Water Pollution

Observations on EPA's Efforts to Clean Up the Great Lakes Gao ID: T-RCED-92-1 October 4, 1991

More than 45 million Americans and Canadians rely on the Great Lakes for many uses, including drinking water. However, the water quality of the Great Lakes and their tributaries has deteriorated over the years because of industrial development, urbanization, and agricultural activities. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program--the program that regulates discharges into surface waters--in the Great Lakes is faced with many of the same compliance and enforcement problems found in prior GAO reviews: serious and long-standing violations of permit discharge limits, weak and sporadic enforcement against violators, and inadequate EPA oversight of states' enforcement activities. Although the program places limits on discharges of some toxic and other harmful pollutants, it is not designed to eliminate these discharges totally. While EPA has several efforts underway to implement the U.S./Canadian Great Lakes agreement, progress has been slow because of technical, organizational, and resource problems.



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