2.05 Water Quality And Supply

A. Problem

It is becoming increasingly apparent that no section of the country is immune to the problems associated with both natural and man-made water pollutants. Runoff from various sources, such as agricultural and confined livestock activities and municipal stormwater, has long been recognized as a contributor to water quality problems. In many older cities, the existing sewer system with deteriorating pipes may also contribute to water pollution. The growing concern over the introduction of toxic chemicals, animal wastes, and pesticides into the environment and their impact on the ground water have added a new dimension to existing problems.

There is increasing evidence of organic contaminants, viruses, and other disease-causing organisms in our nation's public water supplies.

Industrial, agricultural and confined livestock activities have resulted in the discharge of a wide variety of synthetic organic chemicals and animal wastes into the rivers from which a large number of cities draw their drinking water. In addition, it is believed that cryptosporidium in drinking water can be attributed to animal wastes. In spite of increasingly stringent controls on water pollution, small amounts of these chemicals have still been widely detected in the treated drinking water of many cities. Several of these synthetic organic chemicals are known as possible carcinogens, although the exact extent of the public health hazard posed by quantities of those chemicals present in cities' drinking water is not fully known.

The limited availability of water in all parts of the country also appears to be a growing and difficult problem.

Individual cities and in some cases entire regional water basins are feeling the constraints of limited water supplies. In some places, constraints have become true shortages. New reservoirs or diversion projects can no longer be solely relied upon to solve the problem. The number of possible sites, the environmental disturbances, the financial costs, and the absolute supply of water severely limit these structural solutions. Nor can greater amounts of groundwater be relied upon. In some locales, ground water mining has led to exhaustion of supplies, diminished stream flow, land subsidence, and salt water intrusion.

Water has not traditionally been subject to price-determined allocation. Instead, it has been distributed according to a complex mix of state laws, federal regulations and charges, and local rates. It is a haphazard system at best, one which nearly defies rational evaluation. For many projects federal funding and water rates are such that taxpayers subsidize projects, the benefits of which go disproportionately to a limited number of agricultural and industrial uses. This non-market system has led to both inefficient and inequitable allocation of water. Additionally, it has provided no rational focus for water quality issue resolution.

Increasingly, local ratepayers are being asked to subsidize the pollution control activities of non-municipal polluters who affect their drinking water supplies as well as their rivers, lakes, and streams.

B. Goals

The basic principle for dealing with water pollution must be that no one has the right to pollute -- that pollution continues because of technological limits, not because of any inherent right to use the nation's waterways for the purpose of disposing of wastes. However, the impracticability of immediately eliminating all pollution also must be recognized. A reasonable relationship of economic and social costs and benefits should be a necessary precondition toward achieving a nonpollution goal. The ability of municipalities to comply with any clean water program must be recognized as contingent upon adequate funds for building treatment facilities. In addition, any clean water goal must be applied on a uniform, national basis to prevent movement of industry in search of loosely enforced standards.

The nation's drinking water should be as safe as is technologically feasible at reasonable cost. Most Americans receive their drinking water from public water systems owned and operated by local governments. It is thus imperative for the continued health and welfare of the nation that local governments have the financial resources and technical expertise needed to provide adequate and safe drinking water to their citizens.

C. Clean Water Act Policies

1. Federal Funding

Federal participation in the financing of projects mandated by the Clean Water Act is critical to the ultimate achievement of national water quality goals. The federal government must continue and expand its partnership with states and localities in the funding of Clean Water Act mandates. Federal contributions to the financing of water pollution control needs must be both substantial and a reliable long-term source of capital.

a. State Revolving Loan Fund NLC continues to support the state revolving loan program (SRF) as a supplement to, not a substitute for, a grants program. The federal government should authorize an annual appropriation of funds which would be distributed to the states according to a specified formula. The states should then establish their own revolving loan programs for the distribution of loans, loan subsidies, or bond subsidies to localities for meeting Clean Water Act mandates. Such a supplementary program would help leverage federal funds, reduce annual local debt payments, and provide localities with added flexibility in structuring their Clean Water Act financing plans. Congress should prohibit states from using the

interest on SRF loans to local governments to

meet state matching requirements. b. Grants

It is estimated that the nation's cities and towns face over $200 billion in unfunded Clean Water Act mandates to comply with secondary treatment requirements and separation of combined sewer overflows. These cost estimates do not include implementation of separate stormwater management or wetlands protection or mitigation programs.

