Ten Principles for Restoring and Protecting America's Waters

   In 1972, responding to public outrage over the deplorable condition of the nation's waters, Congress enacted the Clean Water Act. America's clean water program has been a spectacular success - perhaps one of the best examples in the post-war era of the power of the government to do good. This success is largely the result of an aggressive policy for restoring and protecting clean water that was established in 1972 and that essentially has remained unchanged for 25 years.

The basic approach in the Clean Water Act for the last 25 years has been successively more stringent control of "point sources" of water pollution - primarily factories and city sewers, along with controls on activities that destroy wetlands. In the last decade, Clean Water Act authorities have been strengthened several times by complementary changes and events. These include changes in federal farm policies to substantially improve technical and financial assistance to farmers to protect the environment, new changes in federal land management policies to increase protection of aquatic resources and watersheds, new authorities to protect coastal waters, and a rise in the number of broad-based watershed organizations.

The 25th anniversary of the Clean Water Act is a good opportunity to reflect on the past and on the road ahead. What has been accomplished? What still needs to be done? What worked well and what can be improved? How have science and society changed and do these changes offer ways to do things better? Asking these questions about the national clean water program suggests some general principles to guide clean water efforts in the future.

Ten key principles to guide clean water efforts in the years to come are described below. These principles provide an overall context for the specific initiatives proposed in this Clean Water Action Plan and for investments of additional federal funds proposed in the FY 1999 Clean Water and Watershed Restoration Initiative. Several principles reaffirm key elements of the clean water program defined in 1972. Taken together, however, these principles suggest a new course for the nation's clean water program and its evolution based on assessment of past experience and anticipated changes in the broader arena in which it will operate.

River Action Teams--Catalyst for Watershed Restoration The Tennessee Valley Authority's Clean Water Initiative is helping communities set and achieve local goals for watershed improvement through River Action Teams assigned to each of the region's 12 watersheds. These teams serve as a catalyst for local action. They help to bring stakeholders together, identify problems, build support for solutions, secure technical and financial resources, or do whatever else may be necessary to enable the community to address water resource problems. TVA's Wheeler-Elk River Action Team, for example, has garnered the support and participation of landowners and 20 different agencies and organizations in efforts to enhance water quality in the Paint Rock River in northern Alabama. The river contains 98 fish and 44 mussel species, many threatened by sedimentation. The cooperative initiative involves stabilizing stream banks, implementing best management practices, and increasing public awareness.

1. Strong Clean Water Standards

The strong clean water standards established in the 1972 Clean Water Act and other subsequent statutes have served the nation well. Government, industry, and the public have made the Clean Water Act work; a renewed commitment to these baseline programs will be a key part of finishing the cleanup of the nation's waters.

National minimum standards that limit pollution from sewage treatment plants and factories have resulted in most of the nation's progress in reducing water pollution. These national standards ensure that every discharger meets or beats the performance of the best technology available. With these national standards in place, local areas are not asked to choose between clean water and keeping jobs, and industries do not threaten to relocate if asked to clean up water pollution. Further, national sewage treatment standards make sure that every community does its fair share to clean up waters. Preserving these standards and establishing national standards for additional industrial categories are critical to maintaining progress in cleaning up the water.

EPA has defined water quality "criteria" for over 100 specific water pollutants. These criteria draw on the best science to ensure that a water body is clean enough for basic uses established by the state (e.g., fishing, swimming). States and tribes use these criteria as the basis for adopting enforceable water quality standards for specific pollutants. EPA reviews and approves or disapproves the standards. Now that many pollution sources have implemented basic treatment requirements, water quality standards will play a critical role in defining problem areas and setting pollution reduction goals. EPA will develop strong criteria for nitrogen and phosphorus that protect public health and the environment; expand efforts to assess the overall health of waters; and work with states and tribes to assure the adoption of a full set of needed water quality standards.

The enforceable mechanism for implementing water pollution control requirements is the discharge permit required under the Clean Water Act. For the past decade, most discharge permits have been issued by state agencies with oversight by EPA. Discharge permits are a proven tool for reducing water pollution. Existing permits must be reviewed and revised in a timely manner and key types of unpermitted discharges (e.g., certain animal feeding operations, storm water discharges from small cities and towns) must be brought into the permit program.

