important questions
about relationships among these water quality factors, and then
display those relationships in multi-colored maps.
The spatial display of these data may reveal patterns that
better explain what is going on in the watershed. Right now, my
group's work has been to look for relationships among the land
use on the shores and streams of the riverbanks, the soil types
on the shorelines, and the E. coli populations in the
downstream waters. We found that the E. coli populations are
higher in water that has less forest vegetation along the
shoreline. However, we do not see a clear relationship between
prime agricultural soils on the shoreline and high E. coli
populations in the nearby water. Our GIS analysis has begun to
reveal some relationships among our water quality factors in
our watershed, and it has created some new questions for us to
investigate in the future. What we expected to find was not
exactly what we found, and we want to know why, so we will keep
on working at it and training other kids how to do this work.
We are just young people, but young people with an interest
in our watershed. We have been lucky to work with groups like
the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, the White River
Partnership, and Vermont Fish and Wildlife. They have taught us
about GIS and shared their water quality data with us. Together
we are creating a community mapping program to help local
community leaders use GIS technologies to plan for their
community's future and manage its resources wisely. Our teacher
has received training from groups associated with NASA and the
Environmental Protection Agency. Now, we would like to count on
continued support from you, the U.S. Senate, through thoughtful
legislation, and help my school and other schools protect the
White River Watershed and every other watershed in every other
State. I hope my testimony here contributes to that goal.
Again, I am very honored to have been invited to talk to
you about clean water. Together, I hope we will continue to be
responsible citizens and support the 1972 Clean Water Act for
at least another 30 years.
Thank you very much.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very much. That is a very
excellent statement and we appreciate your being here today.
Ms. Chris. I also have a shirt for you.
Senator Jeffords. Oh, all right. Afterwards, I will come
down.
Senator Wyden. Only one T-shirt?
Ms. Savage. It is the Youth Summit T-shirt.
Senator Wyden. The story of my life.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Savage. We will get you one, Senator.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very, very much.
Ms. Savage. We will get shirts for the whole committee.
Senator Jeffords. Wow. Clean water everywhere for everyone.
Very, very good. Thank you.
Ms. Chin.
STATEMENT OF JORDAN CHIN, STUDENT, PORTLAND, OR
Ms. Chin. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I
wanted to express my appreciation for you listening to our
testimonies today. Thank you, Senator Wyden, for introducing
me.
My name is Jordan Chin and I am 16 years old. I attend the
Metropolitan Learning Center in Portland, OR. I am here today,
Mr. Chairman, as one of the Oregon representatives for the
Youth Watershed Summit, which is being hosted by America's
Clean Water Foundation, the Smithsonian Environmental Research
Center, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
When I was invited to attend the Youth Watershed Summit, I
jumped at the opportunity. I have always believed that youth
involvement in our society would create new visions for this
country. This convention of some 250 students selected by their
Governors from 50 States is an outstanding chance for me and my
fellow students to learn to share and to carry the clean water
message home to our respective States.
I believe that information about our environment is
something that everyone in this country should be more aware
of. Awareness and involvement are the keys to bringing about a
positive change in our society and its attitudes about our
fragile environment. Water is what we are made of. It is the
source of life. I think that youth involvement in education is
an exceptional beginning to that process.
Because I believe in bringing the need for cleaner water to
the attention of young people, I am one of the actors who will
this evening be performing The Murky Water Caper: A Real Fish
Story, written for the ACWF by Deborah Rodney Pex. I have these
books to pass out to you later on so that you can see.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you. We will get it.
Ms. Chin. My character is Detective Michelle Tuesday, who
is an inquisitive private investigator with a passion for
justice and the desire to ensure the well-being of creatures
and spaces around her. Ms. Tuesday helps the fish who have
retained her to find the cause of the pollution that is
contaminating their homes. Cheesy jokes and all, I am very
excited and very proud to be a member of the cast.
I understand, Mr. Chairman, that some of your members of
the committee staff may be joining us at the YMCA Camp Letts to
see just how the Murky Water Caper can be an inspiring and fun
way to educate people of all ages who care about their ways of
life. Because this play is packed with information, I would
like your permission to present each member of the committee
with a copy of the Murky Water Caper.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you. You may do that. Thank you.
Ms. Chin. It was recently published by America's Clean
Water Foundation.
I am here today to say thank you to those who were so wise
as to give our country the Clean Water Act back in 1972, and to
say that I know the future of the water's quality rests in our
hands, as well as yours. As a young person, I want to be very
informed about the ways I affect the environment and I want to
share that information with my peers.
I am currently enrolled in an ecology class at my school
back home in Portland. One of my personal projects in class is
to find ways to recycle eco-friendly clothing and used
clothing. I like knowing that my wardrobe matches my commitment
to the environment and I like the idea that I am providing such
ideas to my fellow students. Even small things like buying
clothes have huge impacts on our environment and a lot of
people are not aware of those impacts.
Although all this is public information, I am hard-pressed
to find more than a handful of people outside of my classroom
that are aware of the things that are going on in the
environment, that are aware of the resources we are draining
and the negative impacts we are having on our planet by the way
we live our lives each day.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, there is one
thing in particular that I want to leave with you. I hope to
share my hope that one day the citizens of this country will be
more informed of the fact that the environment is deteriorating
and being largely neglected every day by virtually every person
that lives on this planet. I want them to know that this
affects them personally.
This neglect is not just in the other countries or other
States that are far away from where we live. It is not just the
rain forests down in South America that we have never been to,
or the wetlands in the other States that we hear about. It is
the groundwater and the surface water that we drink and the
fruits and vegetables that we eat every day. It is really
important that people are aware that this is not just something
that is outside of them. This is, you know, this is them.
I am but one student in a small State on the other side of
this Nation, but I know that every citizen in this country
needs to be more aware of how important it is for us all to
protect our water. They need to know about how polluted water
affects the health of their parents and children, of our
friends, and it affects our relatives and people that we have
never met. In protecting the earth, we are protecting ourselves
and people everywhere, all animals, and all the vegetation that
sustains us. We will be taking care of each other.
I sincerely hope that my testimony before you this morning
has shown you, the guardians of this country, that even though
we sometimes do not speak up and are often not heard, teenagers
do care. We are drinking in the information provided for us at
the Youth Watershed Summit and we are thirsty for more. We need
for you to inform us and we need to see that you care. We want
a healthy planet to grow up in, to go to college in, and to
raise our families in.
Everyone on this committee and everyone in this room has
the power to protect our water. You are the environmental
leaders of this country and I would ask you that you use your
power to help bring about a more informed society and to
reauthorize the Clean Water Act for our protection and for the
protection of the generations to come.
I personally am asking you to take care of the people that
you were sent here to protect. I want to thank you so much for
your time.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very much.
Ms. Hoeft.
STATEMENT OF KRISTEN HOEFT, STUDENT, EAGAN, MN
Ms. Hoeft. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, good
morning and thank you so much for inviting me to talk to you
about the Clean Water Act. My name is Kristen Hoeft. I come
before the committee as a representative of the Youth Watershed
Summit and as a citizen of a land of 11,842 lakes, the great
State of Minnesota. I am currently a senior at the School of
Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, MN.
Mr. Chairman, I am very honored to be appearing before you
today and I want to share my thoughts about growing up in
Minnesota, a State that has water virtually everywhere. I have
been able to experience some of our State's beautiful lakes and
rivers from canoeing the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota,
hiking along the shores of Lake Superior, or boating on the
Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. My parents felt it was very
important for me to know how to swim and learn boating safety,
because we spend most of our summers along the Mississippi and
St. Croix Rivers. I look back and realize the important
foundation that my parents gave me because not only do I enjoy
the recreational aspect of the water we have in Minnesota, but
I have also come to appreciate water ecology, the need to
educate people about shore erosion, and the reduction of
chemical pollution in our lakes, rivers and streams.
Over the years, I have seen the Minnesota and Mississippi
Rivers flood many times, where farmers have lost crops and
precious topsoil. This erosion has not only hurt the farmers,
it adds to the pollution of the Minnesota and eventually the
Mississippi River. I have come to understand that it is not
only topsoil that is eroding our stream and lake waters, it is
also the variety of chemicals used in the farming process.
I have always thought that if our country's pollution
problems were really important, the adults would take care of
finding a solution to the pollution problems, but I have come
to realize that it is not always going to be this way. In my
junior year of high school, I decided to attend the School of
Environmental Studies because it is a much smaller setting than
the traditional high school. From the four main high schools in
our district, 200 juniors and 200 seniors are selected to
attend. SES, as it is known, has an innovative way of teaching
the basic subjects of English, social studies, and science by
collecting data, analyzing it, and recording the information,
blending all three subjects together with an environmental
theme. The mission statement of SES reads, ``a community of
leaders learning to enhance the relationships between people
and their environments.''
The first project of my junior year started with the Pond
Profiles. This is an activity that the city of Eagan helps us
with a great deal. We were given a course in identifying water
plants and organisms, as well as land plants and running
chemical tests. We were then sent out with a teacher to a
specific lake or pond in the city of Eagan. While at the pond
or lake, we were required to identify organisms found in and
around the water and conduct several water quality tests such
as the Secchi disk and to determine the clarity of the water,
and chemical tests such as pH and dissolved oxygen. All of this
data is collected and then presented to the city of Eagan water
officials and put on permanent record in Eagan. We provide this
service because with over 1,000 ponds, lakes and wetlands in
the watershed, city officials do not have time to collect such
data. This is the first of many projects that SES does for the
city of Eagan, Apple Valley and surrounding areas.
This is a gratifying way to expand the learning process
beyond the classroom and I enjoy it thoroughly. Learning
environmental science with a hands-on experience is much more
interesting than just reading out of a textbook. That is why we
at SES are excited about participating in America's Clean Water
Foundation and its many co-sponsors and the National Water
Monitoring Day. On October 18, 2002, student seniors,
professionals and those who just want to help protect water
quality are coming together to sample water quality throughout
the Nation. I am so excited to think that hundreds of thousands
of people will join together on the actual 30th anniversary of
the Clean Water Act to test for pH, DO, temperature and
turbidity.
Another experience I have regarding the environment is that
I frequently walk my dog around the lake of the park across the
street from my home. It is a small lake that is enjoyed by many
people in the area. Anytime of the year, you will see many
people fishing in the lake. In the spring when the snow and ice
have melted, the lake is beautiful. It appears to be clean and
clear, but looks can be deceiving because by early summer, the
growth of algae is so thick that it would appear as if you
could walk across the lake. The city then comes in with a large
machine that harvests the weeds and rids the lake of most
algae.
I wish that the same people that enjoy the lake year-round
would take some time to think about the chemicals they dump on
their lawns to make their lawns lush and green at the expense
of water quality in the lakes of our watershed district. The
city of Eagan is attempting to combat the phosphorus chemicals
found in fertilizer used by many people, and has recently
started to add a chemical called Alum that removes the
phosphorus in the water and should eventually lessen the amount
of algae growth in the lake.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to see legislation and education
to maintain water quality so that my neighborhood lake and the
thousand other lakes and rivers in Minnesota can be clean for
future generations.
For the past four summers, I have worked as a nanny for a
family with three girls. One day last summer, the girls and I
decided to go for a bike ride on the trail that overlooks the
confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. It was a
clear bright day. We stopped where the rivers come together and
I decided to point out some interesting river ecology facts to
the girls. The first thing I asked the girls was to tell me
which river they thought was the Minnesota and which one was
the Mississippi. Because it was a very bright day, one river
looked very clean and the other very dirty. The girls were
amazed to learn that it was actually the Minnesota River that
appeared very dirty. They found this hard to believe because
everyone seems to think of the Mississippi as the Muddy
Mississippi. The fact remains that the farm chemicals,
livestock runoff and silt that pollutes the Minnesota River are
adding to the problem. When the two rivers join, you can see
the line of suspended solids from the Minnesota River blending
into the Mississippi, so it is actually the Minnesota River
that gives the Mississippi a bad reputation in our part of the
Nation.
In 1819, Fort Snelling was settled because of its location
between the two rivers. The Native Americans in the area
believed that the land near the confluence was the origin of
all life. It is said today that we do not think it is important
enough to try and improve the quality of these rivers and are
slow to do anything to fix the problems.
I have come to realize that although some people are aware
of the problems regarding water quality, it will be the
responsibility of my generation, through awareness and
education, to clean and protect the environment. That is why I
wanted to come to the Youth Watershed Summit. I wanted to learn
as much as I can about water quality, pollution, and the
various ways to remedy pollution problems in other States. I
know that the problems we face in Minnesota are not Minnesota's
alone. They are the problems of our Nation. It will be
necessary to work together to clean up and restore lakes,
rivers and oceans. I say let's make America even greater by
setting an example to the rest of the world that clean water is
an important issue for everyone.
While I know that there have been significant improvements
over the past three decades, I also know that I want clean
water for my generation and the generations to follow. I want
clean water for my children and the children of my children.
When I was looking at the Year of Clean Water website, I was
surprised to notice that the last time the Congress
reauthorized the Act was in 1987. Through my studies, I know
that there have been many changes over the past 15 years, and
also know that water detection and protection has become far
more complex. Now, advanced technology should be translated
into the clean water law.
I must ask you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,
to begin the process of the reauthorization to assure that our
country can provide clean, fresh water for all of us for many
generations to come.
Thank you for allowing me to appear before you today.
Senator Jeffords. I want to thank all of you for the
excellent statements. We are proud of you, Ms. Savage, for the
effort that you have put in to make sure that these young
people would be here, as well as what you are doing throughout
this Nation. I certainly want to commend you, too.
Yes, Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just have one question, because I think all of you are
great. If you could each ask us to do one thing, just one
thing, to promote clean water, what would it be? Maybe start
with you, Ms. Chin.
Ms. Chin. OK. Well, I think that awareness and involvement,
like I said in my testimony, are the key pieces to bringing
about a positive change in our environment and in our society
in general. When we are speaking about the Clean Water Act that
was an issue beforehand and it is still an issue in these
testimonies, I do not think that protecting our homes and
protecting ourselves should be an issue that is up for debate
at all. As I understand it, the Clean Water Act that was
reauthorized last time in 1987, in the bill it was said that it
needed to be reauthorized every 4 years. The fact that the last
time we did was about 30 years ago is a huge indicating factor
that we have a serious lack in our society right now. I think
that lack would be filled by a positively informed society. I
do not think that this would have been an issue if people knew
what was going on.
As a young person, I am very lucky to have the advantage of
a more international understanding of the water issues, being
that my father is the Chief of Protocol currently for the
Government of Singapore. Right now, they are supplying the
public with recycled water that has been purified by reverse
osmosis. I think that this is evidence that there is always
something to be done. I believe that all students should have
the opportunity to know what is going on in the world and in
the environment internationally, as well as at home. I think
that these opportunities should be provided in public schools,
and I think that they should be supported.
We already have a lot of information that the teachers are
giving us, but I do not think that it is stressed enough the
importance of our environment. I think that if you believe that
this country is great, then I think that you should take
advantage of the potential, as well as the students and the
citizens of this country, advantage of the potential that we
have because we can make huge advancements in the well-being of
our society and of the societies around us.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you very, very much.
I am trying to figure out just how to work this out, but
what was the first State in this country to pass an all-
pervasive water pollution law? It was before 1972. Actually, it
was 1972.
Ms. Hoeft. Was it Minnesota?
Senator Jeffords. No.
Ms. Savage. There are two of you left.
Ms. Hoeft. Vermont.
Senator Jeffords. Yes, very good.
[Laughter.]
Senator Jeffords. In fact, it was one of the most wonderful
times. Vermont had an onslaught at that time of people who
suddenly discovered us and came piling into the State and there
were no regulations whatsoever, and we had strong problems with
water pollution and all. I was Attorney General at the time, as
you might guess before this is all over, but we came down here
to testify before the Muskie committee, which we heard
mentioned earlier, which established the U.S. standards.
Because we had had so many problems, we must have said there
will be no pollution. You literally could not throw a stone
into the brook or spit in the brook or anything else without
being in violation of the law. That was our start.
It just gave me the incentive to continue to work on
environmental issues all those years. Oregon was right behind
us. Oregon was right there. They also--I do not know when their
first start was, but it was very early, and I worked with them
all over. They beat us on some standards like bottles and
bottle returns and keeping the streets cleaned or whatever. In
just about everything--air pollution and all those things--it
was Oregon. Minnesota was, too. Minnesota was right up there.
It is quite appropriate that you three are here today because
you represent the cleanest States, in my mind.
Ms. Savage, I appreciate all you do.
Ms. Savage. Thank you very much. We did invite a friend of
yours, Tex LaRosa, who helps you with the implementation of the
Clean Water Act of Vermont. Tex and his wife are not feeling
well. As you know, they are up in Montpelier. He sends his
regrets, but also his great admiration for you.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you.
Ms. Savage. I am delighted that these three ladies, and we
have 246 more out at Camp Letts that are as outstanding as
these three.
Senator Jeffords. Thank you all--wonderful help. It gives
me great hopes for your future and my future and our future.
Thank you all for your testimony.
Now, it is all over.
[Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the committee was adjourned to
reconvene at the call of the chair.]
[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:]
Statement of Hon. Robert Stafford, Former U.S. Senator
from the State of Vermont
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak with you today to celebrate the 30th anniversary
of the Clean Water Act. We have come a long way since 1972. It is
almost impossible for me to believe that there was a time in Vermont
when stories about ``dead'' rivers and streams were commonplace, when
rivers turned the color of the dye used by woolen mills, and when
untreated human sewage flowed directly into our waters. It is the Clean
Water Act that has made that scenario almost impossible to believe.
The passage of the Clean Water Act in 1987 was the culmination of
one of the greatest bi-partisan efforts to enact legislation to protect
our nation's environment during my tenure as chairman of this
committee. Over the course of 4 years--1982 to 1986--we held hearings,
negotiated the finer points of this legislation, and compromised with
each other to produce the last significant reform to the Clean Water
program. It survived two Presidential vetoes. The result is a piece of
legislation that remains a critical element of our nation's framework
of environmental protection.
The man who deserves the most credit for the passage of this
legislation is Senator John Chafee. It was Senator Chafee who presided
over our subcommittee hearings on this issue. It was Senator Chafee who
led the conference committee to produce a package that passed both the
House and Senate unanimously at one point. His tireless work and
dedication to this issue should not be forgotten. I was proud to serve
with him on this committee. We are all lucky that he was here to lead
the way to clean water. It is very special to have Senator Lincoln
Chafee here as a member of this committee, continuing his father's
legacy of environmental protection.
The 1987 amendments took several main steps to address water
pollution. Funding was the main point of debate in 1987. We reached a
compromise in that year to phase-out Federal funding for the
construction grants program and to create a new financing mechanism
called the State Revolving Fund, or SRF. At the time, we thought that
it was a modest down payment on the investment we were asking the
States, cities, and municipalities to make over the next decade.
It turns out that the Federal investment in the SRF has not ended,
and the funding needs for wastewater treatment facilities have grown. I
am aware that the Environmental Protection Agency recently released a
report citing a ``gap'' of $270 billion in funds available for clean
water needs. This is a huge gap that deserves the attention of this
committee and this Congress. I understand, Mr. Chairman, that you and
Senator Graham of Florida led this committee's efforts to pass S. 1961,
the Water Investment Act. I commend your efforts, and I urge the full
Senate to take action to provide additional financial support for clean
water needs.
In my comments upon final passage of H.R. 1, the Water Quality Act
of 1987, I highlighted the portions of the bill dealing with non-point
source pollution. This was one of the key gaps in the 1972 law that we
sought to fill in 1987. We authorized a new program to develop best
management practices to control nonpoint sources of pollution that
often prevent the attainment of the fishable, swimmable goal for water
quality. Since that time, the Congress has provided close to $1.8
billion to combat non-point source pollution. Yet, this remains a major
challenge for the future of the Clean Water Act. I understand that EPA
estimates that non-point source pollution is responsible for close to
50 percent of our current water quality problems. It must be addressed
if we are to take the next step in cleaning our waters.
As this committee looks to the future, I would ask you to recall
the days of multi-colored waterways and the seemingly insurmountable
challenge that the 92d Congress faced when enacting the Clean Water
Act. They took that challenge and met it. The results speak for
themselves. In 1987, we decided that we had an opportunity to move
another step toward clean waters. Today, you have a similar
opportunity. Our waters are cleaner than they have been in years, but
we have lingering problems that prevent us from reaching the
``fishable, swimmable'' goal. You have the opportunity to address these
lingering issues. I urge you to take action by re-authorizing Federal
assistance for clean water and by taking another step forward on non-
point source pollution.
