Drinking Water

Widening Gap Between Needs and Available Resources Threatens Vital EPA Program Gao ID: RCED-92-184 July 6, 1992

With the nation's safe drinking water program imperiled by funding shortages at the federal, state, and local levels, Congress should consider increasing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed 1993 budget to provide the minimum funding needed to maintain the program's integrity. GAO reported in 1990 that many water systems--particularly smaller ones--had failed to adequately monitor water quality or meet drinking water standards. Further, enforcement efforts by the states and EPA deterred few violators. Although EPA has tried since then to overcome these problems, largely by boosting enforcement efforts, the agency has been hampered by budgetary constraints. For some time now, EPA has responded to continuing budget shortfalls by targeting its limited funds to programs associated with the greatest environmental and health risks. Although stewardship of the nation's drinking water supplies fits this category, funding for EPA's drinking water program has been inadequate for years and the program is now approaching a state of profound neglect.

GAO found that: (1) an earlier GAO report found that many drinking water quality violations were undetected and unreported by water systems due to sampling errors and intentional falsification of data; (2) the report showed that EPA regulatory enforcement was neither timely nor appropriate; (3) EPA has issued or will issue new regulations that will significantly increase program responsibilities for water systems; (4) EPA is dealing with worsening state funding problems by setting program priorities, including minimum state functions, EPA priorities, and state oversight priorities; and (5) EPA faces problems with funding and program implementation, which will make it difficult for states to meet the priorities EPA has set.

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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