Restoring God's Gift of Clean Waters Is At Risk

It is an election year.

Less than 35 days remain in the 2000 legislative calendar; all of August is set aside for campaigning and Congress is set to adjourn on September 30th or earlier. Activities on Capitol Hill and at the White House are dominated by political maneuvering and deal making. Virtually all policy and program legislation is now being made through amendments to appropriations bills or compromise in House-Senate conference committees.

Environmental issues and conflicts abound and anti-environmental riders pop up and some disappear overnight. Against this backdrop, one of the more important anti-pollution proposals from the administration, extending coverage of provisions regarding pollution reduction in the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA), has become a political frisbee.

In August 1999, after two years of public hearings around the country, and two more years of drafting and redrafting, the EPA proposed a major expansion of the Total Maximum Daily Loan (TMDL) program to cover "nonpoint" sources of pollution such as agricultural and other forms of runoff. Greatly simplified, a TMDL is the amount of a particular pollutant that a particular stream, lake, estuary or other water body can "handle" without violating state water quality standards.

Congress returned the administration toss with a low hard one when it attached a bipartisan amendment to the urgently needed emergency military appropriations bill (addressing damage from the Los Alamos disaster). This rider forbids expenditure of any appropriated funds for a new TMDL program and delayed implementation of the program for at least 18 months. The bill passed Congress on June 29, 2000. The President had until July 13th to either sign or veto the badly needed appropriation.

Returning the Congressional volley with a rather creative spin of their own, EPA issued a final rule on July 11th revising the TMDL. This way the President could sign the emergency bill without affecting funding for the new program.

Adding some backspin, EPA declared it a "Major Rule," giving Congress 60 days to reject the regulations under the Congressional Review Act. The effective date was also extended until October 2001 to try to assuage Congressional ire. Several other changes were also made from the last draft.

Background on the TMDL

Only three percent of the water on earth is fresh water. Less than one percent of that is available for human use. Without the water that God has provided in abundance to "fall on the just and the unjust," virtually all life on the planet we call home would wither and die. Likewise, if the water that we and the rest of God's living creatures require is polluted beyond use or filled with invisible toxic substances then those that must use it will be sickened.

The United States has abused and ignored the value and sacredness of this gift, as has every other industrialized country. Over 30 years ago, several examples begin to bear this out. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Ohio burst into flames. Historic Boston Harbor, site of the tea party that started the American Revolution, was judged to be an endangered waterway, as was the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The Colorado River no longer reached Mexico and Lake Erie was declared dead. Finally, in 1969, a disastrous oil spill off scenic Santa Barbara, California, contributed to public outrage and the call for immediate reform.

Congress responded with the 1972 passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act. The CWA was passed to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters. The CWA's main goals were straightforward; zero discharge of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985, and fishable and swimmable waters by 1983. The CWA also plays a role in environmental issues ranging from safe drinking water to endangered species.

Section 303(d) of the CWA required that the TMDL for bodies of water be calculated and controls implemented to ensure that this level is never exceeded. A TMDL program provides a framework for restoring polluted waters. It is developed in two steps: calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can take in and still meet water quality standards, and a distribution of that amount to the pollutant's sources. Using this framework, states develop tailored restoration plans for each individual polluted body of water identified by the state.

According to the EPA, over 20,000 bodies of water across America, 40 percent of the total, are still identified by states, territories, and authorized tribes as polluted beyond human use. These polluted waters include over 300,000 river and shore miles and five million lake acres.

Direct pollution discharges or "point" sources were covered by the 1972 CWA. Such points are the sole cause in only about 10 percent of polluted waters. The remainders are polluted by "non-point sources" such as runoff from agricultural lands, city streets, suburban lawns, or by a combination of sources. The overwhelming majority of people in the U.S. live within 10 miles of one of these polluted bodies of water and contribute in many ways to the pollution.

Work on the new regulations actually began in 1996 after EPA decided that a review of TMDL implementation was required.

Changes in TMDL Program

Whether or not the changes to the TMDL program will be a net gain or loss in efforts to restore the sacred waters that sustain all of God's creatures is a hotly disputed question.

Some members of Congress are in an uproar over what they see as the administration's ducking behind a bipartisan effort to delay implementation.

In March 2000 the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report identifying what it termed "data gaps" in water quality data needed to clean up U.S. waters. States are required to prepare these water quality reports every two years. The states cited a lack of staff and funding and the need for analytical tools as underlying causes for the gaps.

In early June, six of the largest national environmental organizations called for EPA to withdraw the proposal, citing fundamental flaws and overwhelming opposition by Congress. In a joint statement the groups stated they "had more confidence in the current total maximum daily load (TMDL) program of the Clean Water Act to clean up impaired water bodies than EPA's August 23, 1999, proposed rewrite of the regulations."

