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<br /> <br />Executive Summary <br /> <br />for some uses of water; (e) poor integration of <br />groundwater and surface water pollution control <br />programs; (f) poor coordination of water quality and <br />water use programs; (g) insufficient attention to <br />more holistic and integrated approaches to water <br />quality protection and improvement; and <br />(h) inadequate water quality monitoring. <br /> <br />Water Quality Standards <br /> <br />The water quality of western rivers presents issues <br />that are often different from those in the eastern <br />United States. There is little recognition of this in <br />the Clean Water Act or in the programs of the <br />Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <br /> <br />1. EPA, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), <br />and the states should broaden their water <br />quality monitoring to enable them to <br />knowledgeably assess the condition of <br />western (and the nation's) aquatic <br />ecosystems. <br /> <br />2. Western ephemeral streams in arid areas, <br />dry many months of the year, with aquatic <br />ecosystems that can be vastly different from <br />year-round water bodies, present a unique <br />challenge under the Clean Water Act. The <br />Commission supports EPA's effort to find <br />ways to treat these aquatic ecosystems as a <br />separate type of water use and to develop a <br />more appropriate, though equally protective, <br />set of water quality criteria that states and <br />tribes may use in setting water quality <br />standards that protect these ecosystems and <br />their species and habitats. The Commission <br />also encourages states to develop biological <br />criteria to help define the biological <br />integrity of the state's waters. <br /> <br />3. Hydrologic modification activities are <br />increasingly a source of concern in western <br /> <br />aquatic ecosystems, ranking third nationally <br />as a source of water quality impairment for <br />rivers. Water quality criteria and best <br />management practices should be aggres- <br />sively developed that encourage states to <br />pursue instream flow and other standards for <br />protection of the physical and biological <br />aspects of instream water quality as <br />appropriate. <br /> <br />Nonpoint Sources of Pollution <br /> <br />Despite extensive program efforts and expenditures <br />under the voluntary programs of the Clean Water <br />Act and the farm bills, and establishment of soil loss <br />limits by the Natural Resources Conservation <br />Service of the Department of Agriculture, the <br />problem of nonpoint source discharge continues and <br />threatens to undermine the considerable national <br />success in addressing point sources of water <br />pollution. Nonpoint source programs must be <br />implemented more aggressively by states, with <br />active support and cooperation of the federal <br />government. These programs should, from <br />wherever feasible, emphasize incentives for <br />adoption of best land management practices and be <br />designed so that they can be implemented flexibly at <br />the watershed level. The Congress should consider <br />modifying or changing the Clean Water Act <br />approach to nonpoint sources (found in sections 208 <br />and 319) to that of the Coastal Zone Management <br />Act. <br /> <br />The EPA and the states should more actively pursue <br />cooperative implementation of the watershed-based <br />total maximum daily load process. Two promising <br />areas are a reformed system of non point source best <br />management practices and pollutant trading <br />systems developed on a watershed basis. <br /> <br />xxi <br />