Drinking Water: Combination of Strategies Needed to Bring Program Costs
in Line With Resources (Testimony, 03/14/94, GAO/T-RCED-94-152).

Meeting federal drinking water standards is a major financial problem
for about 50,000 small towns that account for 90 percent of the nation's
drinking water. In 1986, Congress amended the Safe Drinking Water Act to
increase the number of regulated contaminants and beef up the
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) enforcement authority. EPA has
since issued new regulations that have significantly increased the
responsibilities involved in managing drinking water programs. States
are experimenting with a variety of strategies to improve small water
systems' compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. They are (1)
exploring affordable, alternative treatment strategies; (2) testing
creative ways to deliver technical and financial help to small systems;
and (3) exploring options for restructuring small systems, such as
consolidating nonviable small systems with viable ones. A number of
barriers, however, are preventing the wider use of these
strategies--particularly the sheer number of systems needing assistance.
EPA needs to strengthen its efforts to help small communities use more
cost-effective technologies to protect drinking water. Moreover,
Congress and the administration need to examine the spiraling costs
associated with the act's requirements. The addition of new requirements
without a commensurate increase in resources has hobbled states' and
communities' ability to comply with basic program requirements. This
problem has disproportionately affected smaller communities because they
generally lack the economies of scale to absorb additional costs.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-94-152
     TITLE:  Drinking Water: Combination of Strategies Needed to Bring 
             Program Costs in Line With Resources
      DATE:  03/14/94
   SUBJECT:  Management information systems
             Water quality
             Water treatment
             Testing
             State programs
             Water pollution
             Federal/state relations
             Environmental policies
             Cost effectiveness analysis
             Safety standards
IDENTIFIER:  EPA Safe Drinking Water Program
             
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