Unified Federal Policy for Ensuring a Watershed Approach to Federal Land and Resource Management

Background

More than 800 million acres of the Nation's land are managed by Federal agencies. These public lands contain significant physical and biological resources and are important to millions of Americans for multiple uses, such as drinking water, irrigation, transportation, recreation, and wildlife habitat. Federal land managers are responsible for protecting and restoring these resources.

The objective of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, as amended, which is commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act, is to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation's waters."

Although Federal agencies are working to implement the applicable requirements of the Clean Water Act, further progress is needed both to prevent degradation of high quality waters and sensitive aquatic ecosystems and to accelerate the restoration of degraded water resources. This policy provides a foundation to help ensure that Federal land and resource management activities meet these goals and that the Federal government serves as a model for water quality stewardship.

We believe that the unified watershed-based approach outlined in this policy provides a strong foundation for achieving these goals.

Though this policy is not intended to be a rule, the proposed policy was published for notice and public comment in the February 22, 2000, Federal Register (65 FR 8834). We also posted the policy on the World Wide Web at www.cleanwater.gov/ufp and mailed it to States, Tribes, environmental groups, and industry associations. We conducted eleven regional meetings; met with a number of organizations, such as the Western Governors' Association; and conducted meetings and conference calls with Tribal government representatives.

We received 248 responses from 126 organizations and 122 individuals on the proposed policy. Comments represented a diverse set of interests from across the country, including private citizens; State, Tribal and local governments; and industry and environmental groups. An interagency team reviewed and evaluated the comments and made changes to the policy based on these comments.

The majority of the commenters supported the overall goal of the policy to improve water quality on Federal lands through an emphasis on a watershed-based approach to land and resource management. Many commenters suggested language and content changes intended to improve the policy. The interagency review team identified six major questions or issue categories.

1. Do the participating agencies have the authority to develop and implement this policy?
2. How does the policy affect Tribal rights and interests?
3. What role will the States, Tribes, and local governments have in working with the Federal agencies to implement the policy?
4. What impacts will this policy have on the multiple uses of Federal lands?
5. How will the policy be implemented?
6. How will the public participate in implementing the policy?

The following section, Summary of Comments and Responses, includes a discussion of these issues and our response to the public comments. This section also describes all substantive changes made to the proposed policy based on the public comments and the Federal agencies' review of the policy. The text of the final policy is set out at the end of this notice.

http://water.usgs.gov/owq/cleanwater/ufp/background.html
Revised October 13, 2000