NLC calls on Congress to restore grant funding to assist municipalities in progressing toward meeting the nation's clean water goals and objectives. Without such assistance it is unlikely that municipalities will be able to comply with federal clean water mandates.

c. Use of Funds

Federal funding for Clean Water Act purposes should be available to meet all Clean Water Act mandates imposed on municipalities including construction of wastewater treatment plants, interceptors and major appurtenances, infiltration/inflow correction, major sewer rehabilitations, repair, upgrading, collector sewers, combined sewer overflows, separate stormwater management programs and wetlands mitigation projects.

Cities should be eligible for grant or loan funds or any combination of loans and grants to meet their water pollution control needs. Under no circumstances should any community be permitted to use grant funds for repayment of loans granted under the Clean Water Act.

The use of loans and/or grants should be tailored to the specific needs and capacity of each municipal applicant for federal financial assistance. Allocations of funds to municipalities should take into consideration a community's ability to pay and past local efforts to address the problem.

d. Sources of Funding

The federal government should redirect non-domestic spending priorities to assure adequate resources to meet Clean Water Act mandates. Congress should allocate a portion of these redirected resources to a fund dedicated to implementation of water quality requirements.

Under no circumstances should the federal government look to traditional local sources of revenues (e.g., a federal tax on water and sewer user charges, a federal tax on industrial dischargers to POTWs) to fund increased federal participation in financing Clean Water Act mandates.

Recently, municipalities have been encouraged to invest in upstream pollution abatement as a lower cost alternative to local treatment. Remediation or prevention of pollution from non-municipal sources should not become the responsibility of local ratepayers.

e. Tax Code

Congress should remove current restrictions on the availability of federal tax incentives for private financing of wastewater treatment facility needs, since such financing arrangements may reduce capital costs and expedite project construction, upgrading, repair, rehabilitation, etc. 2. Local Financing

Local governments should have the choice between the ad valorem property tax, metered user charges, and any other mechanism for recouping construction and operating costs. Federally mandated sewer user charges should be deductible from federal income tax.

 3. Level of Treatment

The statutory requirement of "secondary treatment" should be defined as a desired level of water quality and not restricted to any one particular process. This desired treatment level required of municipalities should be defined to prevent expenditures for unnecessary and expensive facilities. Moreover, the least expensive solution should be favored, such as low flow augmentation, when such a solution is the most economically efficient solution.

4. Needs Survey

Cities should cooperate with their states and the EPA to develop an accurate and equitable needs estimate for the annual survey required by the Act. EPA must assure that project priority lists submitted by states give highest priority to projects in areas of greatest need, and assure the highest return in the amount of pollution controlled for each dollar of federal assistance expended. Attention should also be given to problems of small, rural communities.

5. Areawide Planning

Where wastewater treatment planning is on an areawide basis, local elected officials must have primary responsibility. Management agencies should be designated in response to the desires of local elected officials. Preference should be given to existing planning and management agencies where they have demonstrated expertise and capability. Each city should be designated a management agency, if so desired. River basins should continue to be basic units for the development and administration of water resources. River basins should be developed to assure the maximum benefits possible in both water supply and recreation to the communities they serve.

Areawide water quality management programs that are federally required must be assured adequate federal funding for implementation and continued planning and management. Funds must be made available for adequate technical assistance to aid in the transition from planning to actual implementation of plans.

6. Watershed Management

Rising capital costs and increasingly limited resources dictate that cost effective alternatives for controlling and preventing pollution be developed. Municipalities cannot control pollution from sources outside their jurisdiction and must not be required to absorb the costs of addressing these pollution sources.