2. Clean Water: Healthy People

The primary objective of the Clean Water Act is to protect the "chemical, physical and biological integrity of water." Aggressive efforts to reduce water pollution over the past 25 years have also had dramatic benefits for public health. Advances in pollution control, medicine, and science have swept aside the concerns of past generations that drinking water and swimming in a lake or at the beach posed a risk of cholera, polio, and other diseases.

Despite dramatic progress, water pollution still poses serious threats to human health. The potential of polluted runoff to cause serious illness is now better understood. Microorganisms, such as Pfiesteria and Cryptosporidium, are recognized as threats to human health. There is growing recognition of the value of keeping sources of drinking water clean to reduce the need for treatment and associated costs for treatment plants. In areas where the fish are contaminated with mercury and other long-lasting pollutants, states issue advisories recommending that local populations or sensitive populations limit fish consumption. Thanks to better monitoring, beach closures as a result of water pollution threats to swimmers are increasing. Recent studies suggest that some water pollutants may be disrupting the endocrine systems of aquatic species, wildlife, and humans. To reduce human health threats from water, fish, and shellfish, federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local governments must work together to more clearly establish and enforce public health standards and programs. Employing a watershed framework and improving coordination between clean water and safe drinking water programs at all levels of government is a critical part of this effort.

3. Watershed Management:The Key to the Future

For the past 25 years, most water pollution control efforts relied on nationwide programs that addressed the biggest sources of water pollution, such as discharges from sewage treatment plants and factories. Today, however, there is a growing recognition of the need to better coordinate the implementation of national programs in specific geographic areas. For water resources, watersheds provide an appropriate geographic unit of management.

Watershed management fosters the coordinated implementation of programs to control point source discharges, reduce polluted runoff, and protect drinking water and sensitive natural resources such as wetlands. A watershed approach highlights opportunities to go beyond reducing chemical contamination to think about ways to enhance the overall health of the aquatic system and preserve biodiversity. Watershed management also fosters greater interest and involvement from the public and provides a foundation for partnerships among government, the public, and the private sector.

The successful evolution of clean water programs to a watershed approach will require the commitment and leadership of the states and tribes, many of which are now moving toward the implementation of water quality programs on a watershed basis. As they have learned, integration of diverse clean water programs at the watershed level requires intimate knowledge of the environmental conditions in a watershed and the mix of agencies and institutions that must play a part in achieving a coordinated and comprehensive solution to problems. Federal agencies can provide technical and financial help to facilitate watershed management, but state and tribal leadership is essential to bring all levels of government, the private sector, and the public together to make watershed management work.

Finally, if the clean water program is to make a transition to watershed management, the public must support this effort by getting actively involved in the formation of watershed partnerships. Through such partnerships, roles are clarified, resources are shared, and cost effective, practical solutions are put in place. As a result, in watershed after watershed, a better informed and more involved public is committed to lasting environmental improvements in their own communities. Federal agencies, states, and tribes can support and promote these efforts by providing improved information, technical and financial assistance and training.

Governors Endorse Watershed Management "Historically, this nation has approached water resources as isolated and categorical, with programs designed specifically for certain waters depending upon where they are found. Now we know that our water resources are part of an interrelated, hydrologic, and environmental system that demands systematic management. The governors believe that the future demands a new model for managing water resources, based on well-defined geographic units such as basins or watersheds that recognizes all the interconnections within the watershed that define the hydrologic cycle in that area, including surface and groundwaters as well as wetlands. . . . A systems management approach would involve the development and operation of a comprehensive water resource management program -- though ultimately it need not be limited to water resources within the specific geographic area encompassing the basin or watershed. Components of such a comprehensive program would include water supply, water quality, water conservation, flood protection, land use, and protection of fish and wildlife resources." -- National Governors Association Water Resources Management Policy Statement, February 1993

4. Restore Watersheds Not Meeting Clean Water Goals

In 1972, water pollution seemed almost ubiquitous. Today, although serious water quality problems remain, they are increasingly found in discrete clusters or problem areas. Improved monitoring and recent advances in computer mapping or georeferencing" of waters is making precise definition of problem areas and sources much easier than in the past.