__________
Statement of Hon. George Mitchell, Former U.S. Senator
from the State of Maine
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to join you today on the 30th anniversary of the passage of
the Clean Water Act.
We have made progress since 1972 in meeting the goal of the Act
which is ``to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and
biological integrity of the Nation's waters.'' Our nation has invested
nearly $75 billion to construct municipal sewage treatment facilities,
nearly doubling the number of people served with secondary treatment to
almost 150 million.
However, there is much more to be done. The EPA's Assistant
Administrator for Water said recently that about 40 percent of our
nation's waters do not meet fishable swimmable standards. That bears
repeating: after 30 years of implementation of the Clean Water Act 40
percent of our nation's waters remain impaired. Clearly, we must
intensify our efforts.
Ms. Chairman, it is appropriate to recognize the contribution of
one of our nation's great pioneers in environmental legislation, my
friend and mentor, Senator Edmund Muskie. Senator Muskie remains the
greatest public figure in Maine's history and one of the great
legislators in our nation's history. He was the principal author of the
1972 Clean Water Act, which is a cornerstone of our environmental law.
He appeared before this committee in 1992 in celebration of the 20th
anniversary of the Clean Water Act, and I am honored to again follow in
his footsteps.
I will focus my remarks today on our progress on the issues that
were addressed in the 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act. I was
fortunate enough to manage that bill on the floor of the Senate in
1987, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Environmental Protection, when
it was passed over a Presidential veto.
The legislation was a heartening example of bi-partisan
cooperation. This committee put it together over a 4-year period.
Senator Robert Stafford of Vermont and Senator Quentin Burdick of North
Dakota led the committee during that time. I had the pleasure of
working on the details of this legislation with Senator Dave
Durenberger of Minnesota and with Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island,
who was at that time chairman of the Subcommittee. Without bi-partisan
cooperation on this committee the bill would never have become law.
I especially want to recognize Senator Chafee's role as a principal
author of the Water Quality Act of 1987. I congratulated him then, and
my words bear repeating today:
Senator Chafee . . . is the architect of this legislation. He
chaired the hearings we held on clean water in the Environment
Committee. He managed the bill on the Senate floor. He spoke
for the Senate conferees during the long and intense conference
with the House on this legislation. The high quality of this
legislation is largely due to his efforts.
Today, our nation's waters are cleaner because of Senator Chafee.
It is gratifying that Senator Lincoln Chafee is here today as a member
of this committee to continue his father's legacy.
As I prepared my testimony for this hearing, I was struck by the
similarities in the debates over the Clean Water Act in 1972, 1987, and
today. In those early years we debated the role of the Federal
Government versus State governments. We faced opposition to pollution
control requirements and implementation schedules. We struggled to find
the appropriate level of Federal financial commitment to clean water.
We worked to ensure that the Clean Water Act remains relevant to
current water pollution issues. Each of these concerns remains a
vibrant part of today's debate.
The 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act could be described as
``gap filling measures''. We looked at the 1972 law, identified areas
where additional action was needed, and sought to create the legal
infrastructure needed to further the cleanup of our nation's waterways.
Two key issues in 1987 included funding levels and addressing non-point
source pollution. There were, of course, numerous other important
actions taken such as the creation of the National Estuary Program, the
Chesapeake Bay Program, and the Great Lakes Program. We reinvigorated
the toxics program in the Clean Water Act by, among other things,
requiring numerical standards for priority pollutants. We increased the
penalties for violations under the Clean Water Act, and we established
the first permit program for the control of stormwater discharges.
Because time does not permit a discussion of all of these subjects, I
will focus today on the key issue of funding.
In 1972, Congress chose to significantly increase Federal
participation in clean water programs. It peaked at $5 billion in 1979
and 1980. As a result, Americans in the 1980's, and today, assume that
our nation's waters are clean--available for swimming, fishing and
providing habitat for a host of wildlife species.
In 1981, President Reagan proposed the elimination of funding for
clean water unless Congress reduced the size and scope of the program.
Congress responded to the President's demand. Clean Water funding was
reduced from $5 billion a year to $2.4 billion a year. We reduced the
types and numbers of projects that were eligible for Federal funding,
and we reduced the Federal share of the cost for construction projects
from 75 to 55 percent.
The Water Quality Act of 1987 took further steps to reform the
Federal involvement in the Clean Water Act by adopting a transition
strategy to move the country away from construction grants toward an
innovative mechanism called the State Revolving Fund or SRF. The 1987
amendments authorized almost $10 billion over 5 years for the phase-out
of the construction grants program and $8.4 billion over 5 years for
the SRF.
We knew at that time that this level of funding was inadequate to
fully meet our nation's clean water needs, which at that time were
estimated at between $75 and $100 billion. But this was a compromise
struck at the time with those who opposed any continued Federal
investment in clean water.
Despite this compromise, President Reagan vetoed the bill in 1986
over this issue. In 1987 the Congress re-enacted the bill. The
President vetoed it again. But this time Congress overrode his veto and
the Water Quality Act became law.
In 1987, we envisioned a situation where after the initial 5-year
period of Federal investment, the SRF would begin to revolve on its own
and the Federal investment in clean water programs would no longer be
necessary. However, this has not come to pass, and I understand that
the debate continues over the level of and mechanism for Federal
investment in clean water.
Yet there is little or no debate on the need. Just last week,
Administrator Whitman announced the results of the EPA's gap analysis,
which indicates a gap of over $270 billion for clean water needs.
In my home State of Maine, the Androscoggin River is a relevant
case study of our progress on clean water. In the 1960's it was ranked
in the top ten of the most polluted rivers in the Nation. The 1972
Clean Water Act resulted in the removal of more than 90 percent of the
waste from point sources like paper mills and municipal wastewater
systems. Recreational use has increased dramatically. However, the
river still suffers from discharges from combined sewer overflows and
stormwater non-point source discharges. During these events, bacteria
counts skyrocket. Across the country, as on the Androscoggin, we have
come far, but we have much further to go.
This committee took action earlier this year to pass S. 1961 which
would re-
authorize the SRF for $20 billion over 5 years. The House
Transportation and Infrastructure committee passed a similar bill,
which also authorizes $20 billion over 5 years. I know that the
leadership on this committee has worked in a bi-partisan manner with
the Senate Appropriations Committee to increase funding for the SRF. As
a result there is an increase of $100 million for the Clean Water SRF
in the VA-HUD appropriations bill. I commend you for your leadership on
this issue, Mr. Chairman, and I urge the Senate to continue forward
progress.
The role of Federal funding in protecting our nation's waters was
at the center of the debate in 1987. It remains there today. In 1987 we
knew we could not possibly fund all that was needed to clean our
waters. That is still true. We provided all that we could in 1987. You
must do so again because, unfortunately, despite all our efforts, the
estimated gap is larger today than it was then.
And the infrastructure is that much older. Much of it is nearing
the end of its useful life. Failure to replace it could threaten public
health and our economy.
The conclusion is clear, although to act on it will, as always, be
difficult. There must be an increase in funding for the clean water SRF
if our nation is to continue its progress in implementing the Clean
Water Act.
In 1972, and in 1987 the bill survived Presidential vetoes. In each
case, cost was a significant issue. In each case, the nation's desire
for a clean environment overshadowed all other issues. That is still
the case. The words that Senator Muskie used in 1972 in urging the
passage of the original Clean Water Act apply to today's challenges:
Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and
streams and oceans which continue to make life possible on this
planet? Can we afford life itself? The answers are the same.
Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the waters of
our Nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally move to
restore and renew them. These questions answer themselves--we
have reached a point in our struggle against water pollution
where as we say in New England--we must either ``fish or cut
bait''. If we are serious about restoring the quality of our
Nation's waters to a level that will support life in the
future, then we ought to be prepared to make some sacrifices in
that effort now.
In 1972 and 1987 the Nation and the Congress rose to meet the
challenge. I hope they will do so again.
__________
Statement of G. Tracy Mehan III, Assistant Administrator for Water,
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
introduction
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am Tracy
Mehan, Assistant Administrator for Water at the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). I appreciate and welcome this opportunity to
celebrate three decades of progress in improving the quality of our
Nation's rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands and estuaries under the Clean
Water Act (CWA), and to consider the continuing challenges ahead to
protect water quality, human health and the environment. October 18,
2002, will mark the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Thanks in
no small part to this landmark legislation, we have accomplished a
great deal over the past 30 years in improving and maintaining water
quality in our country. While challenges remain, we have better
mechanisms in place today, including improved Federal and State
partnerships, to tackle those issues and accomplish further
improvements in the quality of our nation's waters.
what we have achieved
We are all familiar with the horror stories about where we started
from 30 years ago. As we entered the 1970's, the Nation's waters were
in crisis--the Potomac River was too polluted for swimming, Lake Erie
was dying, and the Cuyahoga River had burst into flames. Many of the
Nation's waterways were little more than open sewers.
The 1972 Clean Water Act has sharply increased the number of
waterways that are once again safe for fishing and swimming. The Act
launched an all-out assault on water pollution, 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.
It included new controls over point source dischargers, including
the setting of strong Federal standards to control both municipal and
industrial pollution sources, a major investment by the Federal
Government to help communities build sewage treatment plants, and
support for State efforts to reduce polluted runoff. It established the
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program to
ensure that those standards were put into place by cities and
industries. And it spurred the creation of strong partnerships with the
States, as the level of government principally responsible under the
Act to implement its provisions on the ground.
Municipal sewage treatment plants were required to upgrade to
secondary or advanced levels of treatment, depending on the
characteristics and quality of the receiving water bodies. To help
local governments with this effort, the Federal Government has provided
over $80 billion in wastewater assistance to municipalities over these
three decades. These investments--made through grants to wastewater
utilities into the late 1980's, and after the passage of the 1987 Clean
Water Act Amendments, mainly through grants to States to capitalize
State Revolving Loan funds (SRFs)--have dramatically increased the
number of Americans enjoying better water quality.
The SRFs were designed to provide a national financial resource for
clean water that would be matched and managed by States, and provide a
funding resource ``in perpetuity.'' These important goals are being
achieved. Because of the revolving nature of the funds, dollars
invested in the SRFs provide about four times the purchasing power over
20 years compared to what would occur if the funds were distributed
directly to municipalities as grants. Other Federal, State, and private
sector funding sources are also available for community water
infrastructure investments
As a result, pollution from industrial sources and municipal sewage
treatment plants plummeted. By any measure--pounds of pollution abated,
stream segments improved, fisheries restored--tremendous load
reductions from point sources occurred, resulting in significant
improvements in water quality across the Nation. The dramatic progress
made in improving the quality of wastewater treatment since the 1970's
is a national success. In 1968, only 86 million people were served by
secondary or advanced treatment facilities. Today, of the 190 million
people served by wastewater treatment facilities, more than 87
percent--about 165 million people (double the pre-CWA number)--are
served by secondary or better treatment.
Thirty years ago, wetlands losses were estimated at about 460,000
acres annually. Now, according to recent studies, we estimate that we
have significantly reduced wetlands losses, although we are not yet at
``no net loss.''
During the past decade, the U.S. has preserved, restored and/or
created hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat nationwide as part of
the National Estuary Program. The program focuses not just on improving
water quality in an estuary, but on maintaining the integrity of the
whole system--its chemical, physical, and biological properties, as
well as its economic, recreational, and aesthetic values. Some of the
mechanisms used to protect habitats include land acquisition,
conservation easements, and deed restrictions.
Since passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, water pollution
problems are being addressed by hard-working partnerships among
government, private institutions and individual citizens. There are
myriad success stories:
renewed fishing in the Androscoggin (ME), Connecticut
(CT), Potomac (VA/MD), the Illinois (IL) and many other rivers.
Improved shellfishing in Narragansett Bay (RI).
Healthier and more abundant sea grasses in Tampa Bay(FL),
Galveston Bay (TX), and the Chesapeake Bay (DE/MD/VA).
The rejuvenation of the Chicago River (IL) and the
Cuyahoga River (OH), from ``virtual sewers'' to places where people can
recreate and where they want to be.
Restoration of a world-class Walleye fishery in Lake Erie.
The transformation of Oregon's Willamette River, from, in
the early 1960's, a water body overburdened with pollutants that killed
salmon, posed threats to public health, and stopped river-based
recreation to one where boating, skiing, swimming, and fishing are
flourishing once again.
Over the past decade, EPA has witnessed a groundswell of
support for locally driven watershed protection and restoration
efforts. In many communities, such as those along the Charles River in
Massachusetts, citizen groups, government agencies, non-profit
organizations, and businesses have come together and created long-term
goals and innovative solutions to clean up their watersheds and promote
more sustainable uses of their water resources.
remaining challenges
The news, however, is not universally good, as indicated by our
improved monitoring techniques, which enable us to monitor more water
bodies. National water quality monitoring data reported by the States
in the year 2000 shows that approximately 45 percent of waters assessed
by States are not clean enough to meet basic uses such as fishing or
swimming; e.g., they do not meet water quality standards. (I should
emphasize that this change from previous years is likely due to changes
in how we and the States monitor, analyze, and report water quality,
not necessarily declines in water quality.) The 2000 National Water
Quality Report indicates that 39 percent of assessed rivers and streams
and 39 percent of assessed lakes are not safe for fish consumption. The
estimates for non-attainment of swimming were 32 percent and 30
percent; for drinking water, 16 percent and 21 percent.
The remaining problems impacting water quality are not easily
remedied--they come not just from pipes, but from diffuse sources such
as farming and forestry operations, construction sites, urban streets,
automobiles, atmospheric deposition, and even suburban homes and yards.
While some of these diffuse sources are considered non-point sources
under the Act, others are regulated as point sources, as in the current
NPDES storm water program. It is immensely challenging to manage these
sources using traditional regulatory tools, because they are not well
suited to end-of-pipe treatment, and the sources are so numerous and
widespread. State and local water quality managers are still learning
what kinds of management practices work best for different kinds of
sources. This learning process will require us all to aggregate their
collective experience if we are to better understand the water quality
benefits of different practices under varied conditions.
Nor are the great variety of pollution sources just chemical in
nature. There are physical and biological threats to our nation's
waters that we must address as well if we are to truly achieve the
stated goal of the Clean Water Act to ``restore and maintain the
chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation's waters''.
Physical integrity can have numerous dimensions. For instance, some
human activities in the riparian zone can themselves be a source of
water quality impairment, both through erosion and through reducing or
eliminating the riparian vegetation that can buffer our waters against
detrimental effects of upland human activities. Similarly, States are
increasingly taking action, through a variety of programs, to ensure
adequate instream flows to support water quality for drinking water,
habitat, and recreation uses.
Invasive species are an example of a real and growing threat to the
biological well-being of our nation's aquatic and terrestrial
resources, as well as to the health of our economy. For example, more
than 160 invasive aquatic organisms of all types--including plants,
fish, algae and mollusks--have become established in the Great Lakes
since the 1800's. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the
potential economic impacts of one of these species--the zebra mussel--
will be $5 billion over the next 10 years to U.S. and Canadian water
users within the Great Lakes region.
Tools for Cleaning Up Impaired Waters
Meanwhile, EPA will continue to implement those programs already
underway that aim to ensure the quality of the nation's water. The past
decade has seen a shift toward an emphasis on what is now commonly
referred to as the watershed approach. EPA has been promoting, and many
governments have been practicing, a ``watershed approach'' in their
work, which encourages a holistic take on identifying problems and
implementing the integrated solutions that are needed to overcome
multiple causes of water quality impairment. Increasingly, States,
Tribes, wa-
tershed groups and others are recognizing the value of implementing
watershed protection approaches, and are using them as the organizing
frameworks for their protection and restoration activities.
EPA views watersheds as the basic unit to define and gauge the
nation's water quality. Our actions to restore America's streams,
lakes, and rivers must be based upon improving the watersheds which
unite not just our rivers and streams, but our communities, and thereby
bind together our lives with our environment. The watershed approach
enables us to address the problems of greatest concern in a
comprehensive, effective manner, and through cooperation with affected
stakeholders to maximize our results with limited resources.
In addition to the watershed approach, there are several specific
tools I would like to mention that we can bring to bear to address the
more complicated water quality problems we are now facing. One of these
tools is the Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, Program. In enacting
the CWA, Congress retained a water quality-based strategy for waters
that remained polluted after the application of technology-based
standards. The TMDL Program, contained in section 303(d), essentially
tells States to establish a water quality cleanup budget for such
waters. This part of the CWA was kept on the back burner for about 20
years while other aspects of the CWA were emphasized, particularly
implementation of minimum levels of treatment for industrial and
municipal dischargers. The authors of the 1972 Clean Water Act created
the TMDL Program as a resource to ensure the availability of essential
information for cleaning up water bodies that were not protected or
restored under the general pollution control programs of the Clean
Water Act.
EPA has been encouraging States to develop and implement TMDLs on a
watershed basis. Our hope is that this approach will greatly increase
collaboration and support for the needed pollutant controls. Increased
public involvement is vital in several respects. Because TMDLs are
water-quality based, they are information-intensive, requiring
widespread and systematic monitoring to identify and characterize
problems and priorities, and to track progress in solving them. Public
involvement can contribute to this information process both directly
and through increased visibility for problem-solving. And it will help
make sure that TMDLs get translated from allocations into action,
because information brought before the public is itself a driver for
action.
Opening the deliberations to all stakeholders and allowing time for
innovation also will provide additional opportunities to take advantage
of other programs, including Nonpoint Source grants under section 319
of the Clean Water Act, the conservation provisions of the newly
reauthorized Farm Bill, the source water assessment requirements of the
Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and other Federal, State and local
programs. Greater inclusiveness and time in the process are especially
important because these programs are diverse and require a substantial
amount of coordination among agencies, levels of government and
different program characteristics. Non-point source 319 grants are a
fundamental tool to address impairments because they can be targeted as
a part of TMDL prioritization, and thus can be used as part of States'
cumulative strategies to clean up impaired waters. Farm Bill funds are
a broad resource to help farmers implement practices that could protect
water quality generally, including by maintaining water quality or
complementing 319 funds in impaired waters. We are looking forward to
States completing their source water assessments under SDWA next year
(2003) so that we can have a clearer picture of the threats to source
waters at both the State and national level.
The TMDL program continues to evolve to meet the challenges of
cleaning up our nation's waters, and several changes to the TMDL
program currently are under consideration. One of the key changes would
reinvigorate the States' continuing planning process under Section
303(e) of the CWA. This section of the Act calls for States to have a
Continuing Planning Process (CPP), which describes how all the pieces
of the States' programs, including TMDLs, work together to achieve
water quality goals. While all States already have some form of CPP, we
will be encouraging States to enhance their CPP programs. We also are
encouraging that TMDL implementation be done as part of revitalized
State continuing planning processes, where States would use their own
approaches and programs to clean up their waters. We believe that this
is good government and puts implementation where it ought to be--at the
State level.
Maintaining high environmental standards and sustaining a healthy
economy require that we optimize costs and conserve our natural
resources. Economic incentives can be an important tool to help meet
this challenge. We must take advantage of market forces to provide
incentives for voluntary reductions, emerging technology and greater
regulatory flexibility.
Water quality trading, for example, holds great promise as a
market-based tool for addressing water pollution. Trading is an
innovative way for water quality agencies and community stakeholders,
including State and local governments, point source dischargers,
contributors to non-point source pollution, citizen groups, other
Federal agencies, and the public at large, to develop common-sense,
cost-effective solutions for water quality problems in their
watersheds. Trading is a tool communities can use to grow and prosper
while retaining their commitment to water quality.
These are not a random set of improvements. They are all important
elements of the shift in paradigms that is necessary to make further
progress in cleaning up America's waters. 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. These tools I have described are the means to
make this shift.
Closing The Funding ``Gap''
Because infrastructure replacement needs largely echo demographic
trends across the country, communities will be challenged in the coming
years as they face needs to increase spending to address replacement of
aging infrastructure built in the 1950-60's, and current demands fueled
by population growth. Several groups have conducted studies to evaluate
whether a funding gap will develop between projected investment needs
and current levels of spending in drinking water and wastewater
infrastructure over the next 20 years. Reports released by these
groups, which include the Water Infrastructure Network and
Congressional Budget Office, have estimated a significant capital
funding gap.
