Water Pollution

EPA Needs to Set Priorities for Water Quality Criteria Issues Gao ID: RCED-94-117 June 17, 1994

GAO looked at progress by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in issuing technical information, known as water quality criteria, that states consider in adopting water quality standards and setting pollutant limits in discharge permits. GAO also looked at EPA's efforts to broaden the scope of its criteria development. EPA has issued ambient water quality criteria for 99 of the 126 pollutants designated by the agency as priority under the Clean Water Act. While such criteria are still needed for some of these priority pollutants, EPA plans to develop other types of criteria necessary for protecting waste ecosystems. However, EPA's limited resources will restrict what can be accomplished; consequently, setting priorities will be a crucial step in dealing with the significantly expanded scope of the agency's efforts to develop criteria.

GAO found that: (1) EPA has issued water quality criteria for most of its priority pollutants and it plans to develop other criteria for protecting water ecosystems; (2) most of the water quality criteria are based on scientific studies and other technical documents that are more than 13 years old; (3) EPA does not plan to develop criteria for all of the priority pollutants, since it has issued human health criteria for the most serious pollutants; (4) EPA plans to develop ambient water quality criteria for some nonpriority pollutants, but states and other interested parties believe more criteria are needed to protect human health and the environment; (5) EPA needs to set priorities in developing habitat and wildlife criteria, since limited resources and competing priorities will restrict its efforts; (6) EPA has not developed specific criteria development priorities or established a timetable for completing criteria development; (7) states, the regulated community, and other interested parties fault EPA for not including them more in the priority-setting process; and (8) EPA development of an implementation plan for water quality criteria would guide EPA efforts and inform interested parties of the dimensions of the EPA task and the reasons for EPA criteria development decisions.

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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