Regional watershed management strategies and plans should be encouraged to involve stakeholders (cities, agricultural interests, industry, state and federal governments, Indian tribes and international concerns). The stakeholders should jointly prioritize the allocation of resources and participate in finding solutions to achieve water quality objectives. Such an approach must emphasize establishing priorities, basing decisions on sound scientific principles, maintaining flexibility and empowering local, regional and state governments and the community to solve their unique problems. Implementation of watershed management plans must assure equity among all sources or categories of sources of pollutants of concern in the area. Further, such watershed plans should not place one region at an economic disadvantage as compared to neighboring areas. Upon completion of watershed management plans, NPDES terms, conditions and limits should be modified to achieve the objectives of the plan in the most cost-effective way.

7. Discharge Analysis

Any extensions of the deadline for compliance with secondary treatment standards should allow adequate time for individual analysis of current discharge practices. The analysis should focus on all relevant environmental effects including air quality, land use and energy efficiency. When evidence indicates that the technique utilized does not significantly degrade the environment, the facility should be exempted from additional treatment. The practice should continue to be monitored and if an unfavorable change is noted, additional treatment should be required.

8. Desalinization and Recycling

Government policies should encourage expanded use of desalinization processes and recycling of wastewater along with recovery of sludge and other resources material.

9. Beneficial Use of Sludge

Federal regulations on the management of municipal sewage sludge should encourage its beneficial reuse. Reasonably anticipated adverse effects associated with potential sewage sludge exposure and local geographical and climatic conditions must be considered in the safe disposal of sludge. If site specific consideration can be shown by reasonable risk assessment analysis to be environmentally sound, then the management practice should be permitted.

10. Sedimentation and Silting

Sedimentation and silting of lakes, creeks, estuaries, or other streams must be checked and avoided in all future planning. Whenever such silting and erosion has already occurred, research should be continued to find ways of correcting this condition, within an ecologically sound framework.

11. Research

EPA should support research on problems growing out of the management of wastewater treatment facilities such as combined sewer overflows, land application of treatment effluent and sludges, and source reduction.

Innovative and alternative technologies have not been used to their fullest potential. Therefore, federal research, development, and public education of these technologies should expand, but not at the expense of research on management and operational issues.

Source reduction technologies and programs are prohibitively expensive for individual municipalities to develop. For example, to enable municipalities to reduce levels of metals and other toxic pollutants from non-industrial sources, EPA should undertake research to identify products introduced by small business and residential generators and suggest control programs for reducing these pollutants.

12. Pretreatment

EPA should establish national categorical pretreatment standards only for those industries that it has classified as major polluters and only for those classes of toxic pollutants which are known to be widespread and which may be causing human health and aquatic life problems. EPA should be required to publish, by date specific, a listing of categories for which action will be required.

Local governments should be allowed to devise methods to satisfy national standards that not only assure protection of water quality but which are also cost effective under the conditions of their particular jurisdiction. Therefore, as an alternative to federally mandated implementation of the national categorical pretreatment standards, Congress should authorize states to approve local pollutant elimination programs.

To qualify for the alternative local program, a Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) should be required to demonstrate to an authorized state agency that: 1) the POTW is in compliance with the requirements of its permit under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES); 2) it has developed and implemented a local pollutant elimination program that in the aggregate is equivalent to implementation of the national categorical pretreatment standards; and 3) it is maintaining a local monitoring and reporting program which is adequate to disclose the quality of the receiving waters.

13. State Water Quality Standards

The current Clean Water Act requires states to designate how each water body is to be used within its jurisdiction and to develop standards for attaining that use. Under no circumstances should a state be allowed to downgrade or revise its water quality standards where the designated uses have already been attained. However, a state may revise its water quality standard if it can demonstrate that: 1) the existing designated use is unattainable because of irretrievable man-induced conditions; or 2) attainment of the designated use would result in substantial and widespread adverse economic and social impact.

Where the water quality of a stream exceeds the level necessary to maintain a designated use, a state should have the option to allow lower water quality for that stream because of necessary and justifiable economic or social development for which there is no feasible alternative. In no case should the degradation of water quality interfere with or become injurious to existing instream use. Before a state exercises such an option, it should be required to hold public hearings and coordinate with all affected governmental agencies.

