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Water
Quality and Infrastructure
Appropriations
and Legislative Activity | Project
Financing: State Revolving Loan Funds
Other Resources | Nonprofit
and Professional Organizations
Overview
Nearly all Northeast-Midwest
Institute programs address water issues to some degree. Programs
that address specific water quality issues and/or have a regional
focus include:
In addition
to these efforts, Institute staff also research water and wastewater
issues and track related appropriations and legislative activity.
Selected information on current issues can be found below.
Appropriations
and Legislative Activity
Appropriations
Information
Related Resources
Existing
Water-Related Acts
Project Financing: State Revolving Funds
Clean
Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF)
The CWSRF
was created in Title VI of the 1987 Clean Water Act Amendments.
Administered by states and overseen by EPA, the CWSRF provides
financial assistance other than grants to public and private entities
for projects that protect and restore water quality, including
publicly owned treatment works (POTWs), nonpoint source pollution
control, and estuary management. Under the CWSRF, EPA provides
annual grants solely to states. States match these capitalization
grants at a minimum of 20 percent and use the funds to provide
financial assistance other than grants to public and private entities
for state-determined priority water quality projects. The most
common form of financial assistance has been loans with interest
rates that vary from zero interest to market rate, with repayment
periods of up to 20 years. Today, total CWSRF assets exceed $34
billion (including loans already made and current funds available
to make loans) and since 1988, over $30 billion in loans have
been issued through the CWSRF, with average annual funding of
between $3 and 4 billion. However, several studies have indicated
that clean water needs current funding levels. While the exact
dollar figure for needs is debatable, the results of EPA's 2000
Clean Water Needs Survey, due in the spring of 2002, should provide
greater insight into this issue.
Drinking
Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF)
The Drinking
Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) was created by the Safe Drinking
Water Act Amendments of 1996 and is also administered by EPA.
The DWSRF is similar to the CWSRF, but DWSRF loans primarily are
issued to public water systems for infrastructure improvements
and pollution prevention measures that would enable them to comply
with national primary drinking water standards and protect public
health. Public and private community water systems and non-profit
non-community water systems are eligible for DWSRF money, including
small and disadvantaged communities. Funded projects may include
but are not limited to eligible storage facilities and transmission
and distribution systems, the installation and replacement of
failing water treatment facilities, water supply consolidation,
programs that encourage better system operations through enhanced
water systems management, and programs that emphasize prevention
as a tool for ensuring safe drinking water. Since 1997, Congress
has appropriated $3.6 billion to the DWSRF. However, EPA's 2001
Drinking Water Needs Survey estimates a $150.9 billion need over
the next 20 years, with $102.5 billion needed now to ensure the
continued provision of safe drinking water.
Selected
Publications
Other
Resources by Issue
Acid
Rain and Atmospheric Deposition
Airborne pollutants
can fall to the ground in rain or snow, in dust, or simply due
to gravity. As pollutants fall, they may end up in streams, lakes,
wetlands, or estuaries and can affect water quality. For example,
studies show that 21% of the nitrogen pollution entering Chesapeake
Bay comes from the air (Great
Waters 3rd Report to Congress, 2000). There are five categories
of air pollutants with the greatest potential to harm water quality:
nitrogen, mercury, other metals, combustion emissions, and pesticides.
An emerging issue is the impacts to public health and the environment
from airborne
pollutants transported from confined/concentrated animal feeding
operations (CAFOs), especially methane and nitrogen from ammonia.
Drinking
Water, Groundwater, Arsenic, MTBE, and Rural Water Resources
Drinking
Water and Groundwater Information
Large metropolitan
areas generally rely on surface water for drinking water, whereas
small and rural areas tend to rely on groundwater. It is estimated
that there are nearly 170,000 water systems in the United States,
and approximately 10-20% of the population are not served by these
systems and instead rely on their own private wells for drinking
water. The Safe Drinking Water Act and its amendments authorize
EPA to set standards for approximately 90 contaminants in drinking
water, which water suppliers must meet, and review them every
six years. EPA has recently reviewed 68 chemical water standards
and the total coliform rule and concluded that the latter needs
to be revised. A number of the chemicals recently reviewed are
undergoing new health assessments and depending on the results,
EPA will decide whether revisions for these standards are warranted.
EPA's Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF)
is the primary source of funding for upgrading existing water
systems.
