Water Pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued national guidance and regulations to help the states establish standards to protect water quality and issue permits to facilities to limit the discharge of pollutants. Although the Clean Water Act requires all states to adopt water quality standards, EPA authorizes qualified states to issue permits. Currently, 40 states have obtained such authority; in the remaining 10 states, EPA regional offices issue the permits. In issuing the permits, the states and EPA may impose limits on the discharges of specific pollutants, require the facilities to monitor the levels of pollutants they discharge, or determine that no controls are warranted. This report (1) determines whether differences exist in whether and how the states and EPA control pollutants in the discharge permits they issue, (2) identifies the causes of any differences, and (3) provides information on EPA's oversight of the states' water quality standards and policies.

GAO found that: (1) controls over the discharge of pollutants in surface waters vary by state; (2) differences in state water pollutant controls are a concern to neighboring states that share water bodies; (3) differences in state controls exist because surface waters differ greatly throughout the country and EPA regulations allow for flexibility in the way states assess and control water pollution; (4) EPA has limited oversight of state water quality standards, since it does not maintain sufficient information on state implementation policies or assess the impact of variations among states and it reviews relatively few permits; and (5) EPA plans to enhance its reviews of state implementation policies and increase its emphasis on controlling pollution within watersheds.