The Clean Water Act provides for states and tribes to identify waters that do not meet water quality goals and develop plans to reduce pollutants in the water bodies. This effort was a low priority for many years while clean water programs concentrated on getting basic controls in place for major sources. EPA is working with states, tribes, and other federal agencies to focus greater attention on defining and restoring impaired waters that do not meet clean water goals. States and tribes are developing revised lists of waters not meeting clean water goals and long-term schedules for developing corrective actions to be submitted by EPA by April 1998. Federal land management and natural resource agencies are pioneering watershed assessment methods and locally led processes for addressing water quality problems.

In the future, the national water program will "scale up" assessments of problem areas from localized pollution problems in segments of water bodies to a larger landscape of watersheds. This process should grow beyond assessment of whether chemical contamination exceeds standards, to include other factors (e.g., health of wetlands, sediment quality, drinking water sources) and an assessment of whether the aquatic system in the watershed is functioning properly. The assessment process should also look to sources and impacts outside of the watershed itself, and include an assessment of the biological attributes of water resources.

Existing assessments of watershed health suggest that about 1,000 watersheds - almost half of the watersheds in the nation - have serious or moderate water quality problems. A key goal of the nation's clean water program will be to define the specific steps necessary to restore the health of the aquatic systems in these watersheds and marshall the public- and private-sector commitment to implement needed actions.

5. Build Bridges Between Water Quality and Natural Resource Programs

Much of the focus of the clean water program over the past 25 years has been to reduce chemical contamination of waters. Chemical contamination, however, addresses just one element of the Clean Water Act's charge to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters" (italics added). As the clean water program moves to address problems on a watershed basis, other impairments to aquatic systems (e.g., damage to fish habitat, loss of wetlands that are nurseries of aquatic life, stream corridor degradation) have become more obvious and of greater concern.

Natural resources - croplands, forests, wetlands, rangelands, and riparian areas - are the building blocks of most watersheds. The health of the nation's watersheds and the quality of the water is a reflection of how well those natural resources are cared for. Stewardship of natural resources is the fundamental first step toward clean water and pollution prevention.

Most of the land in watersheds is in the care of farmers, ranchers, and federal land managers. Linking federal natural resource conservation and federal land management programs more closely with federal and state clean water programs is a promising opportunity to quicken the pace of clean water efforts across the country. Actions to enhance assistance to private landowners and to strengthen the stewardship of federal lands on a watershed basis are major elements of this Action Plan.

A critical goal for pollution control and natural resource protection is to continue to slow the rate of wetlands loss nationwide and accomplish a net gain of at least 100,000 acres of wetlands each year by the year 2005. The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has committed to an aggressive goal to establish two million miles of greenways along with buffers to prevent pollution and protect stream corridors.

Other federal agencies, such as the Departments of the Interior, Energy, Defense, and Commerce, are working with states and tribes to manage and better protect natural resources. Building bridges between these water pollution control programs and natural resource programs will require improved coordination and communication among the responsible agencies.

The National Academy of Sciences Favors Restoration Without an active and ambitious restoration program in the United States, our swelling population and its increasing stresses on aquatic ecosystems will certainly reduce the quality of human life for present and future generations. By embarking now on a major national aquatic system restoration program, the United States can set an example of aquatic resource stewardship that ultimately will set an international example of environmental leadership. -- Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 1992

6. Respond to Growth Pressures on Sensitive Coastal Waters

In the early years of the clean water program, there was little recognition that the coasts might need special attention. With the exception of a small number of laws such as the Coastal Zone Management Act, coastal waters were generally managed like other waters.. Certain policies, such as waivers under the Clean Water Act from secondary treatment for coastal discharges, allowed for even less stringent control of pollution discharged to coastal waters.

In the last decade, however, awareness of the vital role that coastal waters and estuaries play in supporting healthy fisheries has grown. In addition, the decline of treasured resources, such as the Chesapeake Bay, prompted greater recognition of the threat to coastal waters. The 1990 census provided striking new data on the shift of the nation's population to coastal areas and the sharp growth rates in these areas. In response to this new information and awareness, federal, tribal, and state agencies have stepped up efforts to protect coastal waters and expand efforts to understand, prepare for, and address the changes that will occur in coastal areas. It is critical that the quality of coastal waters is maintained and improved so that those waters can continue to support the increasing numbers of people who live, work, and play on the coast, as well as those who eat or otherwise enjoy coastal living resources.

7. Prevent Polluted Runoff

After 25 years, the clean water program has addressed many of the major pipe discharges of sewage and industrial waste. By far, the predominant source of remaining water pollution problems is runoff from urban and agricultural lands and facilities such as animal feeding operations and mines. Watershed management holds promise for correcting the polluted runoff problems that now exist and, more importantly, to prevent polluted runoff in the first place.