Over the past year, in order to gain a better understanding of the
future challenges for infrastructure to secure clean and safe water,
EPA has conducted its own Gap Analysis study. The study used results
from EPA's needs survey, adjusted for under-reporting of capital needs,
as the starting point for calculating capital and operations and
maintenance investment needs. We then used several alternative
assumptions to generate scenarios for estimating the capital and O&M
gaps. The methods and data used in the analysis were subjected to peer
review by a diverse panel of external reviewers drawn from academia,
industry and think tanks. Overall, the reviewers commended EPA for
making a credible effort to quantify the gap given limitations in
available data, and made several recommendations for changes which were
incorporated into revisions of the Analysis.
The Analysis included two scenarios--a ``no revenue growth''
scenario and a ``revenue growth'' scenario. The ``no revenue growth''
scenario is useful to understand the extent to which spending might
need to increase relative to the status quo. This scenario estimates a
total capital payments gap of $122 billion, or about $6 billion per
year, for clean water. The clean water O&M gap is estimated at $148
billion, or $7 billion per year. It is important to recognize that the
funding gaps would occur only if capital and O&M spending do not
increase from present levels.
In reality, increasing needs likely will prompt increased spending
and thus a smaller funding gap. Thus, if one assumes that spending on
clean water infrastructure increases at 3 percent annually above the
rate of inflation--a ``revenue growth'' scenario--the capital gap is
$21 billion, or about $1 billion per year, and the O&M gap is estimated
at $10 billion, or $0.5 billion per year. This ``revenue growth''
scenario shows the size of the gap if revenue and spending keep pace
with the long-term growth rate expected for the economy as a whole.
Moreover, both scenarios look at the supply side of infrastructure
financing (how to pay for needs) but ignore the demand side (how to
reduce infrastructure costs and make the most efficient use of our
capital facilities). Demand side measures adopted by some utilities
include: asset management and administrative restructuring (including
consolidation and/ or privatization), which can reduce capital and O&M
costs; and, rate structures that better reflect the cost of service and
encourage conservation. However, the Analysis is very important,
because it presents a dramatic indication of the funding gap that will
result if we ignore the challenges posed by an aging infrastructure
network--a significant portion of which is beginning to reach the end
of its useful design life.
During the current session, Congress has been paying attention to
water infrastructure. As we stated in our testimony on S. 1961 earlier
this year, the Administration does not support the authorization levels
as they do not reflect the President's priorities of defense and
homeland security. However, there are elements of the bills that we do
support, such as new loan conditions tied to utilities' fiscal
sustainability. At the same time, we continue to state that we want to
make sure that the conditions operate in ways that are workable for
loan applicants and States alike, and that the SRFs can continue to
function to provide the needed kinds of assistance.
Most infrastructure investment has been, and will continue to be,
derived from local sources, be they ratepayers or taxpayers. To meet
these future challenges, we believe our strategy should be fiscally
responsible and sustainable. While some of the goals and principles we
have stated are reflected in legislation before Congress, some
represent actions that can be taken administratively. Thus, EPA will
convene a forum of stakeholders to address the infrastructure challenge
in new and innovative ways. Ensuring that our infrastructure needs are
addressed will require a shared commitment on the part of the Federal,
State, and local governments, private business, and consumers.
Water Conservation
While the traditional focus of the EPA and local officials
responsible for water programs has been on water quality, I maintain
that both today and in the future, we must pay much closer attention to
understanding and managing our demands for clean water. Water is truly
the staple of our existence.
This summer of drought is harshly reminding many Americans of the
need to appreciate clean water as the scarce and invaluable resource it
is. As our population increases, the need for clean water supplies
continues to grow dramatically and puts additional stress on our
limited water resources. I truly believe that efficient water use needs
to be an essential part of our daily lives. The local, State, and
Tribal officials who are leading the way in our communities in
implementing water efficiency measures are not only saving water, but
also are forestalling the need to build new, expensive water and
wastewater treatment plants. Administrator Christine Todd Whitman has
recently recognized the critically important work of these officials,
and asked the American people to join her in accepting the challenge to
conserve our water.
conclusion
We have made tremendous progress in cleaning up our waters over the
past three decades--an achievement that is even more remarkable in
coming alongside substantial increases in our population growth and
often-dramatic economic growth. As a Nation, we can be proud of how far
we've come, and of the partnerships among all levels of government, the
private sector and America's citizens that enabled us to get there.
Those remarkable achievements should strengthen our resolve to persist
in facing the tough work still before us, and to continue and enhance
the cooperation and the working relationships that are essential to
reach our goal of clean water for everyone, all across the Nation. We
at EPA appreciate your support and commitment to these vital goals, and
look forward to blazing a path toward them together.
This concludes my prepared remarks. I would be happy to address any
questions you may have at this time.
______
Responses of G. Tracey Mehan to Additional Questions
from Senator Jeffords
Question 1. Mr. Mehan, as I know you are aware, EPA released its
annual water quality inventory report. The report tells us what many
here today will say over and over. We have made progress, but our water
is still not clean.
The report states that of those assessed, almost 40 percent of
rivers, 45 percent of lakes, and more than half of our shorelines are
still polluted. The report notes that non-point source pollution
remains the largest cause of pollution in the country.
Currently, the Section 319 program of the Clean Water Act is the
principle program to mitigate non-point pollution.
Is that program, as structured, strong enough to significantly
reduce non-point source pollution?
Response. Not only is non-point source pollution (NPS) the largest
cause of pollution in the country, but its solution presents unique
challenges that have not been faced, or have been faced only to a
lesser extent, by other pollution control programs administered by EPA.
The non-point source pollution program established in Section 319,
essentially a grant program, provides States the authority to design
programs to include a balance, as each State sees fit, of regulatory
programs, technical assistance, financial assistance, education,
training, technology transfer, and demonstration projects.
Congressional appropriations for Section 319 were $238 million in
fiscal year 2002. These funds have enabled States to implement a
significant number of watershed projects that demonstrate the ability
to address a broad variety of non-point source problems and thereby to
improve water quality. EPA guidelines direct that $100 million of these
funds be focused upon the remediation of impaired waters listed by
States under Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act.
The new Farm Bill enacted by Congress in fiscal year 2002 provides
a significant addition of funding resources that, if used wisely, can
help restore a significant number of waterbodies that are currently
impaired by agricultural sources of NPS pollution. Section 319, along
with appropriately targeted USDA programs such as the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement
Program (a component of the CRP) can make a significant contribution to
reducing our nation's NPS pollution.
Question 2. What is EPA doing to ensure that remaining non-point
source pollution problems are eliminated?
Response. EPA's fiscal year 2002 and 2003 guidelines direct that
$100 million of the Section 319 funds be focused upon the remediation
of impaired waters listed by States under Section 303(d) of the Clean
Water Act. Additionally in fiscal year 2003, up to 20 percent of the
funds can be used to develop non-point source (NPS) TMDLs and
watershed-based plans to implement NPS TMDLs; develop watershed-based
plans in the absence of or prior to completion of TMDLs; develop
watershed-based plans that focus on the protection of threatened waters
or other unimpaired waters; and conduct other NPS monitoring and
program assessment/development activities.
States are encouraged to develop watershed-based plans that contain
nine components that are critical to ensuring that the projects succeed
in their efforts to restore water quality. These include the
identification of the pollutants causing water quality impairments; the
sources of those pollutants; the management measures and practices that
will be needed to address those sources appropriately; the financial,
legal, and/or other tools that will be relied upon to assure
implementation; a process to involve local citizens in helping
implement the project; and a monitoring and feedback loop, resulting in
any necessary changes to the project.
EPA has also significantly improved, and is continuing to, improve
its accountability system to assure that State progress is tracked.
Beginning in fiscal year 2002, we have required States to report on the
pollutant load reductions (for phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment) that
are achieved in each project. Moreover, we have created a computer-
based mapping system that enables us to display on a map each waterbody
that is impaired and to also display the watersheds where States spend
319 funds; we will thus be able to map the impact that State 319
implementation has over time on those impaired waterbodies by
``changing their color'' on the map. We will be working with the States
to also develop this year a set of rigorous short-term and long-term
goals that will motivate targeted implementation activities to restore
water quality.
In addition to these activities, EPA is working closely with USDA
to promote the use of Farm Bill funds to address water quality, as
explained in response to Question 1 above. We believe that effective
use of Farm Bill funds will be critical to our national efforts to
eliminate non-point source pollution problems.
Question 3. The report also underscores the need for EPA to
implement a strong TMDL program to clean up those water bodies still
not meeting their designated uses. I understand that EPA is currently
in the process of revising the TMDL rule developed under President
Clinton.
One of the more disturbing revisions in the draft would allow
States to more easily de-list polluted waters. Another would make EPA's
responsibility to develop a plan, in cases of State inaction,
discretionary rather than mandatory. After 30 years, many States have
produced only a handful of TMDLs, others have not produced a single
one.
How can EPA expect the new TMDL program to do a better job than the
current regulation if EPA is relaxing its standards and reducing EPA's
oversight role?
Response. The regulations currently in effect are the regulations
promulgated in 1985 and amended in 1992. The regulation published on
July 13, 2000 has never gone into effect. Because of the intense
controversy generated by the rule, including the congressional spending
prohibition on funds for fiscal year 2000 and fiscal year 2001 as well
as legal challenges by a broad array of litigants, EPA has set an
effective date for the rule of April 30, 2003. The Agency believed that
this delay would be sufficient to conduct a meaningful consultation
process, analyze and reconcile the recommendations of the various
stakeholders and promulgate changes to the currently effective rule, if
necessary. It also enabled us to review recommendations in a report
from the National Research Council entitled, ``Assessing the TMDL
Approach to Water Quality Management,'' which recommends changes to the
TMDL program.
After careful review, EPA published a notice in the Federal
Register on December 27, 2002, proposing to withdraw the 2000 TMDL
rule. EPA is developing a staff draft of proposed changes to the
currently effective rule, which EPA hopes will be an improvement over
the current program that will be less controversial than the 2000 rule
and have buy-in from most stakeholders. Such buy-in is essential for
the program to make significant additional process.
As far as listing and de-listing of waters, our present thinking is
to offer significant improvement over both the current rule and the
2000 rule. The approach would require an integrated report on the
status of all waters in a State with an opportunity for public comment
on the report. Such an integrated report would allow EPA and the public
to track both listed and unlisted waters from report period to report
period. States would be required to use the same science-based criteria
to add or remove waters from the 303(d) list within the integrated
report. We would also require States to provide good cause, when asked
by EPA, for not including waters on the 303(d) list. Further we would
require the State to develop and get public comment on the methodology
they intend to use to develop the integrated report.
Under the current regulations, States have made significant
progress over the last 2 years. EPA approved 1,779 TMDLs in fiscal year
1999, 2,162 TMDLs in fiscal year 2000 and 3, 485 TMDLs in fiscal year
2001. Further TMDL have been approved in nearly all of the States.
Under the statute, EPA must prepare TMDLs where a State fails to do so,
and EPA takes this responsibility seriously. However, the statute sets
no specific timetable for exercising this authority and, based on
public comment and consultation with States, EPA believes it is
appropriate to retain flexibility regarding the timing of EPA
backstopping activities.
Question 4. When does EPA plan to propose the rule change?
Response. EPA is still working on a new TMDL rule. No date has been
established for completion of this work.
Question 5. Will you rescind the Clinton rule at the same time?
Response. EPA published a notice in the Federal Register on
December 27, 2002, proposing to withdraw the July 2000 rule. EPA
intends to take final action on that proposal before the July 2000's
effective date of April 30, 2003.
Question 6. What specific changes does EPA plan to propose?
Response. The draft rule would improve the listing and assessment
process, clarify the TMDL submittal and approval process, provide added
opportunity for stakeholder involvement, clarify TMDL implementation
through watershed planning, and strengthen the State planning process.
Question 7. One of the primary goals of the Clean Water Act is to
eliminate the discharge of raw sewage waste into the nation's waters.
That goal is also still to be achieved.
About 40,000 times a year, raw sewage overflows into U.S. rivers,
lakes, and coastal waters. About 400,000 basement backups of sewage
pollute America's homes every year, and sewage overflows also spill
onto streets and even playgrounds. Sanitary sewers are designed to
carry wastes to sewage treatment plants, but when overloaded,
inadequately maintained or obstructed, they dump raw sewage into
waterways. These events are called sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs).
In January 2001, the Bush Administration blocked proposed
regulations that would require improved capacity and operation of
sewage systems and would require that systems notify the public when
overflows occur. Those proposed regulations were based on the consensus
recommendations of a Federal Advisory Committee. Now, 20 months since
January 2001, the EPA still has not proposed this regulation. Why not?
Response. I share your concern regarding the importance of
responsibly controlling SSOs. In many of our cities, SSOs are resulting
in the discharge of raw sewage directly into local waterways, although
they are already covered by the Clean Water Act and generally
prohibited as unpermitted discharges. EPA agrees that SSOs continue to
be an important environmental issue that needs to be addressed. The
Agency received extensive comments and suggestions in response to its
January 2001 draft proposed regulations. One point on which there is
general consensus is that it is not technically possible to eliminate
all overflows cost-effectively under all circumstances; some are caused
by events beyond the sewer operator's reasonable control. An on-going
concern is how best to minimize such overflows and their environmental
impacts and how to address them when they occur. EPA and States are
continuing to address SSO problems with compliance assistance and
enforcement in accordance with the EPA's April 27, 2000, Compliance and
Enforcement Strategy Addressing Combined Sewer Overflows and Sanitary
Sewer Overflows.
Question 8. Does the EPA intend to propose the regulation agreed to
by the Federal Advisory Committee? If so, when? If not, why not?
Response. In October 1999, the SSO Federal Advisory Subcommittee
supported, when taken as a whole and recognizing that they are
interdependent, basic principles for suggested NPDES permit
requirements for municipal sanitary sewer collection systems and SSOs.
EPA reflected the approach discussed with the SSO Subcommittee in its
January 2001 draft notice of proposed rulemaking. The Agency received
extensive comments and suggestions in response to this draft. We are
considering various regulatory options and have not settled upon a
course of action.
Question 9. How many people are made ill or die every year because
of sanitary sewer overflows? How many waterways are polluted by
overflow events? Is this source of pollution preventable?
Response. EPA is preparing a Report to Congress that will provide
the Agency's first national assessment of the impacts of SSOs. The
Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001, P.L. 106-554,
required EPA to transmit to Congress by December 15, 2003, a report
summarizing:
The extent of human health and environmental impacts
caused by combined sewer overflows and SSOs, including the location of
discharges, the volume of pollutants discharged, and the constituents
discharged.
The resources spent by municipalities to address these
impacts.
An evaluation of the technologies used by municipalities
to address these impacts.
Human health impacts: The Report will rely on recent
scientific research including studies for the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization. Such
research, however, generally does not distinguish human illness
resulting from water-borne pathogens originating in sewage from
illnesses from other sources. Providing an estimate of the number of
illnesses caused by SSOs in the U.S. will be exceptionally difficult.
On August 14, 2002, EPA convened a group of public health experts
from CDC, academic institutions, and EPA to discuss a methodology for
quantifying human illness caused by sewer overflows. This group
concurred with EPA's assessment of the state of information available
on public health impacts and the complexity of this issue. A summary of
this meeting will be published later this year and will be available on
EPA's web site at www.epa.gov/npdes.
Water bodies polluted: EPA is evaluating the extent of the SSO
problem in its Economic Analysis for the SSO proposed rule as well as
the Report to Congress. On an interim basis, the Agency estimates that
30,000-50,000 SSO events occur each year; these vary dramatically in
size and potential impact. Not all SSOs are expected to reach waters of
the United States and cause or contribute to violations of water
quality standards or human health problems. Very few are expected to
cause long-term water pollution problems.
Prevention: The Economic Analysis for the proposed SSO rule will
assess the percentage of SSOs nationwide that are attributable to
various causes. EPA currently believes that most SSOs can be prevented
through improvements to operation and maintenance of collection systems
or investments to increase the capacity of collection systems. However,
EPA recognizes that some SSOs are caused by factors beyond the
operator's reasonable control.
Question 10. Do sewage operators oppose require public notice of
sewage overflow events? Does anybody? Why shouldn't this part of the
proposed rule be adopted immediately?
Response. Representatives of key municipal stakeholder groups
participated in the SSO Federal Advisory Subcommittee that supported,
when taken as a whole and recognizing that they are interdependent,
basic principles for suggested NPDES permit requirements for municipal
sanitary sewer collection systems and SSOs. These include public notice
requirements. These municipal groups continue to support rulemaking for
SSO requirements, provided EPA invites comment on potential alternative
regulatory options. However, municipal representatives have indicated
(based on an April 20, 2002, letter to the Administrator) that they
oppose any attempt to break up the different parts of the SSO proposal
and propose them in a piecemeal fashion.
Question 11. As you are aware, 4 weeks ago this committee
unanimously passed an amendment allowing communities that are required
to obtain stormwater permits beginning in March of next year to
continue to use section 319 funds for stormwater projects and for other
activities in the same town. I understand that you are in the process
of making a policy determination on the same issue. What is the status
of that review?
Response. The Office of Water and the Office of General Counsel
have been reviewing the questions of whether and to what extent the
current statutory scheme authorizes the use of Section 319 funds to
fund storm water projects that may be covered by the storm water
regulatory framework implemented under the Clean Water Act's point
source provisions. We have not finalized our review of this issue nor
formulated a final policy determination.
Question 12. Can you provide the committee with a list of all
lawsuits brought against the EPA involving the 1992 TMDL rule with a
description of why the suit was brought forward?
Response. There were no legal challenges to the 1992 TMDL rule
itself. However, there were a number of lawsuits seeking orders
compelling EPA to establish TMDLs if the States failed to do so in
accordance with Section 303(d) and the 1992 rule. The following chart
provides information on those lawsuits.
TMDL Litigation by State
23 states in which epa is under court order or agreed in consent decree
to establish tmdls if states do not establish tmdls
Alabama (1998; 5 year schedule)
Alaska (1992; no schedule)
Arkansas (2000; 10 year schedule)
Calif. (LA) (1999; 13 year schedule)
Calif. (North Coast) (1997; 11 year schedule)
Calif. (Newport Bay) (1997; 4 year schedule)
Delaware (1997; 10 year schedule)
District of Columbia (2000; 7 year schedule)
Florida (1999; 13 year schedule)
Georgia (1997; 7\1/2\ year schedule)
Hawaii (partial cd; 2001; 1 year schedule)
Iowa (2001; 9 year schedule)
Kansas (1998; 10 year schedule)
Louisiana (2002; 10 year schedule)
Mississippi (1998; 10 year schedule)
Missouri (2001; 10 year schedule
Montana (2000; 7 year schedule)
Nevada (partial CD; 2002; 2 year schedule)
New Mexico (1997; 20 year schedule)
Oregon (2000; 10 year schedule)
Pennsylvania (1997; 12 year schedule)
Tennessee (2001; 10 year schedule)
Virginia (1999; 12 year schedule)
Washington (1998; 15 year schedule)
West Virginia (1997; 10 year schedule
2 states with respect to which plaintiffs have filed litigation seeking
to compel epa to establish tmdls
Ohio (2001 complaint)
Wyoming (1996 complaint)
15 states (12 actions) dismissed without orders that epa establish
tmdls (some cases were resolved with settlement agreements)
Arizona (EPA completed all consent decree obligations; decree
terminated July 17, 2000)
California (9th Circuit affirmed dismissal, 2002)
Colorado (Joint Motion for Administrative Closure filed August 24,
1999; parties signed settlement agreement in which EPA agreed to
establish TMDLs if State did not) Idaho (EPA Motion to Dismiss granted
1997; settlement agreement signed 2002)
Lake Michigan (WI, IL, IN, MI) (Scott case--final order 1984;
related NWF case challenging EPA actions in response to Scott order--
case dismissed 1991)
Minnesota (Dismissed 1993)
Maryland (Dismissed 2001)
New Jersey (Dismissed 2002)
New York (EPA Motion to Dismiss granted on all but one claim May 2,
2000)
North Carolina (Joint Stipulation of Dismissal filed June 1998; EPA
agreed by letter to ensure development of a TMDL for the Neuse River by
date certain) Oklahoma (Tenth Circuit upheld dismissal of case on
August 29, 2001) South Dakota (Dismissed without prejudice on August
27, 1999)
______
Responses of G. Tracey Mehan to Additional Questions
from Senator Chafee
Question 1. The Clean Water Act (CWA) specifies that National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits may not be
issued for a term longer than 5 years. What is the current state of the
NPDES backlog? Is EPA on target to meet its backlog reduction goals?
Response. Currently, the backlog for NPDES permits is about 17
percent for major facilities, 26 percent for minor facilities, and 18
percent for all minor facilities when those covered by non-storm water
general permits are also considered. While our goal of 10 percent
backlog for major facilities by the end of fiscal year 2001 has already
passed, significant progress was made and continues to be made to
reduce backlog for major permits. Given the rate of permit issuance and
data clean-up for permits, 10 percent backlog for all permits by the
end of CY 2004 remains possible.