14. Toxicity Testing

NLC supports the use of Whole Effluent Toxicity Testing (WETT) for the assessment of the potential toxicity of wastewater discharges; however, legislation should be adopted to prohibit the use of such tests as "pass/fail" NPDES permit conditions imposing strict liability on POTWs.

 15. Common Law

No municipality injured by a willful or negligent violation of federal or state law should be deprived of a remedy if one exists under the federal Water Pollution Control Act and other appropriate laws. However, EPA must be made a party where the defendant can demonstrate it has acted in good faith.

16. Pollution Prevention

In addition to treatment policies, the federal government should develop, advocate, and institute pollution prevention measures for all contributors to degradation of the nation's water bodies. Prevention strategies are more effective in keeping pollutants out of wastewater and far less costly than end-of-pipe technologies. Products containing chemical levels which constitute a significant percentage of the total loading should be restricted as to their composition and/or use.

In addition, municipalities should be granted the authority to bring environmental law enforcement actions against polluters within the municipal jurisdiction or when the pollution poses a potential threat to the health, safety, or welfare of those living in the municipality. The decision to exercise such authority would be solely at the discretion of the municipality.

17. Separate Storm Sewer Requirements

NLC continues to support a more simplified and flexible approach to management of municipal stormwater run-off which would allow for orderly and cost effective development of both information and program design than that which exists under current EPA regulations.

Congress should amend the Clean Water Act to regulate urban stormwater run-off under a newly-enacted provision of the Act separate from the NPDES program. Such regulations should require implementation of Best Management Practices (BMPs) to the Maximum Extent Practicable (MEP) with a legislative prohibition on requirements for end-of-the-pipe treatment. Management of run-off from municipal industrial facilities should be incorporated as part of a system- or jurisdiction-wide stormwater management program. Municipal compliance with stormwater management requirements should be based on implementation of site-specific Best Management Practices required in the permit.

NLC opposes federal intrusion into local land use planning through the regulation of stormwater "flows." Federal involvement in this area should be limited to research, education and appropriate incentives for voluntary local flow management programs. This position is consistent with NLC's land use positions as contained in Section 3.06 of the Community and Economic Development chapter.

18. Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO)

NLC supports the CSO control policy developed by EPA after a modified negotiation process which involved major stakeholders including NLC if critical issues related to the financial impacts of the proposed EPA policy are addressed. The opportunity to successfully implement the policy and to minimize the policy's financial impacts can be achieved through the use of compliance schedules that reflect reasonable financial capability ("affordability") criteria applied on an annual basis and through the availability of significant federal grants and no interest loans. If the policy's financial impacts are satisfactorily addressed, important components of the policy which would be supported by the League include: a. Implementation by January 1, 1997, of minimum CSO controls listed in the EPA policy. These controls are not expected to require major construction of CSO facilities;

2. Selection of a long-term CSO control plan that will ultimately result in compliance with the requirements of the Clean Water Act. CSO control plans should give high priority to control of overflows to sensitive areas. Cost-performance analysis of alternative levels of control should be considered. Permittees should have the flexibility to select a long-term CSO control plan using either of the following approaches:

• The demonstration approach: a program that does not meet the presumption approach criteria may be selected if the permittee demonstrates that the program is adequate to meet Clean Water Act requirements.

c. An implementation schedule for the selected long-term control plan which may be phased based on the relative importance of adverse CSO impacts and on the permittee's financial capability.

d. A provision to exempt permittees that have constructed CSOs designed to meet water quality standards from planning and construction requirements of the policy. NLC supports provisions in the EPA policy that encourage states to adapt their water quality standards and implementation procedures to reflect wet weather events and site-specific conditions.

Congress should incorporate the EPA CSO policy by reference into the Clean Water Act. Congress should authorize the issuance of permits for a term up to 15 years for implementation of CSO control plans and authorize extension of compliance deadlines where it is determined that compliance by the scheduled date is not within the economic capability of the permittee.

19. Nonpoint Source Pollution

Congress and the Administration should proceed as expeditiously as possible to expand funding for research and development, technical and managerial assistance, and to fund the efforts of local and state governments in the control of nonpoint sources of water pollution.

Congress should authorize a new supplemental grant program for the funding of nonpoint source pollution abatement.

