NACWA is pleased to announce the release of a white paper entitled Clean Water Act Enforcement: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century , which presents the Association’s perspective on the recent national discussion surrounding clean water enforcement.  The paper was developed in response to the recent EPA Clean Water Enforcement Action Plan , as well as a series of New York Times articles and Congressional hearings focused on current clean water enforcement efforts.  NACWA argues in its white paper that the EPA Action Plan lacks the innovative thinking needed to meet the water quality challenges of the 21st century and is based instead on the flawed existing enforcement model which focuses exclusively on point sources and fails to take into account the significant contributions of nonpoint sources to degrading water quality.  Instead of pursuing the current “business as usual” enforcement model, the shortcoming of which are identified in the paper, NACWA argues for the need to move beyond current enforcement policies and explore new ways of achieving water quality improvements.  Central to this effort is a move towards a watershed approach to permitting and enforcement, which would allow for a more complete understanding of pollution sources within a watershed and better targeting of enforcement actions towards those dischargers that have the most significant impact on water quality.  The white paper also discusses the critical role of increased federal funding for water infrastructure as a key effort to improving water quality, arguing that the federal government must return to its role as a partner with state and local governments in paying for water infrastructure improvements.  The paper further examines the issue of affordability, contending that the current approach is not sustainable and arguing that the existing affordability guidelines must be revised to create a more holistic, equitable, and flexible way for determining how much a given community can afford to spend.  NACWA will be distributing copies of the white paper to every member of Congress and to key officials at EPA as part of the Association’s ongoing advocacy efforts to protect its members from unnecessary enforcement actions and move beyond the current enforcement model.  We look forward to continued work with Congress and EPA on behalf of our members to achieve meaningful water quality improvements, not through arbitrary clean water enforcement but instead through a holistic watershed approach, increased federal infrastructure funding, and revised affordability guidance.