Many Water Quality Standard Violations May Not Be Significant Enough To Justify Costly Preventive Actions

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers a Construction Grants Program under the Water Pollution Control Act to restore and maintain the quality of the Nation's waters. EPA estimates that $10 billion will be needed through the year 2000 to construct advanced wastewater treatment (AWT) facilities for municipal sewage for the program. GAO discussed wastewater treatment with federal and state water quality officials and consultants in the field. Each state has developed water quality standards to protect its waterways and their uses. The standards help determine the type of wastewater treatment needed to protect waters for those uses. AWT, which may be required in municipalities, is very expensive. Violation of a water quality standard may not always mean that significant environmental, social, or public health damage has occurred. The scientific basis for the standard may be questionable, and the water may not be important to society. In many instances, municipalities are constructing treatment facilities which are more sophisticated than necessary to prevent predicted water quality standard violations. The mathematical models, upon which these predictions are based, produce highly uncertain results. The law does not require communities to consider adequately the costs of achieving water quality standards. An agency analysis of nine projects did not show the significance of the projects' AWT to the environment, its effect on public health, its significance of the on established waterway uses, or the social significance or benefits of the projects.

GAO found that the water quality standard setting process is questionable, modeling to determine violations is often imprecise and inexact, federal funding is insufficient to achieve water quality standards for all waterways within a reasonable period of time, obtaining downward reclassification from EPA is very difficult, and relating the impact of various treatment levels on water uses is difficult. GAO believes that AWT, with few exceptions, may not be justified at this time. GAO concluded that funding of AWT projects should be curtailed. Federal funds should not be spent to provide a level of treatment that produces such uncertain results. These factors affect billions of dollars that have been or will be spent under the EPA Construction Grants Program. The standard setting process places too much emphasis on preventing all types of water quality standard violations rather than just significant violations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Hugh J. Wessinger Team: General Accounting Office: Community and Economic Development Division Phone: (202) 275-5489