State and local water pollution officials deserve a place at the table in setting enforcement priorities, two groups told the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance in recent letters.

The Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA) and the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) expressed their views in response to a July 2 directive by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to Cynthia Giles, assistant EPA administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance.

Jackson said OECA should develop a water enforcement plan within 90 days. She called for greater public transparency regarding clean water enforcement, stronger enforcement at the state and local levels, and a major shift in the agency's Clean Water information systems to make data readily available.

ASIWPCA said EPA should allow states to set priorities. NACWA urged the agency to take into consideration community needs and resources.

NACWA Seeks Focus on Water Quality

NACWA told EPA that federal and state enforcement policy has focused too much on the number of enforcement actions rather than on whether such actions improve water quality, Susan Bruninga, the association's director of legislative and public affairs, told BNA Sept. 18.

Focusing on numbers can result in significant taxpayer costs that result in no measurable environmental improvements, the letter said. It also can result in “one-size-fits all” approach that does not work in all parts of the country, NACWA Executive Director Ken Kirk wrote Aug. 31 in a letter to Giles.

Kirk also called it “critically important” that OECA work more closely with EPA's Office of Water in coordinating water program functions and Clean Water Act enforcement functions. Lack of coordination “often results in consent decrees and enforcement orders that place unrealistic demands on communities” that would benefit greatly from the program expertise of officials in the Office of Water, he wrote.

NACWA cited concerns regarding current enforcement efforts in what it called a lack of consistency between EPA regions and states in how certain treatment technologies or practices at publicly owned treatment works are regulated for enforcement purposes.

Viewing water quality needs through the wide-view lens of a watershed allows an enforcement agency to see all the contributors, both point source and nonpoint source, which contribute to water quality impairment, NACWA Executive Director Ken Kirk wrote Aug. 31 in a letter to Giles.

The letter followed on the heels of another NACWA letter sent July 28 to EPA Administrator Jackson expressing disappointment that her memo failed to discuss “the critical stakeholder role played by municipalities” and calling it “imperative” that the municipal clean water community have a voice in discussions on how to improve enforcement.

Directing Resources

ASIWPCA President Tom Porta told Giles in a Sept. 14 letter that because “implementation of national priorities can require a significant investment of resources at the national, regional, state, and local levels, collaboration with states on development of national priorities is paramount to future success.

“ASIWPCA's central recommendation is that resources be directed to waters where there are linkages between noncompliance and documented impairments. U.S. EPA should allow states to set enforcement priorities (consistent with national priorities) based on the causes of impairment,” he wrote.

ASIWPCA also asked OECA to refocus resources to help states with compliance and enforcement efforts in state and regionally designated watersheds. In addition, EPA should focus more on education and technical assistance to prevent or minimize violations, Porta wrote.

The state administrators also echoed their position outlined in an earlier letter sent Aug. 12 urging EPA to leverage data systems that states maintain rather than continuing to use valuable resources to transfer information from state systems to EPA's Integrated Compliance Information System (ICIS) (156 DEN A-1, 8/17/09).

Consensus Sought on Problems

ASIWPCA told EPA that deliberations on enforcement should begin with a consensus on the most pressing water pollution issues. The association said that 53 percent of impaired waters are impaired by nonpoint sources alone; 5 percent are impaired by point sources alone; and 42 percent of impairment is caused by point sources and nonpoint sources combined.

Citing EPA's own data, the letter said the top seven causes of impairment reported are pathogens, mercury, metals (other than mercury), nutrients, sediment, polychlorinated biphenyls, and organic enrichment leading to oxygen depletion.

The major source of impairment to rivers and streams is agriculture, the letter said. Lakes, reservoirs, and ponds are most impaired by atmospheric deposition, followed by agriculture. Bays and estuaries are impaired by municipal discharges or sewage, followed by atmospheric deposition, ASIWPCA said.

EPA should place a much higher on air emissions that impair waters due to atmospheric deposition, ASIWPCA added.