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Independent financing mechanisms may allow states to plan more effectively for comprehensive water resource development. It's an attempt to get clean water on-line quickly without lengthy up-front legal delays. Local input is encouraged in this cooperative effort. 36 A.,ide from federal-state relationships, there are other problems with states managing water on their own, California is one example, Southern California believes it needs more water. Northern California disagrees, believing instead that there's too much waste occurring and that conservation could make up the supposed deficit. The Peripheral Canal, which would have sent water from Northern California down to Southern California, was defeated resoundingly by a 2-to-l margin. The disagreement is over the question "Can conservation save enough water to not have to develop new water?" Northern California and environmentalists say yes, and Southern California says no, Here's a case where federal money and federal-state relationships are definitely not the issue. It's a political situation within the state itself. Q: What kinds ofinitiatives are states taking in the face of reduced federal assistance? A: A number of states have taken it upon themselves to develop water programs that neither require nor desire federal assistance or directives. State authorities are beginning to assist local governments in financing water supply and waste treatment facilities-projects which were in the past heavily federally subsidized. Such independent financing mechanisms may allow states to plan more effectively for comprehensive water resource development. Q: How are states responding to the lack offederal groundwater quality regulations? A: The lack of federal regulations to protect groundwater from a wide range of hazardous contaminants was one impetus for legislation enacted in New Jersey. The new law requires all public community water systems to test for the existence and excessive levels of hazardous contaminants in underground drinking water supplies. The Department of Environmental Protection must adopt maximum contaminant levels for 22 specific organic compounds based on recommendations from the state's newly created Drinking Water Quality Institute. The costs of the tests and any cleanup requirements will be passed on to consumers of each system, in the form of increased water rates approved by the state's Board of Public Utilities and increased municipal budgets to defray the expense of employing treatment techniques or developing alternative drinking water sources, Q: Have states begun to develop statewide groundwater quality programs? A: Wisconsin has adopted perhaps the most comprehensive state groundwater quality protection program to date, Two aspects of this program set it apart from others, First of all, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is required to adopt two sets of groundwater quality standards-while other states have only one set. The first level of standards is an enforcement standard, based on maximum permissible levels of contaminants. If this enforcement standard is exceeded, a violation occurs and a compliance action is sought. This enforcement standard is the one that other states have. More important than this enforcement standard, however, is Wisconsin's second set of standards-the preventive action limit. This preventive action limit serves as a sort of "early warning device," For example, the enforcement standard for a particular contaminant may be 10 ppm (parts per million), but the preventive action limit may be 1 ppm. When a level of 1 ppm is reached, it's time to get to work on a prevention plan - to take action before the enforcement level is reached or exceeded.