EPA and States have made a dedicated effort to reduce permit
backlog. Some of the specific actions we have taken to help reduce
permit backlog include:
issuing national guidance to ensure the issuance of timely
and high quality NPDES permits
teaching six training courses each year for approximately
350 EPA and State permit writers. We are currently developing advanced
permit writer and train-the-trainer courses.
conducting an ongoing data quality assurance review
program, eliminating 18,000 old records from PCS, thereby improving the
accuracy of the data.
developing and distributing permit quality management
tools to the Regions and States to help improve permit quality and
timeliness.
developing and distributing electronic permit application
and permit writing tools.
While EPA and States have made significant progress toward reducing
the NPDES permit backlog, it is imperative to ensure that EPA and the
State resources are focused on reviewing and reissuing those permits
with the greatest potential for environmental benefit. To this end, our
office has initiated an effort to characterize the universe of NPDES
permits, and the associated backlog, with respect to several indicators
of their potential environmental impact. We are currently comparing
backlogged permits for dischargers near impaired waters, and based on
previous analysis believe it will be about 50 percent. We are also
looking to compare which ones are near drinking water supplies. The
results of that characterization will be used, on an ongoing basis, to
establish priorities and measure program progress toward addressing the
most environmentally significant permits. As these data become
available in the future, we will be happy to share the results of our
analyses.
Question 2. How will EPA's new Watershed Grants Program build upon
the ongoing work of local governments and community organizations
across the country to restore watershed resources?
Response. The goal of the Watershed Initiative is to advance the
success of partnerships and coalitions that have undertaken the
necessary steps and have developed a technically sound watershed plan
that is ready to be carried out. Experience has shown us that strong
partnerships and well laid plans lead to positive environmental
results. If it receives congressional funding, the Administration's new
Watershed Initiative will focus on successful partnerships--
partnerships that have proven working relationships and established
track records. Watershed plans that incorporate a wide variety of
partnerships will be favored.
Question 3. Beginning in March 2003, the Phase II Storm Water
Program will require States to develop and implement management plans
to address storm water runoff. I understand that EPA's Office of
General Counsel (OGC) is currently reviewing whether States may
continue to use Section 319 funds for Phase II Storm Water Program
activities and, more generally, in Phase II geographic jurisdictions.
What is the status of OGC's review with regard to the use of Section
319 funds for addressing storm water and urban water quality concerns?
Response. The Office of Water and the Office of General Counsel
have been reviewing the questions of whether and to what extent the
current statutory scheme authorizes the use of Section 319 funds to
fund storm water projects that may be covered by the storm water
regulatory framework implemented under the Clean Water Act's point
source provisions. We have not finalized our review of this issue.
______
Responses of G. Tracey Mehan to Additional Questions
from Senator Voinovich
Question 1. On August 27, 2002, the Effluent Guidelines Program
Plan was published in the Federal Register. The Plan gives a brief
update on the status of EPA's draft ``Strategy for National Clean Water
Act Regulations'' and invites the public to identify existing
regulations that EPA should consider revising. What is the ``Strategy
for National Clean Water Act Regulations'' and what do you hope to
achieve as a result of this effort?
Response. The draft ``Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial
Regulations'' outlines a process that EPA proposes to use for future
decisions regarding effluent guidelines. A documented and systematic
process will help EPA identify existing effluent guidelines the Agency
should consider revising and also identify industrial categories for
which the Agency should consider developing new effluent guidelines.
The Strategy will provide a framework for good decisions regarding
resource allocation and the need to develop new regulations and will
assist EPA in carrying out its obligation under the Clean Water Act to
revise effluent guidelines as appropriate. The Strategy offers EPA and
interested stakeholders an excellent opportunity to evaluate the
existing program and to consider how national industrial regulations
can best support the national clean water program.
Two overarching goals guided the development of the draft Strategy:
reducing risk to human health and the environment, and assuring
transparent decisionmaking. EPA hopes the Strategy will increase
understanding of the planning process, and broaden public participation
in decisions about how technology-based regulations can best meet the
needs of the national clean water program. EPA is also looking for ways
that the Strategy can help spur the development of innovative
technologies, promote multi-media pollution prevention, and expand the
use of market-based incentives to improve the quality of our nation's
waters.
On November 29, EPA published a notice of availability of the draft
``Strategy for National Clean Water Industrial Regulations'' and
announced a public meeting scheduled for January 15. Comments on the
draft strategy are due by February 27, 2003. In addition, the
Industrial Wastewater and Best Available Treatment Technology
Conference will be held February 26-28, 2003.
Question 2. The SRF program has been a successful funding source
for communities seeking to upgrade their water infrastructure. While I
agree with your statement that ``because of the revolving nature of the
funds, dollars invested in the SRFs provide about four times the
purchasing power over 20 years compared to what would occur if the
funds were distributed directly to municipalities as grants,'' I
continue to believe that grant programs should be available to help
communities that may not be able to afford low-interest loans. Do you
believe funding for grant programs, such as the sewer overflow control
grant program, should be included in the President's budget and
appropriated by Congress?
Response. We do not believe that new grant programs should be
included in the President's budget and appropriated by Congress.
Question 3. In August, I conducted a field hearing on the problem
of oxygen depletion in the central basin of Lake Erie. One of the
possible causes of oxygen depletion may be aquatic nuisance species
such as the zebra or quagga mussels. What is EPA doing to assess the
impact aquatic nuisance species are having on water quality? What can
be done at the Federal and State level to prevent the introduction and
spread of aquatic nuisance species?
Response. The U.S. EPA, Great Lakes National Program Office,
through its Lake Erie Supplemental Study, is investigating several
aspects of aquatic nuisance species' impacts on water quality. Some of
the more important aspects of the research deal with assessing mussel
abundance, and measuring how zebra and quagga mussels affect the
environment through their feeding, and excretion of nutrients
(especially phosphorus and nitrogen). The work of assessing the lake-
wide abundance of zebra and quagga mussels began during the summer of
2002, and will continue into 2003. Researchers have started to measure
the important zebra and quagga mussel nutrient cycling rates as part of
the study. Efforts are also underway to determine the role of another
aquatic nuisance species, the round goby, in water quality changes. Our
aim is to be able to use this new information to revise historically
proven models of Lake Erie's ecosystem. This will help us understand
how aquatic nuisance species, and changes in, for example, water level
and water temperature, are affecting Lake Erie's water quality. Results
of the 2002 fieldwork are due from the investigators by early summer
2003 and will be reported widely within the basin.
Preventing the introduction and controlling the spread of aquatic
nuisance species is an important component of any invasive species
management plan. In the Great Lakes, ballast water is the most
significant vector for the introduction of aquatic invasive species.
Federal and State agencies have been very active in the development and
testing of ballast water treatment technologies. The Coast Guard, NOAA,
and EPA on the Federal side and the State of Michigan have all
supported projects focusing on ballast water treatment. Specific
technologies currently being examined and tested include: filtration;
hydrocylone separation; ultra-violet light; ozone; and biocides, among
others. There is also a significant amount of effort underway to
examine the impacts of ships entering the Great Lakes claiming No
Ballast on Board (NOBOB). A joint Coast Guard, NOAA, EPA study is
currently underway examining the risk posed from these NOBOB vessels.
Additionally, the Office of Water is supporting the US Coast
Guard's efforts to develop new ballast water regulations by conducting
environmental assessments and economic analyses. The Coast Guard is
currently finalizing a proposed rule that would require reporting on
ballast water management practices by all ships entering U.S. waters.
The data gathered from this reporting will in turn help to support
further regulations, with the goal of establishing effective,
achievable standards for the release of organisms from ballast water
discharges. The Office of Water is currently working on environmental
analyses to support ballast water management and treatment standards
regulations.
Question 4. In your testimony, in reference to S. 1961, you state
that the Administration wants to make sure that loan conditions
``operate in ways that are workable for loan applicants and States
alike, and that the SRFs can continue to function to provide the needed
kinds of assistance.'' You also state that ``While some of the goals
and principles . . . are reflected in the legislation before Congress,
some represent actions that can be taken administratively.'' As you may
know, I have taken an active interest in S. 1961 and many stakeholders
are ``up in arms'' about the prescript-
iveness of the bill. What changes would you recommend to the bill to
address these concerns?
Response. As has been stated in previous testimony, the
Administration supports the objectives behind the loan conditions that
are in accordance with basic principles guiding our infrastructure
revitalization efforts. Provisions dealing with such areas as long-term
technical, financial, and managerial capacity; asset management
planning; rate structures that reflect cost of service and capital
replacement costs; and consolidation, partnerships or alternative
nonstructural approaches, are among the most important innovations in
the legislation. Of course, framing these provisions and others in the
bill in a workable and flexible manner is important to ensuring the
continuous high level of effectiveness of the SRF program. We want to
work with the Congress and the States in finding ways to create the
necessary incentives that move us in this direction.
__________
Statement of Thomas A. Weber, Associate Chief, Natural Resources
Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear
before you today to present the Department of Agriculture's perspective
on the Clean Water Act and the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of
this historic Act. I thank the members of the committee for the
opportunity to appear, and I would like to express gratitude to the
chairman and members of this body for your interest in USDA's roles in
improving water quality.
The 30th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act is cause for
celebration about the improvements that have been made in the quality
of our Nation's waters. At USDA, we are celebrating this event along
with our many partners at the Federal, State, Tribal, and local
levels--including our non-governmental partners, farmers, ranchers, and
woodlot owners. And as we celebrate the past 30 years, we are also
reflecting on USDA's natural resource conservation heritage, and upon
the significant work ahead of us as we enter this new century.
a historical perspective
The People's Department, as Abraham Lincoln referred to USDA, has
played a key role in the management of nonpoint sources of pollution
for nearly a century, long before the word nonpoint was part of our
vocabulary. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt named Gifford Pinchot
the Chief Forester of the redefined U.S. Forest Service and signed the
Act transferring the Nation's Forest Reserves from the Department of
the Interior to the Department of Agriculture. This Act gave USDA its
first authority to protect forestlands and the water resources they
produce. Pinchot, Roosevelt, and their contemporaries believed in the
wise use and management of all the Earth's natural resources, and began
a nationwide Conservation Movement.
In the early 1900's, the Department was conducting soil surveys,
identifying ``rough gullied land'' and the resulting sediment that made
its way to nearby creeks, streams, and rivers. In the 1920's, Hugh
Hammond Bennett, a USDA soil scientist who later became the first Chief
of my Agency, drew upon his observations about soil erosion's impacts
on agriculture. He was evangelistic in delivering his message on
natural resource conservation and his writings and speeches were
sprinkled with admonitions about the ``evil of erosion'', how
``rainwater running wild'' would result from poor land management, and
other interesting phrases. Concerning water pollution from sediment and
nutrients, Bennett made note of ``the waste material marching down to
the Gulf of Mexico.''
In the 1920's and 1930's, Congress responded to natural resource
degradation in many ways. Congress authorized the formation of soil
conservation experiment stations; it created the Civilian Conservation
Corps and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, marking the
beginning of public-sector erosion control assistance on private
agricultural land; it formed the Soil Erosion Service, later named the
Soil Conservation Service; and it established controls for livestock on
public lands that began to prevent overgrazing and soil deterioration.
Many of these new initiatives were responses to the devastation caused
by poor land management during a period of terrible droughts--commonly
called the ``Dust Bowl.'' Other water resource protection authorities
were established for USDA in the 1950's and 1960's.
clean water act brings new emphasis
When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, it triggered a new
national emphasis on the problems created by poor land and water
management practices. Congress appropriately recognized the differences
between point and nonpoint sources of pollution, and it established
differing approaches to solving these distinct problems. New emphasis
on water quality concerns also occurred at USDA and it has been of
critical importance to our natural resource conservation work ever
since. USDA's agencies that work on natural resource issues--including
the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Forest Service, Farm
Service Agency, Agricultural Research Service, the Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service, and Economic Research
Service--have emphasized water quality issues related to agricultural
and forest land management in their program delivery, research,
education, and extension efforts.
These efforts, performed in partnership with local soil and water
conservation districts, State and Federal conservation and natural
resource agencies, and owners and operators of the land, have been
instrumental in protecting our soil and water resources. For instance,
we are presently experiencing another major drought--the most
significant drought since the Dust Bowl days. While the drought has
resulted in decreased crop and forage production and imposed financial
losses on farmers and ranchers, there is little threat of widespread
natural resource degradation as experienced during the Dust Bowl. The
poor land management practices of the 1930's have been replaced by and
large with sound soil erosion reduction practices of today, such as
conservation tillage, crop residue management, terraces, and
conservation buffers. On working cropland and Conservation Reserve
Program land, soil erosion caused by wind and water has been cut by 38
percent since 1982. Less erosion means cleaner water, improved fish and
wildlife habitat, and more fertile soils. On the subject of
conservation buffers, since 1997, over 1.2 million miles of
conservation buffers (about 4 million acres) have been established
nationally on farms and ranches to protect water resources and
establish wildlife habitat. Locally in the Chesapeake Bay watershed,
the goal of establishing 2,010 miles of conservation buffers by the
year 2010 will be completed this year--eight years ahead of the target!
21st century opportunities
Last September, Secretary Veneman released Food and Agriculture
Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century. This document provided
guidance on future agriculture policy, and identified emerging
challenges facing farmers and ranchers across the Nation. A key
component dealt with the environment and natural resources, and
highlighted policy options for meeting a breadth of conservation
challenges including water quality and quantity. A central aspect of
the conservation portion of that document was the proposition that
market-based solutions should be developed and implemented as a means
to achieve conservation goals. The document also pointed out that
farmers and ranchers need voluntary conservation opportunities
commensurate with the regulatory challenges they face.
Congress responded this year with the 2002 Farm Bill that provides
for significant program authorities and funding levels to sustain past
environmental gains, accommodate new and emerging environmental
concerns, and to adopt a portfolio approach to conservation policies
and programs. Secretary Veneman, in recent testimony before the Senate
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, stated that ``We are
pleased with the strong conservation programs contained in the Farm
Bill. The changes in the conservation policy support this
Administration's commitment to a voluntary approach and provide the
Nation's producers with a comprehensive portfolio of conservation
options including cost-share, incentive, land retirement, and easement
programs.''
For example, two provisions of the Farm Bill will substantially
strengthen conservation efforts which complement Clean Water Act goals
and objectives. Under the 2002 Farm Bill, funding for the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is increased to more than six times
previously authorized levels. As a result, USDA will be able to
implement a greater number of important conservation projects such as
nutrient management and sediment control on an accelerated basis. In
the area of wetlands, the popular Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) was
authorized by the 2002 Farm Bill for restoration and protection of an
additional 1.25 million acres. This is a total land area roughly the
size of the State of Delaware. Without question, the opportunities
presented in the Farm Bill will lend greatly toward reduction of
nutrients and sediments in water bodies as well as reversing wetland
conversion on a national scale. The increased conservation funding may
address natural resource priorities, such as impaired waterways or
critical watersheds, allowing USDA to help advance many of the Clean
Water Act's objectives.
year of clean water activities
In this Year of Clean Water, America's Clean Water Foundation has
coordinated a series of national events to focus public attention on
the importance of clean water. USDA has participated in the planning of
these events along with many other co-sponsors. USDA's agencies have
also conducted their own activities throughout the year to help
publicize and inform the public of clean water benefits. We want to
publicly applaud the efforts of America's Clean Water Foundation and
its President, Roberta Savage, for her tremendous job of conceiving and
coordinating these many activities. We are pleased to have been a part
of this celebration and we look forward to our involvement in this
month's events.
closing
In closing, allow me to provide you with an observation by Aldo
Leopold, the internationally respected scientist and conservationist
who served for 19 years in the U.S. Forest Service (1909-1928) and
later served on the faculty of the Department of Agricultural Economics
at the University of Wisconsin. As you may know, Leopold espoused the
notion of a land ethic and he said this:
``We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we
shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these
higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but
to strive.''
Regarding the Clean Water Act and its 30th Anniversary Celebration,
I believe Aldo Leopold would suggest that we must continue striving to
achieve the higher aspiration of our clean water goals and to continue
to help the public adopt a sound land ethic.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for
inviting USDA to participate in today's hearing. I would be pleased to
respond to your questions.
Statement of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Natural Resources Defense Council
clean water under attack
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to
testify before you today on the anniversary of the passage of the Clean
Water Act of 1972. I am Bobby Kennedy and am testifying this morning on
behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Waterkeeper
Alliance, and the Clean Water Network. NRDC is a national environmental
group that has a long history of working to protect our nation's waters
through the Clean Water Act. Waterkeeper Alliance is a grassroots
organization dedicated to preserving and protecting your waters from
polluters. The Clean Water Network is a coalition of more than 1,000
groups supporting clean water from around the country.
Our nation is at a crossroads in its efforts to address water
pollution, much as we were at a crossroads on Oct. 18, 1972 when the
U.S Congress decided to override the veto of a then very popular
president in order to protect the waters of the United States. Today,
that law, the Clean Water Act, has been in place for exactly 30 years
and has been the model for every subsequent environmental law. But the
Clean Water Act is not just a model of an excellent environmental
statute, its results have been demonstrated in improved water quality
in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters across this country. It is ironic
that we are celebrating the successes of the Clean Water Act today
because at the same time we are trumpeting its environmental
achievements, the Bush Administration is taking away the tools that
made it successful. The Bush Administration is proposing or has already
weakened requirements for treating raw sewage, cleaning up impaired
waters, keeping solid wastes out of waters, protecting wetlands, and
even for defining those rivers, lakes, wetlands, and other waters that
are eligible for Federal protection at all. As it was in 1972, the
course is clear. Our nation cannot afford to let our most precious
resource--our waters--become increasingly polluted and dangerous. We
need to reject the Bush Administration rollbacks and move ahead with
the work of cleaning up our waterways.
our nation's waters before the clean water act
``[T]oday, the rivers of this country serve as little more than
sewers to the seas. Wastes from cities and towns, from farms and
forests, from mining and manufacturing, foul the streams, poison the
estuaries, threaten the life of the ocean depths.'' These are the words
uttered by Senator Edmund Muskie on November 2, 1971, during his
introduction of the bill that would become the Federal Clean Water
Act.\1\ More than a generation has passed since passage of the Act, but
it is important for those of you who remember what our waters used to
be to pass on that knowledge to your children and grandchildren.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. Government Printing Office, A Legislative History of the
Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, 1253 (1973).
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Before the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, clean water
appeared headed for extinction.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ R. Adler, et al, The Clean Water Act: 20 Years Later (1993).
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In March of 1969 there was a blowout at a Union Oil
Company located off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. This
incident resulted in a release of gallons of oil blanketing more than
400 square miles of water with a six-inch thick layer of crude oil, and
covering at least 30 miles of beach. Thousands of sea birds died and
almost all of the fishing in the area was wiped out for several
weeks;\3\
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\3\ M. Graham, The Morning After Earth Day: Practical Environmental
Politics. pp. 27-28. 1999; http://brooklings.nap.edu/books/081573235X/
html/index.html.
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There were record fish kills, including 26 million fish
killed in Lake Thonotosassa, Florida;
The annual commercial harvest of shrimp had dropped from
more than 6.3 million pounds before 1936 to only 10,000 pounds in 1965;
Industrial discharges of mercury into the Detroit River
were at a rate of between 10 and 20 pounds per day, causing in-stream
water quality to exceed by six times the Public Health Service limit
for mercury;\4\
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\4\ 2 Congressional Research Service, Legislative History of the
Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 at 1253 (1973).
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In the 1970's most raw sewage was dumped into our rivers
and lakes. At that time only 85 million people were served by any kind
of sewage treatment plant.\5\
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\5\ Congressional Research Service. Oceans & Coastal Resources: A
Briefing Book, Congressional Research Service Report 97-588 ENR. http:/
/www.cnie.org/nle/crsreports/briefing books/oceans/appendb3.cfm;http://
www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/oped/browner.shtml.
