The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a report showing how the U.S. economy depends on clean water. At the same time, the Agency warned that the U.S. faces significant challenges in cleaning up its remaining polluted waterways.
"Americans care deeply about their rivers, lakes and shorelines," said EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner. "A third of all Americans visit coastal areas each year, generating new jobs and billions of dollars for our economy. However, our summertime traditions continue to be affected by closed beaches and fish advisories, resulting in lost revenues and public health hazards.
"Although the United States has made tremendous progress cleaning up its water by removing billions of pounds of pollutants and doubling the number of waterways safe for fishing and swimming, a majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a polluted lake, river, stream or coastal area," said Browner. "The Clinton/Gore Administration soon will issue an important new standard to help states clean up remaining polluted waters across the country."
In a new publication on the economic impact of clean water entitled, "Liquid Assets 2000," EPA reports:
- A third of all Americans visit coastal areas each year, making a total of 910 million trips while spending about $44 billion. Each year, millions of additional dollars go to non-coastal recreational waterways.
- Water used for irrigating crops and raising livestock helps American farmers produce and sell $197 billion worth of food and fiber each year;
- Manufacturers use more than nine trillion gallons of fresh water every year;
- Every year, the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico and coastal areas produce more than 10 billion pounds of fish and shellfish;
- States have identified almost 300,000 miles of rivers and streams and more than five million acres of lakes that do not meet state water quality goals;
- In 1998, about one-third of the 1,062 beaches reporting to EPA had at least one health advisory or closing; over 2,500 fish consumption advisories or bans were issued by states in areas where fish were too contaminated to eat.
Copies of the report, "Liquid Assets 2000: America's Water Resources at a Turning Point," is available at: http://www.epa.gov/ow/liquidassets, under "What's New," or by calling EPA's Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds at 202-260-7040.
EPA Removes MCLG for Chloroform
EPA is removing the zero MCLG for chloroform from its National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWRs) in accordance with a recent order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In December, 1998, EPA promulgated National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWRs) for disinfectants and disinfection byproducts (D/DBPs) that included a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG) of zero for chloroform, a disinfectant byproduct. The MCLG was challenged by the Chlorine Chemistry Council and Chemical Manufacturers Association, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that EPA had not used the best available, peer-reviewed science to set the MCLG as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
EPA Report Examines New York City Progress
New York City has made significant progress in protecting the Catskill/Delaware watershed, but it must step up its efforts to avoid being required to filter its water in the long-term.
In May 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to conditionally exempt the city from federal requirements to filter the Catskill/Delaware system, the source of almost 90 percent of its drinking water. That decision is set to expire in April 2002. EPA issued the exemption, called a Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD), based on the city's commitment to take steps to protect its watershed.
The Agency has completed a mid-course review of the city's compliance with the requirements of the FAD and prepared a report identifying successes, corrections and improvements that must be made.
"The city has done well in a number of areas, but in others they are falling far behind. They must turn things around or risk being required to filter," said EPA's Regional Administrator, Jeanne M. Fox.
The report, which will set the stage for EPA's next filtration avoidance decision, scheduled for April 2002, gives the city high marks in a number of areas. The city:
- has worked with a local corporation to repair or rehabilitate nearly one thousand septic systems in the Catskills,
- has developed and implemented a ground-breaking disease surveillance program, which serves as a national model,
- has successfully implemented an extensive watershed sampling program and distribution system sampling program,
- has implemented a program to reduce pollutant runoff from farms, with more than 90 percent of the farms located in the watershed enrolled in a Whole Farm Program,
- met and exceeded land acquisition solicitation goals in priority areas surrounding key reservoirs, and successfully acquired approximately 20,000 acres in the watershed, including 5,389 acres - 38 percent of land solicited - around the West Branch Reservoir,
- upgraded all six city-owned sewage treatment plants in the Catskill/Delaware watershed,
However, the city is falling behind in some critical areas, which must be substantially addressed prior to EPA's next decision on filtration. The two most critical areas are: acquiring land or conservation easements around the Kensico Reservoir, where nearly all of the water from the Catskill/Delaware system flows before it enters the distribution system and where the City has only purchased 17 acres out of an available 1000 acres; and upgrading the treatment technology at the 34 non-city-owned sewage treatment plants located in the Catskill/Delaware watershed.
The city is also required to upgrade the sewage treatment plants in the Croton system, bringing the total to more than 100. EPA is recommending that the city:
- expand to the Rondout and West Branch Reservoirs its successful Waterfowl Management Program, designed to reduce the amount of waterfowl fecal matter (a source of coliform) that enters the reservoirs,
- develop a strategy to further reduce non-point source pollution in the Catskill/Delaware drainage basin east-of-Hudson,
- expedite completion of Stream Management Plans and demonstration projects to reduce water turbidity (cloudiness),
- set a goal of increasing wetlands acreage in the watershed,
- strengthen public outreach efforts to communicate with communities affected by watershed issues,
- develop a long-term mechanism to better detect and correct failing septic systems,
- get more involved at an earlier stage in the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process, which requires local agencies to study environmental impacts of development actions, and map impervious surfaces in the watershed,
- conduct an analysis of its entire watershed monitoring program to ensure that the program can detect trends and measure pollutant reductions watershed-wide, and reinstate its Annual Water Quality Report (last published in 1993), to integrate the tremendous amount of data that are collected throughout the watershed, and get as much of this information out to the public as possible.
The 1997 FAD requires the city to design a filtration system for the Catskill/Delaware if it is unable to protect drinking water quality in the long-term. The city is on schedule in meeting these design requirements. EPA can, at any time, require the city to filter its system if the agency determines that the quality of the drinking water is threatened.
The city appears to be adequately protecting the Catskill/Delaware drinking water source for the time being and EPA does not expect to make any filtration decisions until the current FAD expires in 2002.
"Right now, the city continues to provide safe drinking water and so far, there has been no need to require filtration," Fox added. "We're only half way through this current FAD, and clearly there is plenty of work still to be done."
