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<br />Resolving the nation's water <br />problems will not be an easy <br />task. A structured program <br />of cooperation, <br />coordination and <br />communication will be <br />essential to assuring <br />progress toward that end. <br /> <br />20 <br /> <br />EPA's memoranda of agreement deal with ocean dumping and incineration at <br />sea, the location of waste sites and sludge dumping sites, and the protection of <br />the nation's bays, estuaries and soon the nation's groundwater. Although the MOAs <br />are sometimes seen as little more than "mom and apple pie statements of <br />intention," they can also be a significant instrument of cooperation between <br />agencies whose effective interaction is of growing importance. <br /> <br />An Interagency Task Force <br /> <br />What looked to be a new bright note in governmental cooperation at the federal, <br />state and local levels was the work of the Nonpoint Source Task Force convened <br />last year by EPA. The unusual group of 27 members, which completed eight <br />months of work in December 1984, represented 12 federal government groups <br />and 11 state and local groups. <br /> <br />Ear ly this year, this unique interagency task force offered its recommendations <br />for a national nonpoint source policy to EPA administrator Lee M. Thomas. The <br />report included implementation strategies dealing with interagency cooperation <br />to "assure broader implementation of needed nonpoint source controls." The <br />report, however, disappointed environmentalists monitoring the task force's <br />work because it backed off an earlier draft that would have linked state nonpoint <br />source control plans to EPA's state grants program, <br /> <br />Cooperation, Coordination and Communication <br /> <br />Whether memoranda of agreement and interagency task forces provide enough <br />structure to mend the fragmented federal approach to resolving the nation's <br />growing water problems remains to be proven, As DavidAllee notes, the demise <br />of the Water Resources Council has left a critical vacuum in the vital area of <br />national water resource planning. <br /> <br />Although last year's water authorization bills proposed to replace this interagency <br />vehicle, Congress still seems leery of addressing the awesome issue of water <br />allocation on a national scale, In the meantime, the nation's water management <br />problems continue to multiply. <br /> <br />"Memoranda of agreement notwithstanding, communication still takes people <br />to make it happen," says Cornell'sAllee. "Agreements help; you have to have these <br />to clarify what you are doing, But with water issues, which are so political, nothing <br />beats some kind of structure that makes the parties talk to each other regularly." <br /> <br />This federal approach to water is fragmented, and a viable planning structure <br />is lacking. Resolving the nation's water problems will not be an easy task. A <br />structured program of cooperation, coordination and communication will be <br />essential to assuring progress toward that end. <br /> <br />About the author: Lawrence Mosher is a Washington, D,C.-based environmental writer, He is <br />the editor of Water InformationNewsService, a twice-monthly newsletter on water resources; <br />a contributing editor for Nationaljournal, a weekly magazine on government and politics; <br />and the NorthAmerican correspondent for Ambio, published by the Royal Swedish Academy <br />of Sciences, <br />