Copyright 2002 eMediaMillWorks, Inc.
(f/k/a Federal
Document Clearing House, Inc.)
Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
October 8, 2002 Tuesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 3967 words
COMMITTEE:
SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
HEADLINE: CLEAN WATER ACT
TESTIMONY-BY: G. TRACY MEHAN, III, ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR FOR WATER
AFFILIATION: U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY
BODY: STATEMENT OF G. TRACY
MEHAN, III ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR WATER U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC
WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
October 8, 2002
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 thirty years ago. As we entered the 1970s, 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 sizeable 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 twenty 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% 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% of assessed rivers and
streams and 39% of assessed lakes are not safe for fish consumption. The
estimates for non- attainment of swimming were 32% and 30%; for drinking water,
16% and 21%.
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 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. 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 1800s. 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 ten 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 towards 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,
watershed 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. Nonpoint 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 nonpoint 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% 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 towards them together.
This concludes my
prepared remarks. I would be happy to address any questions you may have at this
time.
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2002