By James Laughlin
EPA is developing a new FY 2003-2008 Strategic Plan to serve as its road map for the next five years. The plan will lay out EPA's long-term goals and guide the agency in establishing the annual goals its staff will need to meet along the way.
The plan centers around achieving compliance and environmental stewardship in the areas of water, air, land, communities and ecosystems. EPA expects to seek comment on a full-text draft of the plan beginning in March and submit the Strategic Plan to Congress in September, as required under the Government Performance and Results Act.
The basic goal for water is to protect human health while also maintaining aquatic ecosystems that support economic and recreational activities and provide healthy habitat for fish, plants and wildlife.
Safe drinking water is a major priority. By 2008, EPA would like to ensure that at least 95% of the population served by community water systems receives drinking water that meets all applicable health-based drinking water standards.
Another goal is to reduce vulnerability of source waters to contamination. By 2008, EPA plans to implement source water contamination prevention strategies in each state so that the percentage of source water areas (both surface and ground water) identified as highly or moderately vulnerable to contamination is reduced. The percentage of reduction has yet to be specified.
EPA also wants to reduce waterborne disease attributable to drinking water. EPA is not providing an outcome measure at this time. There are a number of disease occurrence indicators at the federal, state and local level that may be relevant to quantifying microbial and chronic disease occurrence. The agency questions the effectiveness of some of these indicators in quantifying waterborne disease as it relates to drinking water and will seek comments.
Protecting and improving water quality on a watershed basis is also a priority. EPA's goal is to use both pollution prevention and restoration approaches to restore and maintain watersheds. EPA is interested in hearing comments concerning the most appropriate way to show improvement. These could include such things as number of parameters, degree of improvement or net change, measurement in chemical or biological parameters, etc. EPA is also interested in hearing comments concerning the feasibility of assessing changes in the condition of all watersheds in the country and the appropriateness of such an assessment.
Other objectives include ensuring fish are safe to eat, water is safe for swimming, reducing nutrient and sediment levels in rivers and lakes, improving access to basic sanitation, improving coastal and ocean waters, and maintaining coastal dissolved oxygen levels.
Research objectives include developing tools for monitoring and reacting to intentional acts of contamination involving biological and chemical agents. Currently, the draft reads "by 20XX, develop methods for detection and decontamination of drinking water facilities and indoor environments contaminated with chemical or biological agents."
As part of that goal, EPA is proposing to conduct testing and verification of detection methods and decontamination technologies that can be used by emergency personnel. Timing is uncertain, but it is a long-term goal.
An early version of the draft Strategic Plan was available on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/ocfopage/plan/plan.htm in early February.
James Laughlin, Editor
