TESTIMONY OF U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS May 21, 1991 Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. I am very pleased to be here with you to share my views on our past progress in improving the Nation's water quality and the important challenges facing us regarding the future of the nation's aquatic resources and habitat. INTRODUCTION The progress we have made in improving the Nation's water quality can be illustrated by recalling two memorable symbols of the severe water quality the Potomac River, which President and Lake Erie, which was choked by problems we faced in the early 1970's: Johnson had called a national disgrace; massive algal blooms, killing millions of fish and tainting the water supplies. Today, both water bodies are showing strong signs of recovery. The Potomac now supports recreational fishing, and the massive algal blooms in Lake Erie are disappearing. These results are significant, and have been achieved through the many sound tools provided EPA and the States by the Clean Water Act, and until very recently, largely focused on point source discharges. Today, we are facing new challenges and some different types of problems. In some cases, strengthening existing regulatory tools may be appropriate. tools may be appropriate. But for many of our remaining problems, new approaches are needed, which are going to require us to think creatively. To that end, we at EPA share with members of this Congress and - 2 members of the public a common desire to chart a meaningful course of action leading to strong water quality and holistic approaches to ecosystem protection in the future. As we begin our dialogue I believe we must all agree to follow a common guiding principle: our priorities for the future must be based on reducing the greatest unacceptable risks--both to human health and to aquatic ecosystems--to the maximum extent practicable. And we must acknowledge that it is neither possible nor appropriate for the Federal government to attempt to deal with these problems alone. We must do a better job of setting priorities and targeting our resources effectively, and building sounder alliances with States, local governments, the public, the private sector, and our fellow Federal Agencies. As you undoubtedly know by now, when I arrived at EPA I asked the Science. Advisory Board (SAB) to review EPA's 1987 "Unfinished Business" report, to evaluate the relative risks posed by threats to the environment, and to provide us with recommendations. One of their principal recommendations was that considerations of risk reduction must be incorporated into our decision-making and budgeting processes. We are moving ahead rapidly on this recommendation, and I firmly believe that, if we are to be truly effective in the years ahead, we must build the concept of risk reduction into our legislative framework as well. Our analysis needs to begin with a sound evaluation of the scientific nature of the risks we face, and a good understanding of how serious risks are in relation to one another, and in absolute terms as well. Next we need to analyze whether the particular risk is amenable to a national solution, or whether a more tailored, site-specific approach is appropriate. Our decision may be driven by whether the problem is present in certain fairly discrete areas, or is of more pervasive concern nationwide. Or, it may be driven by the specific - 3 nature of the threat, and whether the Federal government can actually contribute to a remedy or whether it needs a locally-tailored solution. Finally, once we have determined there is a legitimate Federal role, we must then decide what our role should be: to regulate and enforce; to provide scientific and technical tools; to provide education and information; to promote pollution prevention; to serve as a catalyst, helping to bring together Federal, State, local, public and private efforts; to use market incentives; or any combination of these tools. For any risk, however, we must go through this analytic process before we can arrive at the best mix of solutions for protecting aquatic resources and habitat. At the same time, we must bear in mind the risk implications for environmental quality in other media of each solution we consider to a water quality risk. We do not want to find ourselves simply moving risks around from one media to another. As part of the Agency's process to obtain input from the public at large and, in particular, the scientific community on this question of focusing our future efforts on opportunities for the greatest risk reduction, the Office of Water sponsored a public symposium at Michigan State University on "The Risks to Clean Water" in February. A 16-member panel of experts, predominantly scientists, chaired by Dr. William Cooper (who also chaired the SAB Relative Risk Reduction Strategies Subcommittee), spent one and a half days discussing the remaining risks to water and identifying potential solutions. Generally, the panel felt that the Clean Water Act of 1972 provides a good framework for protecting aquatic resources, and for good reason. - 4 PROGRESS SO FAR Since 1972, we have established and fully implemented the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting and enforcement program, and issued individual permits covering over 65,000 facilities. We have established and implemented national technology-based discharge standards for 51 industrial categories, typically reducing conventional and toxic pollutant loadings to surface water by 90 percent. We have established and implemented a pretreatment program to control non-domestic dischargers to publicly-owned treatment works (POTW's). 1,450 municipalities have approved pretreatment programs, which handled approximately 80 percent of the total municipal wastewater discharges nationwide. From 1972 to 1991, the number of Americans served by treatment plants meeting secondary treatment standards increased from. 85 million to 144 million. Approximately 16,000 municipal wastewater treatment plants are now operating across the United States. Between 1972 and 1982, biochemical oxygen demand was reduced 46 percent from municipal loadings and 71 percent from industrial. Continued progress has been made since then, with an increasing focus on controlling toxic pollutants. Nearly 75 of stream miles assessed by the States in 1988 were reported to be meeting statutory goals. By contrast, the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators estimate that only 34% of stream miles were meeting CWA goals in 1974. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that comparisons of 1970 EPA data with data from the same coastal sampling sites in 1984 through 1990 show aggregate decreases of all synthetic organics and heavy metals except copper in urban estuaries. - 5 We have made a good start at dealing with the problems of threatened or impaired special water bodies. Through the National Estuary Program, 17 estuaries are developing or have developed a comprehensive management plan for addressing their particular environmental problems. For example, EPA, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia are cooperating to help remediate the problems of the Chesapeake Bay. Between 1985 and 1990, there was a 16 percent decrease in phosphorous in the Bay resulting in first signs of the return of valuable submerged aquatic vegetation. Now we are in the process of taking geographic targeting the next step: cross-media integration of EPA programs and activities. EPA and the Great Lake States are pioneering a new, integrated cross-media approach to dealing with the special problems of the Great Lakes. The President's 1992 budget gives this effort even greater visibility as the Great Lakes Basin Initiative, and we expect to expand this cross-media approach to other water bodies. Our enforcement program provides an increasingly strong deterrent to violations of the Clean Water Act. As evidence of this, during this month, we have announced the two largest Clean Water Act civil penalty settlements the Agency has ever obtained. On May 1, we announced the lodging of a consent decree imposing a penalty of $3.1 million against Pfizer, Inc. of Easton, Pennsylvania for violations of industrial waste pretreatment requirements. Two weeks later, on May 15, we lodged a consent decree with the Federal District Court imposing the largest civil penalty ever collected under the Clean Water Act, by EPA or by citizens: $6 million against Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. for violations of effluent limits in their wastewater discharge permits at three Ohio facilities. The record size of these penalties is reflective of our intensified and increasingly effective enforcement program, which is sending a stronger and |