Arsenic
Basics
MTBE Basics
Rural
Water Resources
Droughts
From the Mid-Atlantic
region up to Maine, the East Coast is experiencing some of the
driest conditions in many years, and drought watches, warnings
and emergencies have been issued in several counties. Conditions
are also persistently dry in other parts of the country.
Flooding
and Floodplain Management
Estuaries
and Coastal Waters
There are
673 counties in the United States that lie within 50 miles of
the coast: 285 in the Atlantic, 158 in the Great Lakes, 142 in
the Gulf of Mexico, and 88 in the Pacific (NOAA's
State of the Coast Report, Population Section). Although these
counties comprise only 17% of the land area in the US, they are
home to over 50% of the population, and population density is
increasing: in 1960, an average of 187 people per square mile,
compared to 273 by 1994 and a predicted 327 by 2015 (ibid.). Such
increases in population can put pressure on existing infrastructure
and the quality of life in existing communities, as well as air
and water quality.
Nonpoint
Source Pollution
Unlike industrial
pollution or discharge from wastewater treatment plants, nonpoint
source pollution comes from many diffuse sources. It is caused
by rainfall or snowmelt that moves over and through the ground,
picking up and carrying away natural and human-made pollutants
and depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters,
and groundwater. Pollutants may include fertilizers, pesticides,
oil, salt, sediment from construction sites or eroded streambanks,
and bacteria from pet and livestock waste. There are many approaches
to controlling nonpoint source pollution (e.g. best management
practices). Primary funding sources for controlling nonpoint source
pollution include EPA's Clean Water State Revolving
Fund (CWSRF) and Clean Water Act Section 319 and Section 106
Grants. Other sources include the USDA's Environmental Quality
Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP),
especially state Conservation Reserve Enhancement Programs (CREPs).
Smart
Growth and Sprawl
Many state
and local governments have initiated smart growth measures to
foster economic growth that protects air and water quality and
a community's character and quality of life. Such measures include
redeveloping brownfields, encouraging mixed land uses, protecting
open space, providing affordable housing, revising building codes,
and easing traffic congestion by providing an array of transportation
choices.
- Coastal
Sprawl: the Effects of Urban Design on Aquatic Ecosystems in the
United States (Pew Oceans Commission and the South Carolina Coastal
Conservation League, 2002)
- Environmental
Protection: Federal Incentives Could Help Promote Land Use That
Protects Air and Water Quality (GAO, 2001)
- Living
on the Coast: Smart Growth Tools on the Internet (NOAA's Coastal
Services Center)
- Our
Built and Natural Environments: a Technical Review of the Interactions
between Land Use, Transportation, and Environmental Quality (EPA,
2000)
- Potential
Roles for Clean Water State Revolving Fund Programs in Smart Growth
(EPA, 2000)
- Smart
Growth and the Clean Water Act (Northeast-Midwest Institute, 2001)
- Smart
Growth Legislative Activity and Resources (Northeast-Midwest Institute,
2002)
- Smart
Growth Network's Environmental Section
- Smart
Growth/Water Quality Funding Sources (EPA, 2001)
- Sprawl
Leaves Its Footprint in Water (EESI briefing, 2001)
- Urban
Sprawl Leaves Its PAH Signature (Environmental Science and Technology,
2000)
Total
Maximum Daily Loads
(TMDLs)
Although EPA's
TMDL Program was created in the 1972 Clean Water Act, the agency's
efforts focused on controlling point source pollution. However,
by the 1990s, it became clear that nonpoint source pollution was
becoming the leading cause of water impairment, and between 1986
and 1996, there were 45 legal actions in 34 states related to
TMDLs. In response, EPA convened a Federal Advisory Committee,
and the Committee's 1998 report led to a TMDL rule in 2000. However,
a Congressional rider in a FY 2000 military construction/supplemental
appropriations bill (HR 4425) prohibited EPA from implementing
this rule in FY 2000 and 2001. In October of 2001, the Administrator
signed a rule that extended the implementation date for the July
2000 TMDL rule by 18 months and the date for the 2002 TMDL lists
by six months to October 2002.