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Less than 10 percent of U.S. watersheds were characterized
as unpolluted or even moderately polluted; and, utterly shocking,
The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, burst into flames
in June 1969 fueled by oil and other industrial wastes.
congress passes the clean water act
The resulting public outrage from these and other terrible
incidents of pollution led to the Clean Water Act and paved the way for
subsequent legislation. With overwhelming bipartisan margins in both
houses of Congress, the Clean Water Act was passed over an initial veto
by President Richard M. Nixon on October 18, 1972. In warning the
representatives of the dangers of failing to override the President's
veto, Representative Thomas ``Tip'' O'Neill from Boston stated,
``Should we fail to act, future generations of Americans living with
dirty, unsafe rivers and lakes would know where to squarely fix the
blame with the Congress that refused to override the groundless
objections of the President.'' \6\
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\6\ 92 Cong. House Debates 1972, FWPC72 Leg. Hist. 15, LEXIS CIS
Legislative Histories SourceFile.
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clean water act begins to protect our nation's waters
The Clean Water Act is commonly viewed as one of the most
successful environmental laws in America. In many ways, the Act truly
did turn the tide on water pollution. We drastically reduced the
percentage of our waters deemed unsafe for fishing and swimming,
invested billions in sewage treatment plants and other technologies,
and cut the rate of wetlands loss by three-fourths.
It has been estimated that, in 1972, 60-70 percent of America's
lakes, rivers and coastal waters were not safe for fishing and
swimming.\7\ According to the most recent Clean Water Quality Report to
Congress, those numbers have dropped to 39 percent for rivers, 45
percent for lakes, and 51 percent for estuaries.\8\ Those numbers are
still far too high, but without stringent regulation we will be back to
1972 statistics.
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\7\ M. Kremer, Clean Water Act 30th Anniversary,
www.surfrider.org.tempurl.com/makingwaves/makingwaves18-1/11.pdf
\8\ U.S. EPA, National Water Quality Inventory: 2000 Report, Fact
Sheet (Sept. 30, 2002), www.epa.gov/305b/2000report.
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The present state of many of our lakes and rivers, when compared to
their conditions in 1972, illustrates the Clean Water Act's
effectiveness. For example, Lake Erie was proclaimed dead in 1970. The
pollution had reached such high levels in Erie and other waterways in
the Great Lakes system that it led to a ban on fishing in certain parts
of the system. Now, 30 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act,
the fish population of Lake Erie has improved significantly--and the
numbers of fish--particularly walleye and bass have increased.\9\
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\9\ From the website of the Joyce Foundation, Cleaning Up Lake
Erie, www.joycefdn.org/articles/enviroarticles/9801cleaning.htm (Oct.
3, 2002).
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The Hudson River has seen dramatic recovery since the 1960's. Back
then, the River was considered an open sewer. Today, it is the only
large river in the North Atlantic that retains strong spawning stocks
of its entire collection of historical migratory species. These fish
support recreational and commercial fisheries along the Atlantic coast
worth hundreds of millions of dollars.\10\
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\10\ From the website of the Hudson Riverkeeper;
www.riverkeeper.org (Oct. 3, 2002).
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During the 1960's and 1970's wastewater and industrial plants were
discharging large amounts of harmful pollutants and nitrogen into Tampa
Bay. The pollution damaged the bottom sediment and killed many
organisms essential to a healthy ecosystem. Since then, thousands of
acres of sea grass on the Bay floor have been recovered. An estimated
15 hundred acres of marsh and mangrove habitats have been restored,
including 250 acres of tidal marshes that are critically important for
fish.\11\
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\11\ http://clinton3.nara.gov/CEO/earthday/ch12.html.
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Dramatic improvement in water quality is readily apparent in Boston
Harbor. In the 1970's sludge was regularly dumped into it and the
ecosystem was on the verge of biological death. Now, seals and
porpoises swim off South Boston's Castle Island, lobsters are routinely
caught and tourists can even take cruises through it.\12\
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\12\ http://www.massnews.com/past--issues/other/envnews.html.
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water pollution challenges ahead
While overall water pollution levels have decreased dramatically
over the past 30 years, recent data show a more troubling story. EPA
just released its biennial survey of the quality of the nation's
assessed waters, which shows for the first time since the passage of
the Clean Water Act that water pollution levels are on the rise.\13\
Worsening conditions are especially apparent for estuaries--13 percent
more of which are too polluted to support their uses than just 4 years
ago. Impairment of estuaries has profound ramifications for the
environment and for the economy since they are nursery areas for many
commercial and recreational fish species and most shellfish
populations, including shrimp, oysters, clams, crabs and scallops.\14\
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\13\ U.S. EPA, National Water Quality Inventory: 2000 Report, T.
Watson, ``EPA Report Shows Water Quality May Be Stagnating,'' USA Today
at 5A (Oct. 6, 2002).
\14\ U.S. EPA, National Water Quality Inventory: 2000 Report at 25.
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The number of beach closings and advisories is also increasing. In
its annual beach report, Testing the Waters, NRDC found the number of
beach closings and advisories has increased in 2001 by 19 percent over
the previous year: 13,410 in 2001 compared with 11,270 in 2000.\15\
Nationally, beach closings and advisories have increased from 2000 in
1991 to more than 13,000 in 2001--more than six times as many closures
and advisories than just 10 years ago.\16\ While much of that increase
is due to better monitoring of beach water quality, that monitoring has
increasingly found unsafe water quality conditions at our nation's
beaches.
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\15\ S. Chasis and M. Dorfman, Testing the Waters at v (July 2002).
\16\ Id.
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Overall, 44 percent of U.S. estuarine waters are degraded,
according to the first National Coastal Condition report, released this
past spring by EPA, NOAA, USGS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.\17\ The report also found that the overall score for eutrophic
condition of estuarine waters is poor and increasing throughout much of
the United States.\18\ Eutrophic conditions result from excessive
nutrients in the waterbody and is usually expressed in overproducton of
algae. Eutrophication depletes the water body of oxygen, making it
unsuitable to support fish and other aquatic wildlife, and it kills
submerged aquatic vegetation.\19\ The National Coastal Condition report
projected that eutrophic conditions would worsen for 70 percent of U.S.
estuaries by 2020.\20\
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\17\ U.S. EPA, National Coastal Condition Report xvi (printed
September 2001) (released April 2002) http://www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/
nccr/index.html.
\18\ Id. at xx.
\19\ Id. at 10.
\20\ Id. at 36.
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Between 1993 and 2000 the percentage of the nations lake acres and
river miles under fish consumption advisories has increased
steadily.\21\ River miles under advisory have increased from 2 percent
in 1993 to 14 percent last year. Lake acres under advisory have
increased from 8 percent in 1993 to 28 percent last year. Twenty-eight
States currently have statewide advisories. One hundred percent of the
Great Lakes and their connecting waters are under advisory. As of 2001,
only one State in the country has no fish consumption advisories in
place.\22\ There are fish consumption advisories for 71 percent of the
coastline in the contiguous 48 States and for 82 percent of estuarine
square miles.\23\ A fish advisory warns the public that high levels of
chemical contaminants have been found in local fish and shellfish and
that eating the fish, especially in significant quantities, may not be
safe.\24\
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\21\ www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advisories/factsheet.pdf.
\22\ Id.
\23\ Id. at xxii.
\24\ Id. at 14.
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The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, now halfway through an 18-
month study, found that around 40,000 acres of coastal wetlands which
provide spawning, feeding and nursery areas for three-fourths of U.S.
commercial fish catches are disappearing each year.\25\
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\25\ J. Heilprin, Panel Finds U.S. Coastal Waters in Trouble.
Associated Press, www.nrdc.org/news/newsDetails.asp?nID=769.
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clean water act's effectiveness in cleaning our waters
While the Clean Water Act has been one of the most successful
environmental laws ever, it has not yet been fully implemented or
enforced.\26\ It also does not adequately address all sources of water
pollution, especially polluted runoff, which remains the largest source
of water pollution in the Nation.\27\ We need full implementation and
enforcement of all CWA provisions and strengthening of those provisions
that are not doing the job of protecting our waterways.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ U.S. Public Interest Group, Permit to Pollute: How the
Government's Lax Enforcement Of The Clean Water Act Is Poisioning Our
Waters (Aug. 6, 2002); http://uspirg.org; U.S. EPA, Office of the
Inspector General, Water Report: State Enforcement of Clean Water Act
Dischargers Can Be More Effective, ES i-iv (Aug. 2001).
\27\ U.S. EPA, 2000 National Water Quality Inventory Report,
Executive Summary at 3, http://www.epa.gov./305b/2000report.
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A key element to the successes achieved to date is that, when it
passed the Clean Water Act, Congress adopted a combination of
techniques to revive the nation's waters:
Protecting a broad range of water resources against
despoiling or destruction. This protection applies broadly to rivers,
lakes, coastal waters and wetlands.
Protecting waters from industrial pollution by setting
minimum technology-based standards for wastewater treatment that would
become increasingly stringent over time.
Ensuring that waters will be clean and safe to use by
determining uses, such as recreation, aquatic habitat, and drinking
water, and setting limits on pollutant discharges designed to meet
those uses.
Building municipal wastewater treatment plants to provide
secondary treatment for all sewage.
Requiring all discrete dischargers of pollutants (i.e.,
point sources) to obtain individual, tailored permits that clearly
specify the discharge requirements necessary to prevent degradation of
its receiving waters.
Requiring States to identify all waters that are too
polluted to be used safely, to determine how much pollutant loads need
to be reduced to clean up those waters, and then to implement a cleanup
plan.
Thus, most of the tools needed to effectively clean the nation's
waters and were crafted by Congress 30 years ago. If these provisions
are fully implemented as stated in this visionary Act, our nation could
achieve the law's now long overdue goals of making all waters safe for
fishing and swimming and ending the discharge of pollutants into
waters.
We must fight to maintain adherence to these techniques and to
continue to strive for achieving the goals of the Clean Water Act that
Congress envisioned in 1972.
bush administration attacks on the clean water act
Unfortunately, each one of these core concepts is under attack by
the Bush Administration. In each case, the industry or industries that
are required to reduce their water pollution discharges have been
lobbying the Bush Administration to reduce protection for the
environment. They have already been successful in derailing a number of
clean water advances, broadening loopholes, and legalizing previously
prohibited destructive practices. The rules and policies of the Bush
Administration are rapidly undoing 30 years of progress and undermining
the billions of dollars our country has invested in the effort to clean
the waters.
Authorizing Raw Sewage Discharges
We did not have to wait long for the Bush Administration attacks on
clean water to begin. The first attack came on Inauguration Day when
President Bush's Chief of Staff announced an immediate moratorium on
all recently adopted regulations. A proposed regulation to control raw
sewage discharges and to require the public to be notified when
overflows occur was withdrawn for further review by EPA. More than a
year and a half later, EPA is still reviewing it and considering
alternatives to that proposal that would authorize permanent discharges
of raw and inadequately treated sewage.
Each year the U.S. experiences about 40,000 overflows of raw sewage
and garbage--such as syringes, toxic industrial waste, and contaminated
stormwater--into its rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. And each year
about 400,000 sewage backups pollute the basements of America's homes.
These overflows expose communities to a host of deadly diseases and
could be a particularly virulent means of transmission for a waterborne
bioterrorist threat.\28\ EPA has estimated that between 1.8 and 3.5
million Americans become sick every year just from swimming in waters
contaminated by sanitary sewer overflows.\29\ Researchers from the
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have estimated that as many as
940,000 Americans become ill and 900 die from waterborne infections
each year, many of which are caused by discharges of raw or
inadequately treated sewage.\30\ These overflows contaminate drinking
water and cause beach closings, fish kills, shellfish bed closures, and
gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses. Sewage-infested waters pose
the greatest threat for children, the elderly, and those with weakened
immune systems.\31\
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\28\ Id.
\29\ U.S. EPA, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit Requirements for Municipal
Sanitary Sewer Collection Systems, Municipal Satellite Collection
Systems, and Sanitary Sewer Overflows (Jan. 4, 2001) (note: there are
no official page citations available since this proposal was not
published).
\30\ J. Bennett, et al., Infectious and parasitic diseases, in
Closing The Gap: The Burden Of Unnecessary Illness 102 (Robert Amler &
H. Bruce Dull eds., Oxford University Press 1987).
\31\ U.S. EPA, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit Requirements for Municipal
Sanitary Sewer Collection Systems, Municipal Satellite Collection
Systems, and Sanitary Sewer Overflows (Jan. 4, 2001).
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Sewer overflows can result in illness and, in extreme cases, death.
Such was the case in the small town of Cabool, Missouri in 1990, when
an overflow was linked to a pathogenic strain of E. coli that killed
four people, hospitalized 32 and caused diarrhea and other problems for
243 more residents.\32\ In 1988, sewage overflows in Ocoee, Florida
periodically flooded a mobile home park during heavy rains and caused
occasional outbreaks of disease, including 39 cases of hepatitis A. Two
years ago, a 34-million gallon spill in San Diego continued unabated
for a week, unmonitored. By the time it was finally discovered and
stopped, solid sewage covered miles of beaches.\33\
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\32\ Id.
\33\ T. Rodgers and S. La Rue, ``City Lacks Early Warning Systems
for Spills'' at A1, San Diego Union-Tribune (Mar. 1, 2000).
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The Environmental Protection Agency rule that the administration
stayed would help keep bacteria-laden raw sewage discharges out of our
streets, waterways and basements, and make public reporting and
notification of sewer overflows mandatory. The proposed rule would also
help protect the public from getting ill from exposure to raw sewage,
would improve capacity, operation and maintenance of sewer systems, and
would cost only $1.92 per household per year.
The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Authorities (AMSA), which
represents sewer operators, is lobbying the administration to abandon
portions of the rule, despite having already agreed to those provisions
in a 5-year Federal advisory committee process. AMSA favors a rule that
would allow its members to continue to discharge raw sewage so long as
they implement a capacity, management, operation, and maintenance
program. AMSA argues that the Clean Water Act's requirement that all
sewage be treated before it is discharged is too expensive. Congress
rejected that argument in 1972, and it has no more basis today.
Investment in our sewer systems is a sound investment in cleaner water
and better health.
The Bush Administration proposal, if ever issued, is likely to be
inconsistent with the CWA goal of providing effective treatment for all
sewage. While these rules sit on the chopping block, raw sewage
continues to flow into our waters, and Americans are still denied even
rudimentary public notice of such contamination in the waters from
which they drink and where they swim and fish. As the late Senator
Edmund S. Muskie said in 1971, ``The fact of raw sewage floating in our
river outrages us.'' \34\ Thirty years later, it still outrages us and
still endangers us.
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\34\ A Legislative History of the Water Pollution Control Act
Amendments of 1972 at 1263.
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New Net Loss of Wetlands
For more than a decade, the cornerstone of America's approach to
wetlands protection has been a policy that calls for ``no net loss'' of
wetlands--a policy that originated with the first Bush Administration.
However, over the last year, the Bush Administration has adopted two
major changes to wetlands protection policy that will result in more
wetlands being filled and destroyed, and, until reversed, have
effectively eliminated the possibility that the Nation can achieve the
no net loss goal.
In October 2001, with no public notice or opportunity for comment,
the Corps of Engineers reversed the long-standing policy no net loss
policy by issuing new ``guidance'' that dramatically weakened standards
for wetland ``mitigation.'' The use of mitigation to try to make up for
wetland losses is already a controversial practice that is often
misused to justify the destruction of existing wetlands in exchange for
a promise to create new wetlands. The new guidance makes this situation
much worse by allowing wetlands to be traded off for dry upland areas
that do not serve the same functions as wetlands. As our natural
wetlands are traded away for uplands, the net loss of wetlands will
increase. The result will be the loss of thousands of acres of wetlands
each year, resulting in less flood protection, less water cleansing,
and less fish and wildlife habitat. Other Federal agencies subsequently
objected, but no guidance to overturn this misguided Corps guidance has
been issued.
Despite the President's Earth Day 2001 pledge to preserve vital
wetlands resources, his administration also relaxed a key provision of
Clean Water Act regulations that govern development and industrial
activity in streams and wetlands, the nationwide permit program. The
Corps loosened these permit standards to make it far easier for
developers, mining companies, and other industries to destroy more
streams and wetlands without any notice or opportunity for the public
to comment. EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service opposed the changes,
but the changes were put into place nonetheless. Developers and mining
interests that brought suit against the previous set of nationwide
permits have been urging the Bush Administration to allow more wetlands
destruction for development, mining, and other purposes. So far, their
voice appears to have outweighed those of environmental and natural
resources experts and the public, which supports strong protections for
the nation's water resources.
Wetlands play a critical role in protection of the environment and
public health. They absorb floodwaters, filter pollution, recharge
groundwater aquifers and provide habitat for hundreds of plant and
animal species, including many that are threatened or endangered.
Since the 1800's, the conterminous U.S. has lost over half of its
wetlands, and the Nation continues to lose at least 60,000 acres of
wetlands each year. This rate of loss will certainly increase as a
result of rollbacks of wetland protections by the Bush Administration.
These changes will mean greater destruction of wetlands, with less
opportunity for notice and comment by the public. The inevitable result
will be increased flooding, more water pollution, and greater loss of
wildlife habitat.
Turning our Waters into Waste Dumps
Allowing masses of industrial wastes to be dumped into streams,
lakes, rivers, and wetlands is contrary to the central purpose of the
Clean Water Act: to restore and maintain the integrity of the nation's
waters. Nothing is more inconsistent with that goal than allowing
industries to bury and permanently destroy waters under huge piles of
industrial debris.
Yet, on May 3, 2000 the Bush Administration eliminated a 25 year-
old Clean Water Act regulation prohibiting the Army Corps of Engineers
from allowing wastes to be used to bury and destroy waters of the
United States.\35\ The rule change was motivated by administration
efforts to legalize the practice of mountaintop removal mining, where
coal companies blast the tops off of mountains and huge volumes of
waste are dumped into nearby valleys, burying streams and wetlands and
killing all aquatic life. Already, in West Virginia and Kentucky alone,
well over 1000 miles of streams have been authorized for destruction by
mountaintop removal waste fills.
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\35\ 67 Fed. Reg. 31129 (May 9, 2002).
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As if this were not bad enough, the Bush proposal would not stop at
the edge of the Appalachian coal fields, but would allow the Corps to
issue permits to all kinds of industries to dump wastes like hardrock
mining waste, construction and demolition debris, and other solid
industrial wastes to bury wetlands, streams, rivers, coastal waters,
and other waterways throughout the country.
The polluters--coal mining companies, gold and copper mining
companies, and other industrial polluters--made these rule changes to
allow them to dump their wastes in waters a top priority. According to
government documents, these industries met with EPA and other Bush
Administration officials to pressure them to rewrite clean water rules
according to industry specifications. The administration acquiesced,
and the final rule gives the Corps authority to permit any industry to
bury any waterway under piles of coal mining waste, hardrock mining
tailings, construction and demolition debris--almost any sort of solid
waste.
Allowing waters to be buried under piles of waste permanently
destroys those waters. The Clean Water Act was adopted in 1972 to
protect our rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and coastal waters. The
very first sentence of the law declared this goal: ``It is the
objective of this chapter to restore and maintain the chemical,
physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters.'' Turning
waters into waste dumps is the very kind of act that the Clean Water
Act was passed by Congress to prevent.
Derailing Cleanup of Polluted Rivers, Lakes, and Coastal Waters
Thirty years after passage of the Clean Water Act, the overwhelming
majority of the population--218 million Americans--lives within 10
miles of a polluted river, lake, or coastal water.\36\ These waters are
not safe for fishing, swimming, boating, much less as drinking water
sources or for other basic uses. The polluted waters include
approximately 270,000 miles of rivers and streams, 7.7 million acres of
lakes, and 15,000 square miles of estuaries that have been assessed and
found to be impaired--polluted by discharges of sediments, nutrients,
and pathogens, as well as pesticides and other toxic chemicals.\37\
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\36\ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlas of America's
Polluted Waters. EPA 840-B-00-002. Washington, DC. 2000.
\37\ U.S. EPA, National Water Quality Inventory: 2000 Report,
http://www.epa.gov/305b/2000report.
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In 1972, the drafters of the Clean Water Act created a program to
ensure that where the law's technology requirements limiting pollution
from factories, sewage plants, and other ``end-of-the-pipe'' pollution
sources were not enough to result in clean, safe water, additional
steps would have to be taken. That program is the ``Total Maximum Daily
Load'' cleanup program. The cleanup program requires that States and
EPA identify rivers, lakes, and coastal waters that are not protected
enough by the Act's technology requirements and then develop a cleanup
plan (known as a TMDL) for each waterbody.
The cleanup plan calculates the maximum amount of a pollutant that
a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standards, sets a
pollution ``cap'' or load limit, then allocates the total pollutant
load reductions among all point and nonpoint dischargers of the
pollutant to ensure that the total cumulative amount of the pollutant
discharged will not exceed the limit.