As municipalities are not the sole contributors to nonpoint source pollution, they cannot be solely responsible for the attainment of water quality standards. As municipalities are required to implement nonpoint (stormwater) controls, other contributors to the degradation of our waters must also be required to implement controls to attain similar objectives.

D. Drinking Water Policies

1. Standard Setting

Regulations should be based on research and scientific evidence (as determined by such agencies as EPA, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Academy of Science (NAS)) which demonstrates the need for any requirements imposed.

Standards for drinking water contaminants should be based on sound science, public health protection, risk reduction and cost. Where there may be adverse effects on the health of persons from contaminants for which there is insufficient information, EPA should consider preparing health advisories. The EPA Administrator should have the authority to make this judgment.

The National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for lead, and any legislative initiatives addressing lead in drinking water, should provide for local flexibility to effectively reduce the lead levels in drinking water. Lead reduction requirements should be modified to suit local needs, giving municipal water systems options for reducing drinking water lead levels.

Corrosion control should be considered the optimal tool for reducing exposure to lead through the drinking water supplies. Other lead reduction activities should be considered secondary and recommended only after corrosion control efforts have been exhausted and proven inadequate. Municipal water systems should be allowed to utilize the least expensive, yet effective, methods for reducing human exposure to lead in drinking water.

NLC supports measuring the level for lead in the public water system at the point where the water leaves the distribution system and enters the user's property. In public buildings

supported by tax revenues, the measurement shall be made at the tap and compliance shall be the responsibility of the taxing entity. NLC also supports programs for public education regarding safe drinking water.

Federal policy should distinguish between introduced and naturally occurring contaminants. Where the contaminant is naturally occurring, monitoring should be required, but EPA should be required to demonstrate that any proposed remedial treatment would ensure greater health protection. For introduced materials, a risk-based standard should be developed.

2. Local Reimbursement

The federal government should reimburse local governments for all costs incurred to comply with federal requirements.

3. Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund

The creation of new loan programs to assist municipalities in meeting federal requirements are only a marginally acceptable method of financial help for municipal compliance with these mandates. NLC believes these funds could be more effectively used to benefit municipal water suppliers and local rate payers if they were re-targeted to such purposes as: a. state drinking water program administration;

b. research on contaminant health effects and risk

reduction benefits;

c. the development of new and more cost-effective water purification technologies;

d. programs to train and certify operators of public water supply systems;

e. programs to assist small communities with mandated monitoring and compliance requirements; and

f. direct construction grants to small cities for drinking water filtration and purification plants where deemed necessary to meet federal drinking water standards. 4. Protection of Drinking Water Resources

As costs for removal of contaminants in the nation's drinking water supplies continue to increase dramatically, it becomes ever more critical to expand and enhance the nation's efforts to protect our drinking water supplies. Greater emphasis must be placed on preventing contamination of our drinking water resources from both point and nonpoint, and anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic sources of pollution. However, remediation or pollution prevention from non-municipal sources should not become the responsibility of local ratepayers.

Initiatives in the Safe Drinking Water Act, like those which protect underground sources of drinking water (the wellhead protection program) and sole source aquifers, should be adopted to ensure protection of surface drinking water supplies. Such efforts should complement and enhance non-point pollution control and watershed management provisions in other federal statutes such as the Clean Water Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act. In addition, municipal water supply systems should be authorized to develop and implement approved source water protection programs upstream of the drinking water source as an alternative to contaminant removal initiatives where appropriate.

5. Implementation

In addition to technology, watershed protection and pollution prevention should be considered appropriate best technology for purposes of compliance with national primary drinking water regulations.

To ensure effective implementation of the Safe Drinking

Water Act, minimum drinking water standards and attainment strategies should be closely coordinated with regulations and formal guidance established by other statutes. States should assume primacy, as was the intent of Congress, and primary responsibility for enforcement and implementation should remain with state and local governments.

6. Compliance

7. Small Communities

The federal government should provide more effective and adequate funding to small, rural communities for drinking water treatment facilities.

8. Monitoring

NLC supports monitoring flexibility for non-microbal contaminants when such contaminants have not been found at levels of public health concern.