A critical challenge for the clean water program in the future will be to foster a national commitment to preventing polluted runoff. Some of the actions that will prevent polluted runoff are the responsibility of federal, state, tribal, and local governments. In many cases, however, the responsibility for preventing polluted runoff falls to individual citizens. Governments must pick up the pace of existing efforts to reduce polluted runoff and must provide the information and the financial incentives citizens need to make decisions that support clean water.

8. Stewardship of Federal Lands and Resources

Lands and resources managed by the federal government cover over 800 million acres and include many of the nation's most treasured water resources. In many watersheds, these lands are the headwaters of streams and rivers and valued sources of clean water for sport fishing, recreation, and drinking water. Policies for protecting and managing these lands must balance these diverse interests and needs. In the past, water quality was not always a top priority. Federal agencies also manage other resources such as water, fisheries, and forests.

Federal land and resource managers have made substantial contributions to watershed restoration and protection. Opportunities exist for building on many of the watershed projects already under way, such as aquatic and conservation elements of the Northwest Forest Plan and Columbia River Ecosystem Assessment, protection of Puget Sound and Lake Tahoe, the Tennessee Valley Authority's Clean Water Initiative, and protection of the Everglades.

By further implementing a watershed approach, federal land managers can gain a greater understanding of watershed functions, promote the identification and targeting of priority projects, encourage greater stakeholder involvement, and build partnerships with states, tribes, and local governments.

9. Improve Water Information and Citizens' Right to Know

Information about the condition of waters was of interest, but of limited importance, in the early years of the clean water program. Much of the effort was devoted to implementing pollution controls based on national minimum standards (e.g., secondary treatment). Because the implementation of these controls did not require detailed information on water quality impacts, development of information systems describing water quality became a low priority. Also, many water pollution problems and their sources were obvious.

Today, as the clean water program moves to a watershed approach with a commitment to identify and address the remaining water quality problem areas, good information about the condition of waters and the health of aquatic systems on a watershed scale is absolutely critical. Federal, state, territorial, and tribal governments and the private sector will need to make increased investments in water quality information. More important, existing monitoring programs and resources can be better coordinated and focused under the leadership of the National Council on Water Quality Monitoring, recently established by the Department of the Interior (DOI).

Better data is important, but this information needs to be delivered to the public in a useful and easily accessible form. Using new computer systems capable of mapping water quality data, it is now possible to generate detailed information about the condition of specific waters and watersheds around the country. In addition, the Internet makes it possible to deliver detailed and localized water quality data and maps to home computers throughout the nation. By providing this information and the assessment tools to make it meaningful, government agencies can inform people about the condition of waters where they live and thereby empower citizens to get involved in restoring and protecting water quality.

10. Ensure Compliance and Protect All Citizens Fairly

Full and fair implementation of clean water programs requires strong compliance and enforcement efforts and a firm commitment to protect all citizens equally.

Sustaining compliance will require supplementing existing tools with new efforts to ensure that program requirements, especially newer programs to control wet- weather sources of pollution, are understood by both the regulated community and the public. For example, working with its coastal state partners and through public feedback, NOAA will continue to evaluate the performance of state coastal management programs, with new attention to programs designed to reduce polluted runoff. EPA is working with states to establish sector-based compliance assistance centers, including one for municipalities. EPA and states will also pursue incentives to encourage regulated entities to voluntarily discover, disclose, and correct violations and adopt comprehensive environmental management systems to improve overall environmental performance.

EPA and the states, and to a growing extent, tribal governments, will continue to aggressively enforce compliance where noncompliance is significant and to assure that compliance rates improve overall. Escalation of enforcement responses and assessment of appropriate penalties, including recovery of economic benefit, will continue as a cornerstone of these efforts. Criteria for defining high-priority areas for enforcement will include high environmental risk, disproportionately exposed populations, high rates of noncompliance, and environmental justice.

Federal agencies will expand efforts to work with states, tribes, and minority communities to ensure that all citizens enjoy the environmental and economic benefits of clean water. A top priority will be better information to minorities and immigrants about fish consumption risks. Environmental justice will be considered when setting priorities for restoration of waters and watersheds and when allocating water pollution control funds.