BOARD00356

• Board Meeting Date: 5/22/2000
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

Clean Water Action Plan: On April 26, the EP A and eight other federal agencies
released a report outlining accomplishments of their the Clean Water Action Plan and an agenda
for the coming year. Cited as accomplishments documented in the report include: the
establishment of more than 720,000 miles of conservation buffers, a unified policy for watershed
management on federal lands, new curbs on stormwater runoff and a beach action plan. The
President's FY 2001 budget request includes almost $2.8 billion, an increase of$584 million, to
support key actions in the plan. To view the report, visit: htto://cleanwater.gov on the Internet or
contact EP A's Office of Water at 202-260-5700.

EPA's Authority to Regulate Non-Point Sources of Pollution: A federal court has
upheld the EP A's assertion that it has authority to identify waterways polluted by runoff from
urban areas, agriculture and timber harvesting -- "nonpoint sources" of pollution - and to identify
the maximum amount of pollutants that may enter these waterways. The March 30 opinion in
Pronsolino v. Marcus, by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco affirms the
comprehensive scope ofthe Clean Water Act's Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program.
Judge Alsup found that Congress intended to include nonpoint source pollution in the Clean
Water Act's water quality standards program, and he noted that nonpoint source pollution is the
dominant water quality problem in the U.S.

The decisions was the result of a challenge to an EP A decision that included the Garcia
River on a list of impaired waterways in California and limited the amount of sediment that
should be allowed to enter the river from land along its banks. Although salmon and steelhead
once flourished in the Garcia River, excessive sediment from forestry operations now prevents
the river from supporting healthy fish. In March 1998, the EP A developed a "total maximum
daily load" (TMDL) for sediment for the river. A TMDL defines the greatest amount of a
particular pollutant that can be introduced into a waterway without exceeding the river's water
quality standard. The agency also defined the reductions in sediment that are necessary for the
river to attain the water quality standard set by the State of California.

The American Farm Bureau Federation and other agriculture and timber groups filed suit,
claiming that the EP A and the states should calculate TMDLs only for pollutants that are
discharged from pipes, or point sources. The court rejected this argument, holding that the Clean
Water Act is designed to provide a comprehensive solution to the nation's water quality
problems, "without regard to the sources ofpo\1ution."
To review a copy of the decision see htto://www.eoa.gov/owow/tmdVoronsdecision.odf.

TMDL Hearings: On March 23, the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee's Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water, held the second in a series of
hearings on EP A's proposed changes to the TMDL Program. The hearing focused on the impacts
on the regulated communities and on state implementation agencies, but a number of Senators
made statements, and environmental groups and the General Accounting Office (GAO) testified.
The EPA Assistant Administrator for Water, Chuck Fox, presented a letter acknowledging the
Act's direction that states should take the lead in identifying polluted waters and defining needed
reductions and indicating that EP A will stick to the full IS-year timeframe for implementation
(rather than the 8-13 years suggested earlier. Fox also testified that EP A will promote
implementation plans tailored to local water quality problems and "give full credit" to voluntary

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