The groups claim that the proposed regulations would have the effect of postponing the clean-up of polluted waters by up to 20 or 25 years, adding that "this delay is both unconscionable and contrary to law." The groups also objected to the omission of state deadlines for meeting water quality standards and the overall unenforceability of the new program, especially for controlling nonpoint source runoff. Other environmental organizations rejected these arguments and supported implementation of the August 1996 proposal.

Changes from the original proposal include:

• Permit requirements for forestry, aquaculture or livestock feeding operations are removed.
  
• Requirements that drinking water and endangered species be protected first were changed so that endangered species need not be protected.
  
• "Offsets" by reductions in current pollution levels are not required prior to new discharges into imperiled waters before a TMDL has been established.

Other important provisions of the regulation are:

• States will have to ensure that runoff is controlled.
  
• The public will have the opportunity to comment on the methodology, lists, prioritized schedules, and TMDLs prior to submission to EPA.
  
• States would have another 10 to 15 years to develop and implement pollution-control plans.
  
• A pollution credit-trading scheme allows large polluters to buy credits from others in order to continue polluting.
  
• States must still provide data on all polluted waters but the time period would be lengthened from a two- to a four-year cycle.

Business interests called finalization of the rules a "blatant power grab," and an "underhanded," last-minute effort to thwart the will of Congress. Contending that the EPA is an agency "out of control," they also claimed that the new TMDL program would take away states' control over water quality programs and create "an expensive, EPA-led, federal bureaucracy that would stunt economic growth and development over much of the country." No particulars about how this would occur were available.

Representatives of large farming industry interests also criticized the administration for countering congressional intent. They claimed that the new program would cripple farms, ranches, and forestry operations and called for voluntary and incentive-based programs. No specifics were given on how the 'crippling' would take place.

The actual impact of these new rules on small businesses and small and family farms will be unclear until states actually gather adequate data and prepare new cleanup programs.

In announcing the final regulations, the EPA administrator said that the discussion over the final rules under the Congressional Review Act and before implementation in 2001 if the rule was not rejected would be welcomed by the administration.

Restoring the Waters

There is an apparent consensus among environmental groups and federal and state regulators that some method of addressing non-point sources of water pollution is necessary if we are to protect and restore our polluted waters. There is no consensus over whether the July 11th regulations are the way to achieve that end.

For people of faith, the waters of God's creation are not only provided to sustain all living things, but symbolize God's boundless forgiveness and acceptance of humanity even in its broken state. We understand that we have a special understanding of the importance of restoring the waters of the earth that we have polluted.

Despite all of its flaws and weaknesses, the new TMDL program is a positive and necessary step in this process, and deserves the support of Congress, and our work to ensure that our states expeditiously move to create and implement programs covering nonpoint sources of pollution.

Suggested actions:

The 208th General Assembly adopted in the report, "Hope for a Global Future" the principle that: "Human life and well-being depend upon the flourishing of other life and the integrity of life-supporting processes that God has ordained." The continued pollution of our nation's waters through industrial, agricultural, and daily human patterns of life is inconsistent with this principle. Government, business, agriculture, and individuals must take responsibility for improving this situation and restoring the waters of God's creation.

In August 2000, federal and state legislators will be in their home districts. Most will be seeking re-election. This is an opportunity to multiply the impact of cards, letters, calls, and questions raised in a public forum.

1. Call the local office of your federal and state elected officials and find out when they will be holding public discussions in your area. Attend by yourself or, even better, with the environment or water groups from your church or local communities and:
· Ask your federal legislators not to block implementation of the new TMDL rules.
· Ask your state legislators to support implementation of the TMDL program with full funding. Also ask them to create and publicize opportunities for concerned citizens to have direct input to review TMDL implementation plans.

If you are unable to attend public events or meet personally with your elected officials you can send cards and letters and call their office.

The Honorable
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

2. Is there a clean water monitoring or action group in your church or community? If not, see if there are two or three people in your church, neighborhood or office concerned about these issues and talk about the state of bodies of water in your area. If things are worse, how did they get that way? What might you be able to do to help clean up local waters? Resources for such a study, discussion, or action group are widely available on the internet and directly available from the Presbyterian Washington Office.

General Assembly guidance:

In its 1990 statement on "Restoring Creation for Ecology and Justice," the 202nd General Assembly calls for "increased federal, state, local and private funding for the investigation of air, water and ground contamination…" It affirmed "the pursuit of a three-pronged strategy -- education, regulation, and economic incentives -- to combat environmental pollution." It called for "tighter restrictions on point sources of water pollution and illegal dumping" and "increased efforts to address the problem of pollution from urban and rural runoff."