Under the Clean Water Act, states must adopt water quality
standards to keep our waters clean and available for multiple
uses, including drinking water and recreation. Unfortunately,
many bodies of water do not meet those standards. When this happens,
states are required to figure out how much of a pollutant can
go into the water without violating the standards -- the Total
Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for that pollutant. States then have
to identify the sources of that pollutant, figure out how much
each source must reduce its pollution in order to meet the standards,
and require the sources to reduce their pollution levels, using
existing federal and state law. Bodies of water that do not meet
the standards are listed as impaired, and reported to the federal
government.
Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) requirements help us keep our
water clean, so that we can use this important resource to the
fullest extent possible. The federal Clean Water Act vests primary
responsibility for TMDL to the states. One very important aspect
of the TMDL process is data collection. Every body of water in
every state has to be tested for multiple types of pollution.
That's a lot of testing, and a lot of data, and a lot of work
for states. To help with this, many states have established volunteer
programs of citizen water quality monitors, where everyday people
can test local waters and report data to the state.
Because each state must develop rules to conduct a TMDL program,
ALEC offers a model bill. Unfortunately, ALEC's model bill does
its best to undermine the whole point of the process -- increased
water quality. ALEC's TMDL Implementation Act bases water quality
evaluations on "resource constraints" and "sound
scientific data," using these criteria to restrict improvements
to those that can be achieved "in the most cost-effective
fashion." The act focuses on business costs -- not costs
to our health, and does little to protect our drinking water until
after it has become contaminated. ALEC's model bill places strict
limits on the data collection process, making it hard for volunteers
to contribute, establishing cumbersome data review, and limiting
the types of data that can be used. It requires that water quality
standards be numeric, making it much harder to use relevant, scientifically-based
qualitative or biological measures of water quality. The bill
also says that polluted waters should be prioritized based, in
part, on how much the public cares about them, how expensive cleanup
will be, and how economically important the waters are.
This model bill does not serve the public interest nor does it
promote clean, healthy water. Instead, it tries to limit the ability
of the state to use scientific information and bases decisions
about one of our most precious resources on economics rather than
science.
Ran 4/8/02
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