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Weakening Water Pollution Limits The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering issuing a "Total Maximum Daily Load" (TMDL) rulemaking. The TMDL program sets limits for how much of each regulated pollutant a waterbody can tolerate and then restricts pollution sources to meet the established limits. More than 218 million Americans live within 10 miles of polluted waters that are not safe for fishing, swimming and other uses. The proposed rulemaking would delay the task of cleaning up these polluted waters It would make the EPA’s responsibility to intervene where states have failed to establish TMDL’s optional, instead of mandatory, as it is now. It would weaken schedules for establishing TMDL’s. It would also result allow states to take waters off the clean-up list without actually cleaning them up. And It would even allow factories and sewage treatment to INCREASE their discharge into polluted waters based on possible future reductions in polluted runoff. The planned TMDL rulemaking would significantly delay, if not completely derail, efforts to clean up our nation's polluted waterways. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Despite the Act's promise of fishable, swimmable waters for all communities, at least forty-four percent of our assessed water bodies remain impaired. EPA's recent National Coastal Condition report acknowledged that the overall condition of our coastal waters is only fair to poor. Nationally, polluted runoff is the single largest source of water pollution; agriculture runoff alone is estimated to affect 70 percent of impaired rivers and streams. Clearly, there is still much work that remains to be done to remedy these water pollution problems. While the existing TMDL program is not perfect, the goal of achieving clean water will be better met by focusing on making the existing law work to the greatest extent possible, not rewriting the rules. Rather than rewrite the rules for the Clean Water Act's program for cleaning up impaired waters at this time, the EPA should focus on implementing the existing program and getting on with the job of cleaning up the nation's dirty waters. Background on the Total Maximum Daily Load Program The Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program was established in 1972 as part of the original Clean Water Act (CWA or “the Act”). In an attempt to meet water quality standards, the CWA’s TMDL provisions provide for specific limits on the amount of pollution that can enter waterbodies. States must first identify waters within their borders that fail to meet specific standards, even where water pollution controls already exist. Next, states have to determine a daily maximum load of pollutants that will permit each impaired waterbody to comply and stay in compliance with the standards. Regulators are required to address pollution both from point sources (i.e., a pipe emitting waste into a river) and nonpoint sources, which include heretofore neglected pollution sources such as runoff from roads, farm fields, and forests. While the TMDL program does not establish new regulatory controls, it provides a process for states to revise existing pollution permits to bring a waterway into compliance. In addition, states can formulate management plans to address nonpoint source pollution. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club --> |