Wastewater
Infrastructure and Wet Weather
Basics of Wastewater Treatment and Infrastructure
Combined
Sewer Overflows (CSOs)
Combined sewers
collect and transport stormwater, domestic sewage, and industrial
wastewater in the same pipe to a wastewater treatment plant where
it is treated and discharged a nearby water body. However, during
periods of heavy rainfall or snowmelt, the wastewater volume in
a combined sewer system can exceed the capacity of the sewer system
or treatment plant. In these cases, combined sewers were designed
to discharge excess wastewater directly to nearby streams, rivers,
or other water bodies. Because CSOs contain not only storm water
but also untreated human and industrial waste, toxic materials,
and debris, they can be a major threat to water quality.
It is important
to note that that because most combined sewers were built in the
late 1800s and early 1900s, they are a design technique from a
time when other design options and technology were not available,
they weren't burdened by large populations, and the potential
impacts to receiving waters and dependent wildlife were not necessarily
known. Approximately 900
cities in the US have combined sewer systems, the majority
of which are located in older parts of cities in the Northeast,
Midwest, and Pacific Northwest. In 1994, EPA initiated its CSO
Control Policy, which provides guidance on how communities with
combined sewers can meet Clean Water Act goals in a flexible and
cost-effective manner. Key aspects include the nine minimum controls
for CSOs and long term CSO control plans. EPA estimated in its
1996 Clean Water Needs Survey Report to Congress that it will
cost $44.7 billion to control CSOs nationwide. In fiscal 2002,
the EPA requested $450 million for a new sewer overflow control
grant program to address CSOs and sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs)
as authorized by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2000.
However, this money has not been appropriated.
Sanitary
Sewer Overflows (SSOs)
Properly designed,
operated, and maintained sanitary sewer systems collect and transport
all of the sewage that flows into them to wastewater treatment
plants. However, occasional unintentional discharges of raw sewage
from municipal sanitary sewer systems occur in almost every system.
SSOs have a variety of avoidable and unavoidable causes, including
severe wet weather, improper system operation and maintenance,
and vandalism. EPA estimates that there are at least 40,000 SSOs
each year, posing threats to water quality and public health and
damaging private property. To address this, EPA is proposing a
SSO rule, which is expected to be available for public comment
by fall of 2002. Key aspects may include requiring facilities
to develop and implement new public notification programs and
capacity, management, operations, maintenance programs (CMOM)
and clarifying and expanding NPDES permit requirements for 19,000
municipal sanitary sewer collection systems. In
fiscal 2002, the EPA requested $450 million for a new sewer overflow
control grant program to address CSOs and SSOs as authorized by
the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2000. However, this money
has not been appropriated.
Stormwater
In response
to the 1987 Clean Water Act Amendments, EPA developed Phase I
of the National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Stormwater Program in
1990 to issue NPDES permits for storm water discharges from medium
and large municipal separate storm sewer systems (i.e. those located
in incorporated places or counties with populations of 100,000
or more) and eleven categories of industrial activity, one of
which is construction activity that disturbs five or more acres
of land. The Phase II Final Rule was published in the Federal
Register on December 8, 1999 and requires NPDES permit coverage
for storm water discharges from certain regulated small municipal
separate storm sewer systems and construction activity disturbing
between one and five acres of land.
Wetlands
Restoration and Permitting
Background
and Restoration Information
Wetlands are
transition zones between land and water where the flow of water
and the cycling of nutrients produces ecosystems characterized
by their unique hydrology, soils, and vegetation. The primary
types of wetlands are marshes, bogs, fens, and swamps. In addition
to providing important habitat for aquatic and terrestrial species,
wetlands also can control floods by absorbing and storing stormwater
and river overflow. Despite the benefits provided by wetlands,
approximately half of the wetlands in the lower 48 states have
been drained and coverted to other uses, most of which occurred
from the 1950s through the 1970s. Of the approximately 100 million
acres that remain in the lower 48 states, roughly 60,000 acres
of wetlands are lost every year. Major threats include nonpoint
source pollution (e.g. runoff of sediments, salts, pesticides,
fertilizers, and metals from roads, urban areas, construction
areas, or farms), invasive species, and development pressure.
Section 404
of the Clean Water Act created a program to regulate the discharge
of dredged and fill material into waters of the United States,
including wetlands. This permit program is jointly administered
by the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA, with the advisement of
the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries
Service, and state resource agencies. Non-regulatory wetlands
restoration programs are administered by the USDA's Wetlands Reserve
Program (WRP), Army Corps of Engineers, and the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Regulation
and Permitting
Nonprofit
and Professional Organizations
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