Now, the Bush Administration has said that it plans to ``redesign''
the Clean Water Act's program for cleaning up these polluted waters. On
August 7, 2002, the EPA announced that it intends to rewrite the rules
of the Act's cleanup program. Bush Administration strategies for
crippling the cleanup of polluted waters include proposals to:
Weaken standards for classifying waterbodies and allow
currently polluted waters to be re-defined as clean--at least on paper;
Allow States to rely upon speculative and unenforceable
reductions from nonpoint sources as a basis for classifying waters as
``likely to achieve'' water quality standardsand, therefore, avoid
doing a TMDL cleanup plan;
Allow increased discharges from point sources based upon
those same speculative, unenforceable future reductions from nonpoint
sources; and
Curtail EPA's oversight of the States' implementation of
this vital program of the Clean Water Act.\38\
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\38\ U.S. EPA powerpoint presentation to AMSA (July 19, 2002); U.S.
EPA powerpoint presentation to the Association of State and Interstate
Water Pollution Control Administrators (March 10, 2002).
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Current regulations for implementing the cleanup program were
adopted in 1985 by the Reagan Administration, then amended in 1992
under the previous Bush Administration. These rules have been
supplemented by various guidance documents and many Federal court
opinions interpreting the EPA's and States' responsibilities under the
cleanup provisions of the statute. If finalized, the Bush
Administration's proposal will drastically weaken these longstanding
rules and ensure that dirty waters remain polluted--if not become more
so--for decades to come.
Rather than rolling back another core Clean Water Act program, the
Bush Administration should focus on ensuring that the States properly
implement the current TMDL cleanup program. Congress established the
TMDL program to clean up America's waterways. It is the duty of the
States and EPA to implement this program and restore the nation's
waters for safe use by all Americans. We have no hope of ever attaining
this goal under this Administration's aggressive attack on the Act.
cutting tributaries, streams, and wetlands out of the clean water act
If all of these threats were not enough, the Bush Administration
recently announced the largest potential roll back of CWA protections
yet. Instead of demonstrating its commitment to protecting all the
waters of the United States and strengthening the effectiveness of this
most important law, the administration has instead decided to propose
new regulations that could remove many waters from coverage under the
Clean Water Act.
Testifying before Congress on September 19--just a month short of
the 30th anniversary--EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials
announced that they now ``question'' whether the Act should apply to
non-navigable tributaries of navigable waters, intermittent and
ephemeral streams, man-made watercourses connecting these waters, and
wetlands adjacent to such waters--waters that have been undeniably
protected by Federal law for decades. The rules now questioned by the
Bush Administration have, since 1975, explicitly defined waters of the
U.S. broadly in order to implement the Clean Water Act's goal of
restoring and maintaining the ``chemical, physical, and biological
integrity of the Nation's waters.'' They told the House committee that
the administration will initiate a rulemaking to change the regulatory
definition of ``waters of the United States'' because of these
questions.
This was a stunning pronouncement. If the administration removes
Federal Clean Water Act protection for non-navigable tributaries of
navigable waters, including intermittent and ephemeral streams, man-
made watercourses connecting these waters, or wetlands adjacent to
these waters, this proposal would reverse almost 30 years of national
policy to protect the nation's waters and has grave implications for
the control of pollution, the health of communities, the protection of
habitat and flood control efforts. Reopening the definitions of which
waters should be included in the Clean Water Act will undermine many
rules and court decisions that have protected our nation's waters for
decades.
Of course, Congress enacted the Clean Water Act, and only Congress
can change it, so any attempt to limit the scope of the act by
regulation would undoubtedly be the subject of a vigorous legal
challenge. But it important to recognize the significance and audacity
of what the administration is proposing here. To define certain waters
as outside the scope of the Act means those waters would not be subject
to any of the law's protections: the prohibition on discharging
pollutants, the requirements to get a permit before discharging
effluent or fill material, or the requirement that impaired waters be
listed and plans to clean them up written.\39\ For these excluded
waters, there would be no Federal Clean Water Act.
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\39\ 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1311, 1342, 1344, and 1313(d).
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There is no scientific basis for excluding any of these waters from
Federal protection. In fact, the vast body of scientific evidence
teaching us how hydrologic systems function emphasizes the connectivity
of waters, how affecting one part of the system affects the whole.
Wetlands, intermittent and ephemeral streams, and tributaries are
integral parts of watersheds that affect the health of all water
systems, even those that are seemingly ``isolated.'' These waters drain
into larger waterbodies and groundwater sources. Pollution or fill
dumped into these waters destroys important water resources and
eventually ends up in larger lakes and rivers.
Administration officials claim that the proposed rulemaking is a
response to a January 2001 Supreme Court decision concerning so-called
``isolated'' wetlands and subsequent lower court rulings concerning
wetlands. However, the Supreme Court ruling at issue, Solid Waste
Agency of Northern Cook County vs. Army Corps of Engineers,\40\ only
struck down the use of a policy under which the Corps of Engineers
extended jurisdiction to water bodies based on their use by migratory
birds. Neither the Supreme Court ruling nor the majority of lower court
rulings have held that any regulatory weakening of the Clean Water
Act's regulatory definition of ``waters'' is warranted, let alone the
sweeping proposal announced by the Bush Administration.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ 531 U.S. 159 (2001).
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In fact, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has argued in nearly two
dozen court cases since the Supreme Court's January 2001 decision that
the current definition of ``waters of the United States is not only
legal and reasonable, but that without broad protection of all waters,
the goals of the Clean Water Act cannot be met.
For example, on August 30, 2002 the DOJ filed a brief in the case
of U.S. v. Newdunn, on appeal to the Fourth Circuit, which stated:
Federal regulations reasonably construe the [Clean Water Act]
term ``waters of the United States'' to include wetlands
adjacent to all tributaries, not just primary tributaries, to
traditional navigable waters.
In criticizing the lower court's ruling, the DOJ's Newdunn brief
argues that any other interpretation of the regulations would be
inconsistent with the Act itself:
The court fails to explain why or how Congress could have
intended to regulate discharges into all primary tributaries
but not secondary tributaries, regardless of their significance
to the traditional navigable waters into which they flow,
directly or indirectly.
The regulations have consistently construed the Act to
encompass wetlands adjacent to tributaries to traditional
navigable waters--be they primary, secondary, tertiary, etc.--
since 1975, a construction that comports with Congress's intent
to control pollution at its source and broadly protect the
integrity of the aquatic environment. (Emphasis added.)
Similarly, a July 2002 brief for the United States in U.S. v.
Rapanos before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals argues that:
To exclude non-navigable tributaries and their adjacent
wetlands from the coverage of the Act would disserve the
recognized policies underlying the Act, since pollution of non-
navigable tributaries and their adjacent wetlands can have
deleterious effects on traditionally navigable waters.
Despite the Justice Department's arguments, the Bush
Administration's response to the narrow loophole created by the SWANCC
ruling is to tear open the entire Clean Water Act. No President in the
last 30 years--Republican or Democrat--has ever proposed such a
significant cutback to Clean Water Act protections.
conclusion
The administration's attacks on the Clean Water Act come at a time
in our country's history when national security concerns are at new
high. The administration is seizing upon these risks as an excuse to
relax the environmental laws--essentially equating environmental
protection with increased threats to our security. This
administration's nexus between the environment and our nation's
security could not be further from reality. A country without clean
water to drink, without clean water in which to swim, and without
healthy fish is a country at grave risk.
Every living creature on this planet depends on water for its
survival on water. Thirty years ago, this Congress understood this
basis premise of life and bravely stood up to industry opposition and
crafted the wisdom of the Clean Water Act. Sound, judicious enforcement
of this law has protected our public health and the environment and
secured a healthier, safer future for all Americans. This
administration has turned its back on that wisdom. If we do not halt
this reversal, we will be exposed to long-term threats to the health
and welfare of the environment, the citizens of this country and our
society.
__________
Statement Paul Pinault, Executive Director, Narragansett Bay
Commission, and President, Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies (AMSA)
introduction
Good morning Chairman Jeffords, Senator Smith, members of the
committee, and distinguished guests. My name is Paul Pinault. I am
Executive Director of the Narragansett Bay Commission in Providence,
Rhode Island and President of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies (AMSA).
It is an honor for me to be here today to represent AMSA's
membership of 280 publicly owned treatment works across the country. As
environmental practitioners, we treat more than 18 billion gallons of
wastewater each day and service the majority of the U.S. population.
The success of the Clean Water Act is due, in large part, to the
hard work, ingenuity and dedication of local wastewater treatment
officials. In fact, it has been 32 years since a group of public
wastewater officials banded together and founded AMSA. From the early
1900's, municipal governments have provided the majority of financial
support for water pollution control.
In the early days, cities financed and built collection systems
that conveyed wastewater to primary treatment facilities. Eventually,
outbreaks of cholera and typhoid and the decline of fish populations
led to the passage of the 1948 Water Pollution Control Act and the
first Federal funding program that would help cities address the
enormous challenge of treating billions of gallons of wastewater. Then,
on June 22, 1969, Ohio's Cuyahoga River became engulfed in flames, a
sign that our country's water quality was in crisis. The stray spark
that ignited the oil and debris on the Cuyahoga also lit a fire under
Federal lawmakers to strengthen the Federal water quality program. The
result was the enactment of the Clean Water Act of 1972.
Mr. Chairman, America's greatest water quality improvements were
made during the 1970's and 1980's when Congress boldly authorized and
funded the Construction Grants Program, providing more than $60 billion
for the construction of publicly owned treatment plants, pumping
stations, and collection and interceptor sewers. The Construction
Grants Program was directly responsible for the improvement of water
quality in thousands of rivers, lakes, and streams nationwide. As our
waters once again became fishable and swimmable, recreation and tourism
brought jobs and revenue to local economies.
Unfortunately, the Federal commitment to fund continued water
quality improvements declined drastically with the end of the grants
program and the implementation of the 1987 amendments to the Clean
Water Act.
As Federal funds dramatically declined in the 1990's, the
complexities of our challenges and the costs of implementing
regulations continued to rise exponentially. While we, as public agency
officials, consider ourselves America's true environmentalists who have
cleaned-up and restored thousands of the nation's waterbodies, our
progress has been slowed by this decline in the Federal financial
commitment.
Over the past year, this committee has received substantial
testimony that has documented the coming funding crisis in the
wastewater industry. As the measurable gap between projected clean
water investment needs and current levels of spending continues to
grow, local ratepayers will be unable to foot the bill for the costs
associated with increasingly stringent requirements of the Clean Water
Act. In a report entitled ``The Clean Water and Drinking Water
Infrastructure Gap Analysis'' that was released last week, EPA
estimated the 20-year gap for clean water could be as high as $442
billion.
At the Narragansett Bay Commission, an estimated $471 million is
needed for the completion of current capital projects. Our average cash
expenditures are expected to be $100 million annually. We anticipate
receiving approximately $60 million a year from Rhode Island's State
revolving loan fund, leaving an annual funding ``gap'' of $40 million.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Smith, and members of the committee . . . I
would like to take this opportunity to thank you for working with AMSA
this year on important legislation that would significantly increase
the authorized levels of funding under the Clean Water Act.
Unfortunately, the world has changed significantly from when this
process began with a series of hearings in 2001. At that time, AMSA had
targeted the Federal budget surplus as a logical source of funding to
increase the Federal investment in wastewater infrastructure. In light
of our current budget deficit and the continued costs associated with
our nation's defense, we believe that the authorized levels of funding
proposed in S. 1961 and S. 2813 would not be available to appropriators
out of the general revenue fund for many years to come.
As a result, AMSA is exploring alternative, dedicated sources of
revenue to fund future water quality improvements.
Our municipal wastewater treatment systems are critical pieces of
national infrastructure and, as such, should be financed through a
long-term, sustainable, and reliable source of Federal funds. 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 the years to come.
Federal support for wastewater infrastructure is critical to
safeguard the environmental progress made during the past 30 years
under the Clean Water Act. As water pollution control solutions move
beyond political jurisdictions to a broader watershed approach and as
we address a wider array of pollutants and pollution sources, the
national benefit of improved water quality will more than justify the
larger Federal contribution.
As we look to the future, we see that the challenges facing the
leaders of today's wastewater treatment agencies include polluted
runoff from every source imaginable containing billions of pounds of
soil, manure, fertilizer, farm and lawn chemicals, oil and grease,
nutrient and toxic contaminants, and other pollutants. Nonpoint source
pollution, along with the challenges posed by combined and sanitary
sewer overflows and stormwater system discharges, are going to cost
this country billions of dollars and take several decades to control.
In a March 2002 interview with the Christian Science Monitor, EPA
Administrator Christine Whitman said, ``I think water is going to be
the biggest environmental issue that we face for the 21st century in
both quantity and quality.''
The ``quality'' part of that challenge, Mr. Chairman, will fall
squarely on the shoulders of local wastewater treatment officials. As
we strive together to make further progress under the Clean Water Act,
it is imperative that we create a new Federal funding program to
finance today's infrastructure needs as well as the innovative
solutions that will be required to control future water quality
problems.
On behalf of AMSA's members, we look forward to working with you to
solve these problems together. The bipartisan nature of this committee
over the 30-year history of the Clean Water Act has undoubtedly
contributed to the Act's success. Thank you for the opportunity to
present our views to the committee and we look forward to your
participation in the celebration of the 30th anniversary of America's
Clean Water Act.
______
Responses of Paul Pinault to Additional Questions from Senator Jeffords
outdated tmdl rule must be revised
Question 1. In a letter to EPA Administrator Whitman on the draft
TMDL rule, AMSA described the 1992 rule on TMDLs as ``broken'' and
urged the EPA to proceed with a new rule. Why do you believe that the
Administration's draft TDL rule is beneficial to the municipal
wastewater community?
Response. AMSA supports the Administration's efforts to revise the
existing total maximum daily load (TMDL) regulations. We have
consistently advised EPA that the existing regulations are inadequate
and do not support the large number of TMDLs which states will be
required to develop and implement.
What is needed is a realistic regulatory format which establishes a
fair and equitable allocation among pollution sources, accounts for and
remedies the current paucity of reliable water quality information upon
which TMDLs and listing decisions are based, enables States to adapt
TMDLs over time with advances in data and modeling information,
streamlines the current listing and de-listing process, and promotes
the review and revision of State water quality standards early in the
process. The decade-old 1992 regulations leave many of these critical
issues unad-
dressed. As a result, States lack sufficient guidance as to EPA's
expectations and permittees in the NPDES program, by default, assume
all of the risk and a disproportionate amount of the burden in the
faulty allocation process.
To date, AMSA has not had the opportunity to review the draft
proposed regulations and we are unable to elaborate in detail those
provisions which are or will be acceptable to the municipal wastewater
community. At the same time, EPA staff have publicly informed AMSA and
other stakeholder groups about the changes being considered by the
Agency. Although AMSA has not reviewed cthe proposed rule changes, we
are supportive of the following concepts that may be under
consideration:
Integrated 305(b)/303(d) reports
New listing categories (no listing of ``threatened''
waters)
Greater reliance on States for implementation and planning
Less aggressive EPA permitting role
Adaptive implementation--encouraged through CPP
The following are among a longer list of unresolved issues and are
areas of concern for AMSA in a possible revised proposal:
The standard for non-point source load allocations
Specific allocations for nonpoint sources
Review and revision of Water Quality Standards not tied to
TMDL development
Pre-TMDL permitting
TMDLs still required for waters impaired by pollutants not
amenable to attainment of water quality standards via a TMDL (e.g.,
legacy pollutants, air deposition, CSOs, etc.)
No provisions to ensure that TMDLs will be higher quality
documents/plans
AMSA members are the daily practitioners responsible for achieving
the goals of both the TMDL program and the Clean Water Act. As water
quality experts, AMSA's members will continue to provide expert input
into the development of an equitable and updated TMDL rule.
non-point source control critical to cwa success
Question 2. As you know, non-point source pollution remains a
significant source of impairment for America's waters. How would you
frame a policy to address non-point pollution?
Response. Water quality improvements over the past 30 years are a
direct result of municipal and industrial point source programs
designed to achieve technology-based treatment standards and water
quality standards set for individual water bodies. As the question
states, a significant number of our nation's waters remain impaired. In
fact, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
after 30 years of the Clean Water Act, 40 percent of U.S. waters remain
polluted--largely by non-point source pollution.
Industrial and municipal point sources are easily identified and
highly regulated facilities that are required to treat wastewater
before it is discharged into receiving waters. Point sources are
strictly controlled by the Clean Water Act, which forbids any discharge
to U.S. waters unless regulated by a permit. Discharges without permits
are punishable by fines or imprisonment, and wastewater quality is
continually monitored and reported to State and Federal regulators who
ensure that water quality is protected.
Water pollution from nonpoint sources is preventing the country
from realizing its full clean water potential--high quality drinking
water, teeming fisheries and wildlife habitat and expanded recreational
opportunities. According to EPA, agriculture is responsible for
degrading 60 percent of the country's impaired river miles and half of
the impaired lake acreage. Non-point source pollution closes beaches,
contaminates or kills fish, destroys wildlife habitat and pollutes
drinking water. The current mix of voluntary, incentive-based programs
to reduce non-point source pollution have not shown the type of results
that are desperately needed to reach America's clean water goals.
As a logical starting point, AMSA recommends that the proposed
revisions to the total maximum daily load program (TMDL) adopt
proportionate share responsibilities for the allocation of pollutant
loading reductions to all contributing sources. The new watershed rule
should address the fact that there are no Federal statutory or
regulatory criteria on how loading reductions shall be apportioned
between various point and nonpoint sources. AMSA also believes that
States must carefully craft regulations and procedures regarding the
proper apportionment of loading reductions.
In addition, States must be required to establish enforceable
requirements for the control of all nonpoint sources of pollution
within impaired Sec. 303(d) listed watersheds. Furthermore, the waste
load allocations (WLAs) for nonpoint sources must be delineated in
TMDLs in sufficient detail so that all sources (including land use
individuals) understand their pollutant contributions, their required
reductions, and the control measures they must implement.
Another critical but overlooked element in the non-point source
reduction debate is the huge amounts of cash local governments are
spending to meet tough Clean Water Act requirements. The Act requires
cities, towns and counties to reduce wet weather flows and to bring
impaired waters into compliance with State and Federal water quality
standards. But many communities across the country have no response
when their citizens ask, ``Why spend all this money when the bulk of
the problem lies elsewhere?''
Put in perspective, urban flows are a part of the country's overall
water quality problems but do not represent the most persistent threat.
Although local governments will spend billions of dollars to meet the
Act's requirements, they are powerless to address the most pervasive
problem in most watersheds: nonpoint sources that seriously pollute
waters. With gaps in the law, gaps in our economic and scientific data,
lack of funding and no consistent, comprehensive mechanisms for
monitoring and regulating those responsible for non-point source
pollution, many communities may be held hostage by someone else's
pollution.
Stronger laws and regulations, increased funding, and further
research aimed toward controlling non-point source pollution are
essential. Without a comprehensive national plan that incorporates all
of these elements, further water quality gains will go unrealized. When
it comes to the nation's water quality, it boils down to two basic
issues: equity and priorities. Where equity is concerned, Americans
strongly feel that whoever makes a mess should clean it up. And, as for
priorities, most would agree that to complete the job the Clean Water
Act started, we should target the biggest remaining problem--non-point
source pollution--with a combination of better scientific data, new
laws, tougher regulations, and increased funding. The reason is simple.
Fair, priority-driven, holistic approaches to control non-point source
pollution will markedly improve water quality nationwide at a lower
cost to our communities.
______
Response of Paul Pinault to Additional Questions from Senator Voinovich
clean water critical to healthy local economies
Question 1. You cited during the hearing a direct relationship
between waters that are fishable and swimmable to the economy and job
creation. Throughout my career, I have fought to improve Lake Erie's
water quality, and I have seen firsthand the economic benefits of the
Lake's revival. Has your Association or do you know of any studies that
quantify the economic impact of water quality on our country?
Response. As Senator Voinovich's question acknowledges, investments
in water and wastewater systems pay substantial dividends to the
environment, public health, and the economy. It is well documented that
municipal wastewater treatment plants prevent billions of tons of
pollutants each year from reaching America's rivers, lakes, and
coastlines. In so doing, they preserve natural treasures such as Lake
Erie.
Clean water supports a $50 billion a year water-based recreation
industry, at least $300 billion a year in coastal tourism, a $45
billion annual commercial fishing and shell fishing industry, and
hundreds of billions of dollars a year in basic manufacturing that
relies on clean water. Clean rivers, lakes, and coastlines attract
investment in local communities and increase land values on or near the
water, which in turn, creates jobs, add incremental tax base, and
increase income and property tax revenue to local, State, and the
Federal Government.
