The Nation's Water

GAO reviewed and combined the findings of several studies on issues affecting national water quality policies and assessed the technical strength of their methodologies, focusing on: (1) the present condition of the nation's water quality; (2) how the water quality has changed over time; (3) what pollution sources degrade water quality; and (4) the effect of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Construction Grants Program on water quality.

GAO found that: (1) some of the nation's water is of fairly good quality, while other water remains polluted; (2) pollution control efforts have reduced the discharge of conventional water pollutants from sources of focused pollution; (3) there was no change in water quality for most of the rivers examined; (4) the water quality in many rivers and streams has remained the same despite population and economic growth; (5) sources of diffused water pollution may degrade more stream-miles than sources of focused pollution; and (6) although the Construction Grants Program has reduced the discharge of pollutants from wastewater treatment plants, there is no data on its effect on in-stream pollutants. GAO also found that the effect on water quality is difficult to determine due to: (1) the absence of any analysis of a national sample of projects funded by the program; (2) the lack of data and analysis directly linking the funding of construction grants to in-stream water quality; and (3) the lack of information and analysis to rule out explanations for changes in water quality associated with non-point-source and point-source pollution.

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.

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