New Agency to Handle Water Security
Protection of the nation's water infrastructure is one
of the responsibilities that would be given to the Department of Homeland
Security, which President Bush has asked Congress to create.
His proposal, now before Congress, would bring into the new
department the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, now in the Commerce
Department; the National Infrastructure Protection Center, now part of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation; and the National Infrastructure Simulation and
Analysis Center, currently part of the Energy Department.
Under the president's plan, the new department
"will give state, local and private entities one primary contract instead
of many for coordinating protection activities with the federal government,
including vulnerability assessments, strategic planning efforts and
exercises."
In addition to the water supply, the
infrastructure-protection activities will cover agriculture, energy,
transportation, emergency services and finance.
The new department also would have responsibilities for
identifying and, if necessary, responding to chemical/biological warfare
threats to water supply systems. Agencies dealing with these responsibilities
would be united under the Emergency Preparedness and Response division of the
Homeland Security department.
In a related development, President Bush signed into law the
Bioterrorism Act of 2002 that requires water systems to assess their
vulnerability to terrorist attack. (See "Washington News," July issue.)
House Panel Addresses Trading Proposals
"The barriers, potential pitfalls and
opportunities" related to water quality trading are being explored by the
House of Representatives subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
The panel is looking into a proposal by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) under which industrial, municipal and nonpoint
dischargers could trade credits based on their performances in reducing
pollution. A facility that reduced pollution more than required under a
specific watershed goal would acquire credits that could be sold or otherwise
transferred to a discharger that had exceeded the limits.
EPA has been exploring the possibility of such an
arrangement for several years, but is moving forward more aggressively toward
it under its current leadership.
The Water Resources and Environment subcommittee, a unit of
the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said in opening its
review of the proposed plan that, after considerable progress toward
clean-water goals, "remaining pollutant reductions are likely to be
expensive and more complex and may require the use of innovative
approaches."
"Water quality trading may be a useful tool for
achieving some of these pollutant reductions," the subcommittee added.
Benjamin H. Grumbles, the EPA's deputy assistant
administrator for water, told the subcommittee that pilot trading projects have
shown that trading can reduce pollution loads, be more cost-effective than
traditional approaches in reaching water quality goals and be implemented under
existing regulations and programs.
However, he added that the pilot projects "also have
taught us that pollution reduction will not work everywhere." For
example, Grumbles explained, the total pollutant reduction needed from all
sources in a given watershed may not allow sufficient surplus reductions to
allow trading.
Other witnesses before the subcommittee also generally
endorsed the concept of trading while citing potential problems that needed to
be avoided in establishing a specific program. One concern related to possible
difficulties in establishing standards to determine an initial base of
pollution and to determine how each discharger has contributed to changes in
that base.
EPA to Review Effluent Guidelines
EPA has issued its proposed Effluent Guidelines Program Plan
for 2002/2003. The agency said the plan does not contain additional regulatory
requirements but "identifies industrial categories for which EPA expects
to develop or revise effluent limitations guidelines and standards." The
proposal also sets schedules for that process.
EPA noted in its announcement that its effluent guidelines
program has been significantly influenced over the past 10 years by a consent
decree that resolved a challenge to the agency's positions on effluent
guidelines. June 2004 is the final deadline under the decree for action on an
effluent deadline started as a result of the decree, which will terminate when
that action is taken.
The end of the decree, EPA said, provides an opportunity for
it to evaluate the existing effluent-guideline program "to consider how
national industrial regulations can best meet the needs of the broader National
Clean Water Program in the years ahead."
A draft strategy for achieving the goal will be published
later this year as a starting point for soliciting the views of a broad range
of interested parties, the agency said.
More Washington News is available at our website: www.waterinfocenter.com.
Court Upholds EPA on Non-Point TMDLs
The EPA position that its TMDL program extends to non-point
sources has been upheld by a federal appeals court.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
affirmed a federal district court ruling that the environmental agency and the
states have authority to identify waterways polluted by runoff from
agriculture, urban sources and timber harvesting and to specify the maximum
amount of pollutants that can be discharged into those waterways.
Those limits are set under the Total Maximum Daily Load
(TMDL) program established by the Clean Water Act. The appeals court ruled that
the lower federal court was correct in its finding that Congress intended to
include non-point source pollution in the Clean Water Act's water-quality
standards and planning program.
The court case originated in California when agriculture and
timber groups challenged a sediment TMDL for the Garcia River. Agriculture and
timber groups held that the EPA and state could base TMDLs only on point-source
pollution-pollution discharged from identifiable pipes into waterways.
Security Grants Being Distributed
The first grants to help larger water systems evaluate their
security needs and plan improvements are being distributed by EPA. A total of
400 such grants, totaling $53 million, will be made.
The funds are coming from a supplemental appropriation made by Congress in one of its initial responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