In Senator Voinovich's region, in 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) reported that participants in the fishing industry in the
U.S. portion of the Great Lakes generated about $2.22 billion in sales
to local businesses and that the sport fisheries industry represented
$4.4 billion in annual economic activity. Additionally, the FWS
reported that about 75,000 jobs are supported by Great Lakes sport
fisheries.
Per your request, you will find more details on the economic impact
of clean water in Chapter 1 of Clean and Safe Water for the 21st
Century by the Water Infrastructure Network, which is available for
downloading at: http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/advocacy/winreport/
winreport2000.pdf. At the end of Chapter 1 you will find the list of
footnotes. The list includes additional reports that contain data on
the value of clean water to our nation's economy.
This information, while helpful, falls far short of conveying the
true role of clean water in America's economic development and the
recurring `real' value of clean water to citizens of the United States.
Simply put, our nation would not, could not, and will not thrive
without clean water.
clean water challenges in the 21st century
Question 2. What are some of the specific challenges that we face
in the 21st century and how best can we hope to address them? What
programs have worked the best in getting the biggest bang for our buck
in improving water quality?
Response. Too often we forget that with the exception of the
interstate highway system, the biggest public works investment in
America in the 20th century was in water and wastewater infrastructure.
The value of that investment must be protected for future generations
in the 21st century.
The importance of wastewater infrastructure was well understood in
the late 1960's as the Nation watched the quality of its waters decline
precipitously and chose in the 1972 Clean Water Act to spend Federal
tax dollars to reverse this trend. A large number of publicly owned
treatment works (POTWs) built secondary and advanced treatment
capabilities as a result of the EPA's Construction Grants Program.
According to EPA's 2000 report entitled ``Progress in Water Quality'',
a total of $61.1 billion ($96.5 billion as constant 1995 dollars) was
distributed to municipalities through construction grants from 1970 to
1995. Not coincidentally, the greatest gains in water quality also were
realized under the Federal Construction Grants Program.
Adequate financial resources to States, cities, and communities are
the most essential element to maintaining our nation's wastewater
infrastructure. The Clean Water Act (CWA) amendments of 1987 created a
new phase of clean water funding by replacing the Federal Construction
Grants Program with the Clean Water State Revolving Fund Loan Program
(SRF). Since 1980, according to studies by both the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and the private sector, Federal contributions
have declined by 75 percent in real terms and today represent only
about 10 percent of total capital outlays for water and wastewater
infrastructure and less than 5 percent of total water and wastewater
outlays. Local governments currently assume more than 90 percent of
water infrastructure construction costs in the form of expensive bond
issuances--municipal debt--and increased water and sewer bills.
Only grant funding in significant amounts provides sufficient
resources and incentives to gain local support for increasing utility
rates to pay for new regulatory costs and the costs of replacing or
rehabilitating aging infrastructure. If there is any doubt regarding
whether water infrastructure grants are in fact an essential part of
addressing the significant core infrastructure needs of our nation's
communities, one need look no further than the fiscal year 2002 VA-HUD
appropriations bill for EPA. In this bill, Congress approved direct
grants for 337 core water infrastructure projects totaling nearly $344
million to communities across the country. The fact is that grants are,
and always have been, a necessary part of a real solution to our local
infrastructure needs.
When funds for the repair, replacement and rehabilitation of pipes
are unavailable and projects are deferred, cracks, leaks and failures
become more frequent. Additional costs then are incurred to remediate
the resulting environmental and related economic impacts (i.e. beach
closures, etc. can lead to significant losses for seasonal, localized
economies). The failed pipes also become more costly to repair.
Clearly, a long-term, sustainable, and reliable source of Federal
funding for clean water construction projects would prevent the
additional costs associated with failures, safeguard the environment,
protect public health, and sustain local economies.
As America's economy continues to slow and unemployment increases,
as the backlog of infrastructure projects grows and sewer rates
increase, a Federal investment in public wastewater infrastructure
would be a sound investment. For every $1 billion invested in
infrastructure, tens of thousands of jobs are generated. Moreover,
these investments yield significant short-term as well as long-term
benefits in the form of improved efficiencies, security, safety and
reliability.
Among the many specific clean water challenges of the 21st century,
the most costly will be controlling urban wet weather flows. With 40
million Americans being served by combined sewer systems and an
estimated 40,000 backups of sanitary sewers each year, the challenge of
the decade for many wastewater treatment agencies will be how to pay
for the needed improvements in these systems to bring them into
compliance with EPA rules and regulations.
The most effective investment that the Federal Government can make
in order to improve water quality is direct funding for municipal
capital programs.
__________
Statement of Roberta Haley Savage, President,
America's Clean Water Foundation
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: I am Robbi Savage, the
President of America's Clean Water Foundation (ACWF) and the national
coordinator for the Year of Clean Water: The Commemoration of the 30th
Anniversary of the Clean Water Act.
America's Clean Water Foundation was established in 1989 to
coordinate the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the passage
of the Clean Water Act. The Foundation's Board of Governors was, at
that time, co-chaired by the House and Senate Floor Leaders of the 1972
statute: Senator Edmund Muskie, Senator Howard Baker, Representative
John Blatnik, and Representative William Harsha.
These environmental statesmen were all personally and actively
involved in the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary attending
cleanups, festivals and the World Water Summit hosted by President
Carter at the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, Georgia.
As we convene here today, we are celebrating 30 years of progress
under what has been called by members of this body ``the most
successful environmental statute in history.'' Throughout October,
America's Clean Water and its many partners (see attached list) are
sponsoring four national events that include:
The Youth Watershed Summit: October 6-10, 2002 at the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland. ACWF, and
its two primary co-sponsors, the Smithsonian Institution and the
Environmental Protection Agency, have invited the nation's Governors to
select 4 students and a teacher/advisor to accompany the students to
SERC for a 4-day program designed to educate, inspire and train young
people from throughout the 50 States to be water quality monitors and
advocates for cleaner water. Three of the young people attending this
Youth Watershed Summit are here with me today.
National Water Monitoring Day: October 18, 2002, 30 years to the
day after the passage of the Clean Water Act. This national event is
expected to bring together upwards of 100 thousand Americans into the
nation's waters taking samples for pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature
and turbidity on the same day. With our partners at Earthforce, USEPA,
the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Interior's US
Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
and the Army Corps of Engineers, we have developed a nationwide effort
that will occur annually and provide citizen-monitoring data that can
be tracked over time. And, Mr. Chairman, at the culmination of National
Water Monitoring Day, we will begin the synthesis process and will
provide you and the House Committee chair with our report.
The Senior Watershed Summit: October 28-30 in Sandy Cove, Maryland.
This Summit is being co-sponsored by ACWF and the Environmental
Alliance for Senior Involvement (EASI). At this Summit we will bring
together seniors from around the country to learn about in-stream
monitoring techniques and to help with the establishment of Senior
Water Body Monitoring Corps in all 50 States.
The World Watershed Summit: October 30-November 1, at the JW
Marriott Hotel in Washington, DC. President George W. Bush has been
invited to keynote the Summit. Senator Howard Baker and former
Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus are also expected to participate in the
culminating event. This World Watershed Summit is being cosponsored by
The Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control
Administrators (ASIWPCA) and the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies (AMSA).
The purpose of these events and of the Commemoration of the 30th
Anniversary of the Clean Water Act is to focus national attention on
the improvements made to our national water resources and to highlight
areas where additional attention should be targeted.
As the Committee is well aware, in 1972, Congress enacted the
Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments (Public Law 92-500), known
as the Clean Water Act. The Act was designed to respond to public
demands on the government to clean up and protect our nation's
waterways.
Public interest was intense because throughout the 1960's many
communities experienced extensive fish kills, discolored streams,
fouled beaches and contaminated water supplies. Before the law,
government response to these issues varied according to the limits of
available science, technical and institutional capacity and available
funding. Legislators tried to respond to the problems, often without
solid technical evidence or insight as to the economic and
environmental consequences of the actions they championed.
The Clean Water Act, one of the first and most successful national
environmental laws to be passed by the Congress had as its primary goal
to ``. . . restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological
integrity of the nation's waters.'' The goals called for water to be
``fishable and swimmable'' by 1983 and for the elimination of pollution
discharges to navigable waters by 1985.
In the past three decades, Clean Water Act programs have yielded
measurable improvements in water quality. Streams that were once devoid
of fish and other aquatic life now support an abundant and varied
population. Lakes that were once choked by eutrophication are now
vastly improved. Yet even with these improvements, we are far from
attainment of our national goals and the stringent water quality
objectives of subsequent amendments.
With the passage of time, the public's attention to these goals has
waned, even though Americans consistently cite clean water as among
their highest priorities. Ironically, even with the priority Americans
consistently place on clean water, there has been a decline in public
awareness, technical innovation and youth education relative to clean
up and protection of our water resources. The spirit of cooperation and
enterprise, the hallmark of early efforts to craft an effective
national water pollution control act, has also faded since the early
1970's. The public stewardship ethic needs to be rekindled in order to
address the intricate web of human activity that consistently degrades
water quality.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to extend a special thank
you to the nation's Governors, the majority of whom have issued
proclamations designating 2002 as the Year of Clean Water. Many of the
States have developed comprehensive outreach programs, which include
but are not limited to:
(1) Stream and lake cleanups;
(2) Water festivals;
(3) Governors' water conferences;
(4) Training and education programs and materials;
(5) Public service announcements;
(6) Press education symposia;
(7) Poster, photo and essay contests; and
(8) Exhibits and documentaries.
It is our hope and expectation that the activities and events
taking place throughout this nation during the month of October will
foster awareness of our clean water successes and challenges and
strengthen our commitment to finding solutions. The response to our
programs has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are most grateful for
the willingness of so many to dedicate their time and talents to
support the Year of Clean Water. A comprehensive list of the plethora
of celebratory events can be found at www.yearofcleanwater.org.
Finally, I also want to thank you and your staff for putting this
hearing together so that we may revisit the accomplishments of the past
three decades and refocus national attention on the importance of
continuing our efforts to provide Clean Water Everywhere for Everyone!
__________
Statement of Grace Chris, Student Delegate from Vermont,
Youth Watershed Summit (October 6-10, 2002)
Good morning and thank you, Senators, for allowing me to speak
about clean water before this committee while I'm attending the Youth
Watershed Summit. My name is Grace Chris, I'm 13 years old and I live
in Vermont. I am both honored and very, very nervous this morning.
I came here from the State of Vermont, also known as the Green
Mountain State for the beautiful hills that cross the State north to
south. Throughout the Green Mountains and its adjacent lowlands are
miles of streams and rivers and acres of ponds and lakes. These
waterways nourish the green of the mountains and in turn support the
wildlife, farm life, and human life whose habitat is the State of
Vermont. The fall foliage for which Vermont is famous draws water from
Vermont earth and creates jobs for Vermonters involved in the tourist
industry. The sweet maple syrup from Vermont Sugar Maple trees starts
out as clean water in the many Vermont watersheds. Cows drink Vermont
water and give us world famous Cabot cheese and Ben and Jerry's ice
cream. Agriculture, hunting and fishing, trees and tourists,
recreation, business and industry, and daily Vermont quality of life
all depend on maintaining the abundance and cleanliness of Vermont's
waters.
My classmates and I, and all the other kids attending the Youth
Watershed Summit, are doing something back home to help protect the
waters that bring life to our States. This week in Maryland we've all
come together to share evidence of our efforts to protect our water. We
already know that 30 years ago you did something very important by
creating The Clean Water Act, and for 30 years Americans have benefited
from that important legislative accomplishment. My teacher was a senior
in High School when you passed the Clean Water Act in 1972. This week
he's here with me and the other students and teachers at the Summit to
share in a celebration of what this Senate helped create 30 years ago.
We're hoping to demonstrate that the effort to protect the world's
waters continues through us and the work we do back home.
I'm an 8th grade student at The Hartford Middle School in White
River Junction, Vermont. My school is located about one-half mile from
the point where the White River flows into the Connecticut River.
Upstream from us, the White River Watershed collects rain and runoff
from the many, many tributaries that flow through the forests,
farmlands, and towns of Bethel, Randolph, Rochester, Stockbridge and
Sharon, and many, many other beautiful small Vermont villages of
central Vermont. The activities we conduct and allow along these
waterways determine the present and future health and abundance of
these waters. The work of our State and Federal employees and the many
local volunteers is very important in protecting the White River
Watershed. My classmates and I are a part of that group effort, and I'm
here to tell you a little bit about what we are doing to fulfill the
Clean Water Act's goals.
As water flows through my watershed, it's drawn out for various
uses and then returned in various states of contamination. Also, rain
water and snow melt carry manure, road salt and many other chemicals
from fields and roads and parking lots into the watershed through
``non-point source pollution.'' Business, industry, breweries and cider
mills, sewerage treatment plants, schools, hospitals, private homes and
vacation homes often add materials and chemicals to the waterways
through identifiable pipes, or ``point source pollution.'' The disease
causing bacteria E. coli, cancer-causing heavy metals, poisonous
industrial wastes and road salts all contribute to changes in the water
quality in my watershed. Fish and other animal populations, drinking
water sources and favorite swimming holes benefit or suffer from what
you and I and others do, or fail to do, in and around our waterways.
Most of the water uses are necessary and very important and need to
continue. Volunteers and professionals follow the fate of these waters
through water quality monitoring programs and stream bank restoration
projects. Small towns pass budgets to upgrade sewerage treatment plant
facilities or adopt low salt policies for their roads, and students
collect tires and trash from streams and ponds during Vermont's Green
Up Day on the first Saturday in May. Together, we use and sometimes
abuse our watersheds through our daily activities. Together, we have a
responsibility to undo the damage that our waters are subjected to
every day. The Clean Water Act gives us the authority to clean up our
waters, but it is we individuals who must put forth the effort to
repair, restore and maintain our watershed water quality. I want to
thank you for all you do as Federal leaders and lawmakers, and I want
to tell you what we are doing.
My school is a pioneer in the use of Geographic Information System
, or (GIS), and Global Positioning Systems, or (GPS) technologies in
Vermont. We are learning how to collect data and display data in
spatial, or map formats. We can take fish collection data, E. coli
population data, soil type and land use data, or pH and water
temperature data collected in our watershed and show it as a map. We
can ask important questions about the relationships among these water
quality factors, and then display those relationships in multi-colored
maps. The spatial display of these data may reveal patterns that better
explain what is going on in the watershed. Right now my group's work
has been to look for relationships among the land use on the shores of
the streams and riverbanks, the soil types on those shorelines, and the
E. coli populations in the downstream waters. We've found that the E.
coli populations are higher in water that has less forest vegetation
along the shoreline. However, we don't see a clear relationship between
Prime Agricultural Soils on the shoreline and high E. coli populations
in the nearby water. Our GIS analysis has begun to reveal some
relationships among water quality factors in our watershed, and it's
created some new questions for us to investigate in the future. What we
expected to find was not exactly what we found, and we want to know
why. So, we'll keep on working at it and training other kids how to do
this work.
We are just young people, but young people with an interest in our
watershed. We've been lucky to work with groups like the Vermont
Institute of Natural Science (VINS), the White River Partnership, and
Vermont Fish and Wildlife. They have taught us about GIS and shared
their water quality data with us. Together we are creating a Community
Mapping Program to help local community leaders use GIS technologies to
plan for their community's future and manage its resources wisely. Our
teacher has received training from groups associated with NASA and the
Environmental Protection Agency. Now, we'd like to count on continued
support from you, the U.S. Senate, through thoughtful legislation, to
help my school and other schools protect the White River Watershed and
every other watershed in every other State. I hope my testimony here
today contributes to that goal.
Again, I'm very honored to have been invited to talk to you about
clean water. Together, I hope we'll continue to be responsible citizens
and support the 1972 Clean Water Act for at least another 30 years.
Thank you very much, and goodbye.
__________
Statement of Jordan Chin, Student Delegate from Oregon,
Youth Watershed Summit (October 6-10, 2002)
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: My name is Jordan Chin.
I am 16 years old, and I attend the Metropolitan Learning Center in
Portland, Oregon.
I am here today, Mr. Chairman, as one of the Oregon representatives
to the Youth Watershed Summit, hosted by America's Clean Water
Foundation, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the
Environmental Protection Agency.
When I was invited to attend the Youth Watershed Summit, I jumped
at the opportunity because I have always believed that youth
involvement in our society could create new visions for our country.
This convention of some 250 students selected by their Governors from
the 50 States is an outstanding chance for me and for my fellow
students to learn, to share and to carry the Clean Water message home
to our respective States.
I believe that information about our environment is something that
should be shared and made available to every American. Awareness and
knowledge are the keys to bringing about a positive change in our
society and its attitudes about our fragile environment. Water is what
we are made of: it is the source of life. I think that youth
involvement and education is an exceptional beginning to that process.
Because I believe in bringing the need for cleaner water to the
attention of young people, I am one of the actors who will, this
evening, perform the The Murky Water Caper: A Real Fish Story, written
for ACWF by Deborah Rodney Pex. I am pleased to play the Detective
Michelle Tuesday.
Ms. Tuesday is an inquisitive private investigator with a passion
for justice and the desire to assure the well being of the creatures
and spaces around her. Ms. Tuesday helps the fish, who have retained
her, find the causes of pollution that is contaminating their home.
Even with the cheesy jokes, I'm very excited and proud to be a member
of the cast. I understand, Mr. Chairman, that some members of your
committee staff may be joining us tonight at the YMCA Camp Letts to see
just how The Murky Water Caper can be an inspiring and fun way to
educate people of all ages who care about the quality of their water.
Because this play is packed with information, I would like your
permission, Mr. Chairman, to present each member of the committee with
a copy of The Murky Water Caper booklet recently published by America's
Clean Water Foundation.
I am here today to say thank you to those who were so wise as to
give our country the Clean Water Act back in 1972 and to say that I
know that the future of water quality rests in our hands as well as
yours. As a young person, I want to be very informed about the ways I
affect the environment and I want to share that information with my
peers.
At home in Oregon, I am currently enrolled in an ecology class at
my school and am making a project of finding eco-friendly options for
those teenagers, like myself, who are in search of a plentiful
wardrobe. Even small things like buying clothes that don't negatively
affect our planet can be helpful in more ways than most of us can
imagine. And while there is lots of public information available, I am
hard pressed to find more than a handful of people outside of my class
who are aware of the resources we're draining, or the negative impact
we are having on our planet by how we live our lives each day.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I have one message that
I want to leave with you. The people of our country don't seem to be
aware of the fact that the environment is deteriorating and is being
largely neglected by virtually every person who lives on this planet.
This neglect is not just in other countries or other States--it's
not just the distant rain forest down in South America or those
wetlands we hear about in other States. It's where we live, its all
around us, it is us. We are fouling the air we breathe, the surface and
groundwater we drink, the land we live on and the foods that we eat.
I am but one student in a small State on the other side of the
country from Washington DC, but I know that every citizen in this
country needs to know how important it is for us all to protect our
water. They need to know that polluted water affects the health of our
parents, our children, our friends, our relatives and people we have
never even met. In protecting the Earth we are protecting ourselves, we
are protecting all people, all animals and all the vegetation that
sustains us.
If we care for our planet, we are taking care of each other. I
sincerely hope that our testimony before you this morning has shown
you, the guardians of our country, that teenagers can care. We are
drinking in the information provided at the Youth Watershed Summit, and
we're thirsty for more. We want a healthy planet to grow up in, to go
to college in and to live and raise our families in. Everyone on this
committee and many of the people in this room have the power to protect
our water. I want you to know that we will be there to help.
Thank you for listening.
__________
Statement of Kristen Hoeft, Student Delegate from Minnesota,
Youth Watershed Summit (October 6-10, 2002)
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Good Morning and thank
you so much for inviting me here to talk with you about the Clean Water
Act. My name is Kristen Hoeft. I come before the committee as a
representative of the Youth Watershed Summit and as a citizen of the
land of 11,842 lakes, the great State of Minnesota. I am currently a
senior at the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley,
Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I am very honored to be appearing before you
today and I want to share my thoughts about growing up in Minnesota, a
State that has water virtually everywhere. I have been able to
experience some of our State's beautiful lakes and rivers from canoeing
in the boundary waters in northern Minnesota, hiking along the shores
of Lake Superior or boating on the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers.