9. Notification

The EPA Administrator should have the authority to differentiate between those public notice requirements for minor and intermittent violations and those required for health related and persistent violations of all kinds. The format, content, and frequency of notice should be developed by the states in conjunction with local officials.

10. Fees

11. Sole Source Aquifer

A cooperative federal, state, and local government approach should be established for preparing and carrying out plans to protect critical groundwater recharge areas.

E. Ground Water Policies

1. Regulation

Groundwater protection can best be implemented through current federal environmental laws. The states should continue to have primary responsibility for developing and implementing groundwater protection programs. Such programs should emphasize management of groundwater and environmental resources rather than complete elimination of known pollutants or restoration of all aquifers to drinking water quality. States should regulate interstate pollution through interstate compacts, cooperative agreements, or similar mechanisms. The federal government should administratively integrate existing federal groundwater protection programs by developing a groundwater management strategy.

2. Classification System

States should initiate classification systems whereby ground water is assigned a certain class and treated as such. States should determine what levels of classification they wish to have.

3. Financing

States and localities should be encouraged to create financing programs for their groundwater protection strategies. EPA assistance through grants from the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Superfund should be available to states for development and implementation of state ground water strategies.

4. Research and Development

The federal government should undertake a comprehensive groundwater research program which would provide the basis for technical assistance to states and localities. Such assistance should be available to states and local governments to help them integrate surface and groundwater laws, to help them enact viable financing programs, to help them set standards, to promote conjunctive use, and generally, to protect aquifers from injury.

5. Enforcement

Enforcement responsibility of groundwater protection strategies should be the province of state governments, with additional limited enforcement provided by current federal legislation.

6. Federal Evaluation

Federal agencies seeking authorization for a federal water project should, on a uniform and timely basis, describe and evaluate ground water management programs in the area. Federal agencies with responsibility for water resources planning, development, and research should include assessments of groundwater resources and appropriate management programs.

F. Water Supply Policies

1. Data Collection

The federal government should improve its gathering and dissemination of data on water to state and local governments. Solutions to supply problems in river basins must be based on the best possible estimates of the amounts of water available, the amount being used, and the amount needed for future use.

2. Federal Participation

Where a significant portion of a region's land or water resources are controlled by the federal government, it should be a full participant with state and local governments in water management decision-making.

3. Water Project Evaluation

Specific federal water development projects should be authorized and constructed to take advantage of those water supplies which studies have shown to be available. Such decisions should also be guided by these specific criteria: a. because projects were frequently authorized years earlier, final reviews and decisions to build projects should be based on up-to-date information;

b. new water projects proposed by federal agencies should be subject to uniform cost/benefit criteria. As part of these analyses, the discount rate should reflect the real cost to the government of borrowing money;

c. whenever appropriate, nonstructural alternatives should be given equal weight with structural solutions to water supply problems. Federal financing provisions should not bias choice in favor of one alternative over another;

d. to protect the integrity of natural wetlands and marshes, their environmental value should be included in analyses of costs and benefits of water projects; and

e. new federal water projects must be assessed for their impact on patterns of urban development and should be consistent with national urban policy based on values of urban conservation. 4. Municipal Systems

To improve water supplies and to support the redevelopment of urban economies, the federal government should develop a program of financial and technical assistance to distressed municipal water systems. This program should include a mixture of grants for planning, management, technical assistance, grant loans, and loan guarantees to upgrade and rehabilitate where needed. It should be combined with an active and viable commitment from the community to reinvest in its water system.

A Federal Water Bank should be established to provide a dedicated source of capital for the financing of urban water system improvement and expansion at market interest rates. The Federal Water Bank should have the authority to provide interest subsidies for the rehabilitation of publicly owned urban water systems which are judged to be in distress.``Distressed systems'' should be defined as those which can clearly document that they are not capable of providing additional funds for the maintenance and improvement of the system and that this impairs the system's ability to provide an adequate supply of water of satisfactory quality to users. The federal assistance should require appropriate financial and operating remedial actions by the recipients of the subsidies.

