Water Pollution

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Region X to determine: (1) how well EPA and the states implemented Clean Water Act requirements to clean up rivers that did not meet water quality standards after construction of treatment plants; and (2) what actions EPA and Oregon took to set stricter pollution limits on the Tualatin and South Umpqua Rivers.

GAO found that: (1) many states and EPA did not develop total maximum daily loads (TMDL) for many of the nation's most polluted waters; (2) EPA did not track development and implementation of TMDL for individual water segments or TMDL effectiveness in meeting state water quality standards; (3) state officials did not plan to set TMDL for water-quality-limited segments beyond their existing plans because they preferred to use the funds to implement 1987 legislative water quality requirements; (4) although limited budgets and increased water pollution control requirements imposed difficulties on EPA and states, TMDL requirements provided a comprehensive approach to resolving all water pollution problems; (5) setting maximum levels could help to identify more effective and cost-efficient cleanup alternatives; (6) as a result of a consent decree, Oregon initiated actions to develop TMDL for 11 bodies of water and for 1 pollutant for the Tualatin River; and (7) Oregon planned to set TMDL for the remaining pollutant in the Tualatin River by the end of the year, and TMDL for the Umpqua River and eight other bodies of water by June 1993.

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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