My parents felt it was very important for me to know how to swim
and to learn boating safety because we spend most of our summers along
the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. I look back and realize the
important foundation my parents gave me because, not only do I enjoy
the recreational aspect of the water we have in Minnesota, but I also
have come to appreciate water ecology, the need to educate people about
shore erosion and the reduction of chemical pollution in our lakes,
rivers and streams. Over the years, I have seen the Minnesota and
Mississippi Rivers flood many times where farmers have lost crops and
precious topsoil. This erosion has not only hurt the farmers, it adds
to the pollution of the Minnesota and eventually the Mississippi River.
I have come to understand that it is not only topsoil that is eroding
into our stream and lake waters it is also the variety of chemicals
used in the farming process.
I have always thought that if our country's pollution problems were
really important, the adults would take care of finding a solution to
pollution. But I have come to realize that this has not always been the
case.
In my junior year of high school, I decided to attend the School of
Environmental Studies (SES) because it is a much smaller setting than
the traditional high school. From the four high schools in our
district, 200 juniors and 200 seniors are selected to attend. SES, as
it is known, has an innovative way of teaching the basic subjects of
English, Social Studies and Science by collecting data, analyzing it
and reporting the information blending all three subjects together with
an environmental theme.
The mission statement of SES reads ``a community of leaders
learning to enhance the relationships between people and their
environments.'' The first project of my junior year started with the
Pond Profiles. This is an activity that the city of Eagan helps us with
a great deal. We were given a course in identifying water plants and
organisms as well as land plants and running chemical tests. Then we
were sent out with a teacher to a specific lake or pond in the city of
Eagan. While at the pond or lake, we were required to identify
organisms found in and around the water and conduct several water
quality tests such as Secchi disk to determine the clarity of the pond
or lake and chemical tests such as pH and dissolved oxygen.
All of this data is collected and then presented to the city of
Eagan water officials and put on permanent record in Eagan. We provide
this service because with over 1,000 ponds, lakes and wetlands in the
watershed city staff do not have time to collect such data. This is the
first of many such projects that SES does for the city of Eagan. This
was a gratifying way to expand the learning process beyond the
classroom and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Learning environmental science
with hands on experience is much more interesting than just reading out
of a textbook. That is why we at SES are excited about participating
with America's Clean Water Foundation and its many cosponsors, in
National Water Monitoring Day. On October 18, 2002, students, seniors,
professionals and those who just want to help protect water quality are
coming together to sample water quality throughout the Nation. I am so
excited to think that hundreds of thousands of people will join
together on the actual 30th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act to test
for pH, DO, temperature and turbidity.
Another experience I have regarding the environment is that I
frequently walk my dog around the lake at the park across the street
from my home. It is a small lake that is enjoyed by many people in the
area. Any time of the year you will see people fishing in the lake. In
the spring when the snow and ice have melted the lake is beautiful. It
appears to be clean and clear. But looks can be deceiving because by
early summer the growth of algae is so thick that it would appear as if
you could walk across the lake. The city then comes in with a large
machine that harvests the weeds and rids the lake of most of the algae.
I wish that the same people that enjoy that lake year round would take
some time to think about the chemicals that they dump on theirs lawns
to make their lawns lush and green at the expense of the water quality
of the lakes in our watershed district. The city of Eagan is attempting
to combat the phosphorus chemicals found in the fertilizer used by many
people and has recently started to add a chemical called Alum that
removes the phosphorus in the water and should eventually lessen the
amount of algae growth in the lake.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to see legislation and education
maintain water quality so that my neighborhood lake and the thousands
of other lakes and rivers in Minnesota can be clean for future
generations.
For the past four summers, I have worked as a nanny for a family
with three girls. One day last summer the girls and I decided to go for
a bike ride on a trail that overlooks the confluence of the Minnesota
and Mississippi Rivers. It was a clear, bright and sunny day. We
stopped where the rivers come together and I decided to point out some
interesting river ecology facts to the girls. The first thing I asked
the girls was to tell me which river they thought was the Minnesota and
which one they thought was the Mississippi. Because it was a very
bright day, one river looked very clean and the other very dirty. The
girls were amazed to learn that it was actually the Minnesota River
that appeared very dirty. They found this hard to believe because
everyone seems to think of the Mississippi as the ``Muddy
Mississippi.'' But the fact remains; it is the farm chemicals,
livestock runoff and silt that pollute the Minnesota River. When the
two rivers join, you can see the line of suspended soils from the
Minnesota River blending into the Mississippi. So, it is actually the
Minnesota River that gives the Mississippi a bad reputation in our part
of the Nation.
In 1819 Fort Snelling was settled because of its location between
the two rivers. The Native Americans in this area believed that the
land near the confluence was the origin of all life. It is sad that
today we do not think it is important enough to try and improve the
quality of these rivers and are slow in doing anything to fix the
problems.
I have come to realize that although some people are aware of the
problems regarding water quality, it will be the responsibility of my
generation through awareness and education to clean and protect the
environment. That is why I wanted to come to the Youth Watershed
Summit. I want to learn as much as I can about water quality, pollution
and remediation in the various States.
I know that the problems we face in Minnesota are not Minnesota's
alone; these are the problems of our Nation. It will be necessary to
work together to clean up and restore the lakes, rivers and oceans. I
say let's make America even greater by setting an example to the rest
of the world that clean water is an important issue for everyone. While
I know that there have been significant improvements over the past
three decades, I also know that I want clean water for my generation
and the generations to follow. I want clean water for my children and
the children of my children.
So when I was looking on the Year of Clean Water website
(www.yearofclean water.org) I was surprised to notice that the last
time the Congress reauthorized the Act was in 1987. Through my studies
I know that there have been many changes over the past 15 years and I
also know that water detection and protection has become far more
complex. So more advanced technologies should be translated into the
Clean Water Law. So I must ask you Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, to begin the process of reauthorization to assure that our
country can provide clean, fresh water for all of us for many
generations to come.
Thank you for allowing me to appear before you today.
__________
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA),
October 9, 2002.
Senator James Jeffords, Chairman,
Environment & Public Works Committee,
SD-410 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC 20510-6175.
Dear Senator Jeffords: On behalf of the Association of Metropolitan
Sewerage Agencies (AMSA), I would like to thank you for the opportunity
to provide testimony before the Environment & Public Works Committee
yesterday in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water
Act. AMSA appreciated the chance to highlight achievements made in the
past 30 years, including the remarkable progress made as a result of
the efforts of public wastewater treatment utilities, as well as the
challenges that remain to continuing improvement of the quality of our
nation's waters.
As a matter of clarification, I would like to respond to assertions
made by the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC) concerning AMSA's
position on the forthcoming sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) rule. We want
the committee to understand that AMSA always has and still does support
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) efforts to publish a
Federal rule which provides regulated communities with the direction
they need to minimize SSOs. The discussions we have had with EPA on the
issue of SSOs over the past year have been with an eye toward
encouraging the Agency to publish the current rule, and to be open to
exploring options during the public comment period that are equally
protective of the environment while being cost effective in this era of
limited resources.
AMSA supports a regulation that passes Senator Mitchell's ``common
sense'' rule, one which clearly defines an achievable standard for the
design, operation and maintenance of sanitary sewer collection systems.
It is AMSA's belief that the current proposal's zero discharge standard
imposes a technologically unrealistic mandate without reference to
actual impact, such that limited local resources would be diverted from
addressing other pollution sources that pose a greater threat to water
quality. AMSA continues to believe that alternative solutions to
addressing SSOs can and should be discussed in a public forum following
the proposal of a rule.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before the
committee, and to clarify our support for continued improvements in
water quality. We ask that this letter be included as part of the
committee's record of this hearing. Please feel free to call me if you
should have any questions at (202) 833-4653.
Sincerely,
Ken Kirk,
Executive Director, AMSA.
__________
Statement of the American Society of Civil Engineers
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: The American Society of
Civil Engineers (ASCE) is pleased to present this statement for the
record to the committee on the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act,
one of the nation's premier environmental statutes.
ASCE was founded in 1852 and is the country's oldest national civil
engineering organization. It represents more than 125,000 civil
engineers in private practice, government, industry and academia who
are dedicated to the advancement of the science and profession of civil
engineering.
i. background
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C.A. 1251 et seq.,
is the principal law that deals with pollution in the nation's streams,
lakes, and estuaries. The Act, commonly referred to as the Clean Water
Act, was enacted in October 1972. It was substantively amended in 1977,
1981 and 1987.
The Act consists of two major parts: a regulatory scheme that
imposes progressively more stringent requirements on industries and
cities to abate pollution and meet the statutory goal of zero discharge
of pollutants and provisions that authorize Federal financial
assistance for municipal wastewater treatment plant construction. Both
are supported by permit and enforcement provisions. Programs at the
Federal level are administered by the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA); the Act allows EPA to delegate enforcement and permitting
authority to the States, and they have major responsibilities to
implement the Act's programs.
Congress declared in 1972 that it intended to restore and maintain
the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's
waters. These objectives were accompanied by statutory goals to
eliminate the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985 and
to attain, wherever possible, waters deemed ``fishable and swimmable''
by 1983. While the goals have not been entirely achieved, progress has
been made, especially in controlling conventional pollutants (suspended
solids, bacteria, and oxygen-consuming materials) discharged by
industries and municipal sewage treatment plants. These discrete
sources are easily identifiable and regulated.
To meet the goals of fishable, swimmable waters, Congress has
authorized $65 billion in grants and loans to wastewater treatment
plants between 1972 and 2002. Appropriations--the money actually
flowing to the States and local governments over the past 30 years--
have totaled $78.45 billion.
With point sources receiving virtually all of the funding, other
critical, less definable sources of water pollution--agricultural and
industrial runoff, for example--are yet to be fully regulated. ``The
Act ignores largely nonpoint sources of pollution leaving these
important issues to the common law and State and local regulation.''\1\
The U.S. Supreme Court read the concept of local regulation quite
literally in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001) (holding that the
government could not regulate isolated wetlands and other nonnavigable
waters). The decision may lead to more regulation, not less.
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\1\ William H. Rodgers, Jr., Environmental Law 248 (2d Ed. 1994).
In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Water Act, which
has a savings clause, does not preempt common law nuisance actions so
long as they are based on the law of the state of the source of the
pollution. See Mary J. Davis, Unmasking the Presumption in Favor of
Preemption, 53 S.C.L.REV. 967, 995 (2202) (citing International Paper
Co. v. Ouellete, 479 U.S. 481 (1987)).
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The Supreme Court's decision in SWANCC did not conclusively
foreclose the Federal Government's right under the Clean Water Act to
restrict environmental degradation of all nonnavigable wetlands.
Nevertheless, the decision indicates that longstanding policies that
previously supported an expansive view of Federal powers in the
environmental regulatory arena will continue to be severely restricted.
The Court's shift toward a more rigid and inflexible method of
statutory analysis will increasingly transfer governmental authority to
promulgate conservation planning and open space protection onto local,
more decentralized jurisdictions. This will invariably mean that the
need for State, local, and regional governing bodies to develop
coordinated agendas for land use planning will become more pressing
than ever.\2\
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\2\ Owen Demuth, Sweetening The Pot: The Conservation and
Reinvestment Act Reignites the Property Rights/Land Conservation Debate
for the Twenty-First Century, 50 Buffalo Law Review 755, 798-799 (2002)
(emphasis added).
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Moreover, some critics have argued that this congressional faith in
State regulation has not always resulted in improved pollution-control
programs in certain cases.\3\
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\3\ See, e.g., Oliver A. Houck and Michael Rolland, federalism In
Wetlands Regulation: A Consideration of Delegation of Clean Water Act
Section 404 and Related Programs to the States, 54 Maryland Law Review
1242, 1243 (1995) (``The Act has been amended to allow States to
operate delegated section 404 programs, and to allow States to regulate
certain activities, in the alternative, under broad Federal permits.
Neither of these opportunities has been widely exercised to date.'')
(citations omitted).
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ii. infrastructure funding needs
Although the Federal Government has spent more than $78 billion on
wastewater treatment programs since 1972, the nation's 16,000
wastewater systems still face enormous infrastructure funding needs in
the next 20 years to replace pipes and other constructed facilities
that have exceeded their design life. With billions being spent yearly
for wastewater infrastructure, the systems face a shortfall of at least
$12 billion annually to replace aging facilities and comply with
existing and future Federal water regulations. The total does not
account for any growth in demand from new systems.
Funding has remained flat for a decade. In Fiscal Year 2002,
Congress appropriated $1.35 billion for wastewater infrastructure,
which represents about 11 percent of the annual need nationally.
Requirements for communities that have not yet achieved secondary
treatment or must upgrade existing facilities remain very high: $126
billion nationwide is required by 2016, according to the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). The largest need, $45 billion, is for projects
to control combined sewer overflows. The second largest category of
needs, at $27 billion, is for new or improved secondary treatment (the
basic statutory requirement of the Clean Water Act). In addition to
costs documented by EPA, States estimate an additional $34 billion in
wastewater treatment needs for projects that do not meet EPA
documentation criteria but, nevertheless, represent a potential demand
on State resources.
Recently, the EPA released a new analysis of wastewater funding
needs over the next 20 years. The needs are staggering. ``Estimates of
capital needs for clean water from 2000 to 2019 range from $331 billion
to $450 billion with a point estimate of $388 billion,'' the Agency
said.\4\
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\4\ U.S. EPA, The Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure
Gap Analysis 6 (2002).
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Between 35 percent and 45 percent of U.S. surface waters still do
not meet current water-quality standards. According to EPA, sewer
overflows are a chronic and growing problem. Many of the nation's urban
sewage collection systems are aging; some sewers are 100 years old.
Many systems have not received the essential maintenance and repairs
necessary to keep them working properly. Pending Federal regulations to
manage sanitary sewer overflows (SSO) would impose an additional total
cost for all municipalities of $93.5 million to $126.5 million each
year.
Without a significantly enhanced Federal role in providing
assistance to wastewater infrastructure, critical investments will not
occur. Possible solutions include grants, trust funds, loans, and
incentives for private investment. The question is not whether the
Federal Government should take more responsibility for drinking water
and wastewater improvements, but how.
Policy Options
New solutions are needed to what amounts to a nearly trillion
dollars uncritical drinking water and wastewater investments over the
next two decades. Not meeting the investment needs of the next 20 years
risks reversing the public health, environmental, and economic gains of
the last three decades.
The case for Federal investment is compelling. Needs are large and
unprecedented; in many locations, local sources cannot be expected to
meet this challenge alone; and because waters are shared across local
and State boundaries, the benefits of Federal help will accrue to the
entire nation. Clean and safe water is no less a national priority than
are national defense, an adequate system of interstate highways, and a
safe and efficient aviation system. These latter infrastructure
programs enjoy sustainable, long-term Federal grant programs; under
current policy, water and wastewater infrastructure do not.
Equally compelling is the case for flexibility in the forms of
Federal investment including grants, loans, and other forms of
assistance. Grants will be needed for many communities that simply
cannot afford to meet public health, environmental, and/or service-
level requirements.
Loans and credit enhancements may be sufficient for other types of
communities with greater economies of scale, wealthier populations,
and/or fewer assets per capita to replace.
ASCE recommends that funding for water infrastructure system
improvements and associated operations be provided by a comprehensive
program.
Specific Recommendations Supported by ASCE
congressional appropriations of $11 billion-$12 billion
annually for immediate wastewater infrastructure repairs and system
upgrades.
Creation of a water trust fund to finance the national
shortfall in funding for water and wastewater infrastructure. These
trust funds should not be diverted for non-water purposes.
Issuance of revenue bonds and tax exempt financing at
State and local levels, as well as public-private partnerships, State
Infrastructure Banks, and other innovative financing mechanisms.
iii. other policy issues
ASCE supports a CWA that maximizes, to the extent possible, the
protection of our nation's waters and the beneficial use of those
waters. The Clean Water Act should aggressively address non-point
source pollution from watersheds and also point source pollution from
sanitary sewer overflows, combined sewer overflows, and storm sewer
discharges. The reauthorized Clean Water Act should:
Increase funding for infrastructure needs to meet the
goals and objectives of the Act.
Establish source water protection programs.
Establish standards for the use of recycled water.
Include provisions to encourage pollution prevention.
Integrate watershed management.
Provide source-water protection.
Protect fish and wildlife habitat.
Safeguard the quality of coastal waters and estuaries.
Provide meaningful information to the public about water
quality.
Authorize regulations that are effective in protecting the
beneficial uses of the nation's water and flexible enough to allow
innovative practices and means to achieve these goals.
ASCE supports the use of the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)
regulation for improved water quality.
A national wetlands policy should be established separately.
That concludes our statement. Please contact Michael Charles of
ASCE's Washington Office at (202) 789-2200 with any questions.
__________
Statement of Robert E. Lee, Chairman, National Cattlemen's
Beef Association
Producer-directed and consumer-focused, the National Cattlemen's
Beef Association is the trade association of America's cattle farmers
and ranchers, and the marketing organization for the largest segment of
the nation's food and fiber industry.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), on behalf of its
members and affiliates, herein submits its testimony to the Environment
and Public Works Committee of the U.S. Senate concerning the oversight
hearing conducted on October 8, 2002 concerning ``The Clean Water Act--
Then and Now.''
NCBA represents the many cattle feeders and family ranchers, all of
whom have a stake in protecting the environment. We believe that common
sense, cost-effective and affordable principles can be applied to
livestock production to achieve environmental protection of wetlands
and riparian areas.
Initiated in 1898, NCBA is the marketing organization and trade
association for America's one million cattle farmers and ranchers. With
offices in Denver and Washington, DC, NCBA is a consumer-focused,
producer-directed organization representing the largest segment of the
nation's food and fiber industry.
ncba's commitment to conservation
During last year's Farm Bill debate, NCBA Vice President, Eric
Davis of Bruno, Idaho, appeared before the Senate Agriculture Committee
to present testimony outlining the importance of conservation
initiatives for America's cattle producers.
``Regardless of what form the final conservation title will
take, we are aware that the financial resources committed to
conservation spending over the next 10 years will make the 2002
Farm Bill a great milestone in Federal conservation policy. . .
. NCBA wants to stress that whatever form the final package
takes, it is critical that the 2002 farm bill make a major, new
commitment to providing livestock producers with conservation
cost share and incentive payments assistance in the context of
voluntary, incentive-based programs.''
(Testimony of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association to the Senate
Agriculture Committee, The Honorable Tom Harkin, Chairman, presented by
Eric Davis, NCBA Vice-President, July 24, 2001).
the role of the department of agriculture
NCBA appreciates the role that the Department of Agriculture has
taken throughout the years in assisting cattle producers. The technical
assistance that the Agency provides is critical in helping farmers and
ranchers implement conservation and environmental practices on their
operations.
the role of the environmental protection agency and the states
The Clean Water Act outlines different approaches for ``point
sources'' and ``nonpoint sources.'' Depending on their particular
situation, a cattle operation can either be a ``point source'' or a
``nonpoint source.'' If a cattle operation is a ``concentrated animal
feeding operation,'' that operation is a point source, subject to
effluent limitations guidelines drafted by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA). If a cattle operation is not a concentrated animal
feeding operation, that operation is considered by the Clean Water Act
to be a nonpoint source, and pursuant to Section 319 of the Clean Water
Act, is subject to management programs implemented by the States.
The Act envisioned a partnership between the States and various
Federal agencies, working in collaboration to ``restore and maintain
the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's
water.'' 33 U.S.C. ' 1251(a).
States have developed workable programs that are achieving positive
environmental results. The fact that the programs vary from State to
State is evidence that a ``one-size-fits-all'' approach is not
appropriate.
Recently, EPA proposed a nutrient trading policy. NCBA submitted
comments to the proposal. Nutrient trading could be an opportunity for
effective Federal and State collaboration, with the Agency recognizing
that in many instances, incentives for voluntary actions can result in
greater water quality and environmental benefits than would otherwise
be achieved under the Clean Water Act.
the role of the producer
NCBA recognizes that environmental stewardship is important. NCBA
policy directs that the Association will not be compelled to defend
anyone in the beef cattle industry who clearly acts to abuse grazing,
water, or air resources.
On the other hand, we believe that it is important to recognize
those producers who have clearly acted to protect grazing, water, air,
and wildlife resources. For the past 11 years, NCBA has named seven
regional Environmental Stewardship Award winners, and a national
winner. The regional winners are recognized during our summer
conference, and the national winner is named at the annual National
Convention.
Because the role of the producer is ever changing, at this year's
National Convention, NCBA staff will provide an educational session on
the new provisions of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program
(EQIP) during NCBA's ``Cattlemen's College.''
NCBA appreciates the opportunity to provide this testimony. We
remain committed to responsible stewardship of our natural resources.