5. Research and Development

More support is needed for federal research on historical stream flows, climatology, instream flow needs and federal reserve and Indian tribal requirements. Research and development support is also needed for recycling sewage and industrial waste water to potable quality, on desalination technologies, and on standards for beneficial use of reused water.

6. Water Conservation

Conservation should be made the cornerstone of federal policies and programs for water. In the future, all federal decisions to expand water supplies should start with the recognition that there are limitations on water resources. Federal feasibility studies should include rigorously developed demand forecasts and consider, as precisely as possible, all environmental costs. Wherever possible, less costly, nontraditional alternatives, especially conservation measures, should be fully evaluated as options. Federal water projects funds should support and encourage water management, conservation, and pollution control programs in all types of water use.

7. Agricultural Conservation

Federal programs should help to eliminate institutional barriers to efficient water use, such as those that discourage resale of water from irrigation districts. Research and technical assistance resources should be committed to developing more efficient irrigation techniques. As Bureau of Reclamation water contracts come up for renewal, the best management practices for conservation should be included. The Department of Interior should be required to give notice and hold hearings before approving new water service contracts.

8. Municipal Water Uses

Federal programs to promote conservation in municipal water use should recognize the conservational value of improving and rehabilitating existing municipal delivery and storage systems and the differences in conservation strategies for local and regional situations. The federal government should not adopt uniform conservation requirements, but should promote and cooperate with state and local water conservation programs and authorities.

Where national objectives are sought through local governments, any additional costs of federal mandates should be met with federal funds. Where local governments seek to develop new and/or innovative conservation programs in keeping with national interests and objectives, the federal government should make available an appropriate combination of technical and financial assistance for environmentally sound and safe local solutions.

9. Pricing and Economic Policies

The federal government should clearly identify the beneficiaries of federal water projects and see that they are required to pay a reasonable share of the costs. More specifically, we believe that all federal agencies supplying water to users should adopt a uniform policy of cost-based pricing in all future contracts. Whenever practicable, they should extend the same policy to classes of users that are not now charged.

Federal funding allocated to environmental maintenance and enhancement can be proper.

Some social goals will not be realized simply by relying on the price mechanism, e.g., land use protection, or water quality. These goals must be achieved with other policy tools, including the appropriate mix of regulations and financial incentives. It is in these limited and precisely identifiable cases that subsidies are justified.

Federal research capabilities and resources should be committed to analyzing the consequences of municipal rate structures and to proposing alternatives. However, the authority for adopting such alternatives must continue to rest with local officials.

10. Planning at the Local Level

The federal government should give sustained support to help bring into being a national system of water resource planning based on a process of local decision making. The local governments in this system should be able to assess and balance considerations of management, waste treatment, nonpoint source pollution, urban runoff, surface and ground water supply, demand, prices and structural organization. Such a regional planning effort should be integrated at every level with other aspects of areawide physical development, housing opportunity programs, public transportation, air pollution control, solid waste disposal, energy management, and with urban planning in general.

11. Decentralized Planning

While the multiplicity of local water supply and treatment systems precludes completely decentralized planning, the basic principles of the National Water Planning System should still be the kind of decentralization envisaged by Section 208 of the Clean Water Act. So that they can fulfill this role, we specifically call for expanding the authority of local water planning agencies. Effective water resource planning can only flow from the work of effective and cooperative local bodies. These must provide the basic building blocks for the definition of area-wide goals. The essential ingredient in this approach to state/local planning partnership is the continuation of the kind of federal financial and technical assistance envisioned by the 208 program.

Local water planning agencies should be given a determining role in guiding federal investments in any new projects, and in reevaluation of presently authorized projects.

12. Planning at the Federal Level

Federal river basin commissions should be given a stronger role in regional water resource planning. This should be coupled with mechanisms for effective participation by local governments.

There is a need to centralize direction over federal water resource agencies into a single office with responsibility for federal water resource planning.

There will be considerable uncertainty in planning, in Western states especially, until federal and Indian water rights are quantified and all claims settled. An effective dispute resolution process must be established so that all affected parties are represented and decisions are made on scientific bases. The federal government should develop such a dispute resolution process as quickly as possible.

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