Drinking Water Program

States Face Increased Difficulties in Meeting Basic Requirements Gao ID: RCED-93-144 June 25, 1993

Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may delegate primary drinking water program enforcement authority to the states. So far, all states except Wyoming have assumed such responsibility. The number and the complexity of the requirements that states must meet have expanded significantly, however. This report examines (1) whether states are complying with the minimum requirements needed to retain primary responsibility for their drinking water programs, (2) how EPA has responded to the prospect that many states may be unable to meet these requirements, and (3) whether EPA is able to take over state programs itself should it become necessary. GAO concludes that severe resource constraints have made it increasingly hard for many states to carry out the mandatory elements of the federal safe drinking water program, and the states' ability to meet these requirements will probably deteriorate significantly during the next few years.

GAO found that: (1) continuing resource constraints hinder many states' ability to comply with expanding EPA drinking water program monitoring, enforcement, and other primacy requirements; (2) EPA has formally initiated primacy withdrawal actions for three states after determining that the states had inadequate program resources or were incapable of meeting drinking water requirements; (3) although EPA has issued guidance to states and set 5-year program activity priorities so that states can effectively manage their resource problems, the guidance fails to directly address the problem of insufficient resources, inadequately addresses or postpones many important program responsibilities, and unreasonably assumes that states will resolve their financial dilemma at the end of the 5-year period; and (4) if EPA revokes the states' program primacy authority, it will not have sufficient staffing to adequately administer state programs that do not meet the program's primacy requirements, be forced to concentrate on enforcement activities rather than technical assistance, create an unmanageable enforcement workload, increase water systems costs, and provide only limited consumer protection.

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.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.