Clean Water Group Advocates Major Changes To Federal Water Policy

InsideEPA.com

A policy group including key former EPA officials and the wastewater industry is advocating a broad range of major changes to federal water policy to encourage regional water planning and green infrastructure, an immediate inventory of the nation’s water resources, and other measures.

The recently formed Clean Water America Alliance in a Nov. 23 report detailing a Sept. 14-15 meeting calls for immediate actions -- taking a detailed national water inventory and studying the water footprint of a number of sectors, including energy -- and long-term goals, which include restructuring water policy, regulation, and enforcement.

The water group’s membership includes includes four former EPA assistant administrators for water: Benjamin Grumbles, G.Tracy Mehan III, LaJuana Wilcher, and Bob Perciasepe, along with Mike Cook, a former agency wastewater management official. Major companies represented in the alliance include PepsiCo, Inc. and General Electric Co. The group is a non-profit that may not lobby for legislation.

The 27-member alliance agrees that “one of the first tasks, one that could begin immediately,” is to conduct an inclusive survey of surface and groundwater in the country. The group also says there needs to be a national focus on a “‘water footprint’ (analogous to the ‘carbon footprint’ in climate change)” which could heighten awareness about the water consumption of various activities.

Further, the group suggests that energy projects need to better account for water use impacts. “There is too little awareness of how much water is required to produce energy,” the group says, and suggests that a “water footprint should be calculated for energy projects, much like a carbon footprint, to better judge the benefits and costs of any particular energy project.” The report is available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2 for details.

The group also addresses air and energy regulation in considering regional planning of water resource issues, suggesting that “cap and trade proposals for water use within a watershed may help the market determine the best use for any specific quantity of water,” particularly in areas where water resources are scarce. Additionally, the group says that federal efforts to establish water quality standards for use of potable water could “help spur improvements in technology and begin to reassure consumers about its safety and acceptability.”

A federal lead is needed as well in many areas to facilitate regional planning, the group says in the report. “One of the biggest challenges is that political boundaries and watersheds usually don’t coincide,” the report says, pointing to the Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts and federal involvement there as a good example.

While the group asks for more regulatory options from the federal government for green infrastructure, it urges EPA to relax enforcement efforts to encourage attempts at innovative techniques because “since it involves natural systems, enforcement needs to take the inherent variability of such systems into account,” the report says.

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