Water Pollution

Alternative Strategies Needed to Reduce Wastewater Treatment Costs Gao ID: T-RCED-92-84 August 4, 1992

State revolving funds--an efficient alternative to the Construction Grants Program, which for years provided money directly to local governments to build wastewater treatment facilities--will be unable to handle the nation's wastewater treatment needs and may fall far short of meeting small communities' needs. Less costly alternatives are needed to help narrow this billion dollar gap between wastewater treatment plant needs and available resources. Although several alternative and innovative technologies and management approaches have been tried with some success, they have thus far been used sparingly. GAO's work so far suggests that a number of barriers may be impeding the use of promising alternatives, including insufficient information on alternatives, institutional biases toward conventional treatment technologies, and private-sector financial disincentives for using these alternatives.



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