I spent a day last week in Washington, D.C., with about one hundred others, including former Administrator Ruckelshaus, talking about how to increase the nation’s progress in meeting its clean water goals. The meeting, “Coming Together for Clean Water,” was the brainchild of the current EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, who kicked the day off by challenging the group to contribute their ideas and help EPA refocus its efforts. Bill Ruckelshaus was there, as was former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly, along with representatives of environmental groups, business, state and local government, and agricultural interests.
In his opinion piece, Ruckelshaus talked about re-thinking how the environment, including water, is regulated. With respect to water, Ruckelshaus observes that the structures that allowed the nation to successfully reduce pollution from large, discrete sources like sewage treatment facilities may not work as well with respect to the nation’s leading water pollution challenge today, polluted runoff. It is fair and healthy to ask these questions. The basic architecture of environmental statutes matters. Like buildings, some laws age better than others. The Ruckelshaus piece is thought-provoking.
But I don’t think the problem the country is having with polluted runoff is fundamentally because of the Clean Water Act’s deficiencies. (Although the Act clearly has some.) And it is not because a runoff discharge from a storm drain is composed of a multitude of diffuse sources of pollution. This also characterizes other waste streams that the Act has dealt with effectively, like sewage treatment. Instead, after working on runoff pollution permit, policy, and litigation for more than ten years, I think the challenges have a lot to do with the entities being regulated: city government and land development interests. Many cities view the Act’s reach as intrusive on their local prerogatives, which they guard fiercely and feel deeply. Cities are used to being the regulating party, the deciders, so to speak—not the other way around. Their reluctance to play a different role is understandable but also something its long-past time to move beyond. For their part, developers are often closely related to and can be a powerful influence on local politics. Many development interests have successfully framed regulation of development practices as intruding on private property and local land use choices, instead of merely addressing the pollution generated by those decisions, which is actually what is happening. It is not at all clear that the solution to this resistance can be found in acceding to these characterizations or what is often a generic reluctance to be subject to clean water requirements.
Likewise, we can do better than accept the implicit contention that this leading source of pollution to the nation’s waters—a source which science tells us sickens people at beaches across the country—is too difficult a problem to solve. This view is rooted in the judgment—misjudgment in my view—that what made the Act successful in addressing treatment plants and factories twenty five years does not apply now. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of romanticizing the country’s experience with the control of pollution from factories and sewage treatment plants. Law schools can and do teach entire courses based on the case law generated by litigation brought to avoid, and enforce, the very rules that on Earth Day anniversaries are described, wistfully, as successful and uncontroversial. They are successful. They were not—and still today are not—always accepted by pollution dischargers without a fight (or fights). Indeed, during the 1970s, statutory limits were tested. Precedent was set. In the case of polluted runoff, we are very much in the middle of that process, which largely ended in the 1980s for the so-called traditional sources of water pollution.
And so I think that the most effective single action EPA can take today to clean up the nation’s water is not to endlessly debate the Clean Water Act’s basic approaches (although that’s certainly not unhealthy entirely). It is rather to seize the moment of the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day to implement the law; clarify what needs to be clarified through updates to implementing regulations; and revisit guidance documents which during the 2000s often undercut progress. You might think that, well, isn’t that what EPA does already? The truth is: not always when it comes to the nation’s principal water quality law. Many regulations that govern the day-to-day implementation of the Act’s storm water rules have remained essentially unchanged for a decade or more. In this connection, the role of clear guidance is a powerful lever that is easy to overlook. For example, through guidance memoranda, EPA can in the coming weeks improve the clarity of and minimum deliverables that polluted runoff permits must contain; specify more precisely how Total Maximum Daily Loads must be implemented to assure that the limits they set are met; and set guidelines for the use of “green infrastructure” solutions like Low Impact Development.
EPA can lead the way in another critical area, which is an important complement to stricter focus on implementing the law, and enforcing it where necessary. I will post about this important action item tomorrow…
]]>When you work on water for a living, every day sort of feels like “water day.” And it is easy to forget that while we in the U.S. have serious water problems of our own, some of which have been vividly illustrated in a terrific series in the New York Times this year and last, many of these problems pale in comparison to those in other parts of the world.
But there is a connection (many actually) between the choices we make in the U.S. and how water is used across the globe. By thinking about how we all use water at home and in our daily lives, we can help communities in the developing world get safer drinking water.
Susan Carpenter, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, does a great job of illustrating this in a recent post called, “Trying to Undress My ‘Water Footprint.’” She explains that experts are beginning to measure the total volume of freshwater used to make everyday products like clothes, coffee, and hamburgers.
Carpenter discovered, for instance, that to create the four cups of coffee she drinks every day (about one cup less than me most days) requires 37 gallons of water to create, from growing the beans to processing them, and shipping them. One pound of her beloved steak, meanwhile, takes 1, 581 gallons of water.
Carpenter’s blog makes it clear that even while she is making great efforts to reduce her water use here in the LA Basin--by installing gray-water systems to reuse laundry water and setting up rain water cisterns--some of her consumer choices still have implications for the water-taxed nations where her coffee, denim, and burgers come from.
But that's no reason to feel overwhelmed. Remember that small, moderate alterations can make a big different. By occasionally eating a veggie burger instead of a hamburger, you can save 750 gallons per patty.
“More conscious living and substitution, rather than sacrifice, are the prevailing ideas with the water footprint,” Carpenter writes.
As the world pays special attention on Monday to the indispensible role of water in all of our lives, that’s a great reminder. Each of us can make a real difference by making our water footprints a little lighter.
]]>
Ben-Eliezer said the agreement would foster better cooperation between scientists and manufacturers in what he called two "sun-drenched states" in need of a more stable water supply. Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, said it would unleash a flow of venture capital.
I met with Trade Minister Ben-Eliezer myself on Tuesday. I am here in Israel attending the International Water Technologies, Renewable Energy & Environmental Control Conference, and my delegation got the chance to talk with the minister.
I was struck during our conversation--and during other meetings today--by how much money is being directed toward water issues.
The new trade agreement between California and Israel is just one example. Scores of Israeli companies and international firms from Tyco to GE are here exhibiting one new process, design, product after another. Some even seem in a race to simply produce a better valve than the competition. In the process of out-doing each other in efficient water management, these companies are attracting financing and generating green jobs.
I can see clearly why such major investments are being made in water technology. Last night our delegation met with delegations from Australia and India. The Australians gave us a presentation on the effects of a nearly decade-long drought, and they are direct about the risks they see from climate change. But I also see impressive efforts to confront the crisis with innovative technologies that use water more efficiently and acknowledge the connection between water savings and energy savings.
Here in Tel Aviv, you can see what in the U.S. would still be "cutting edge" efficiency measures, such as drip irrigation, just by walking down the streets. The most striking thing is the relative lack of sprinklers--that omnipresent device in America, even in the arid West. Here I see only drip irrigation, and its brown plastic lines are everywhere.
Click here to see a brief video I took of one of these installations along the Mediterranean. Today we are off to see perhaps one of the most controversial ways countries are augmenting water supply: desalination. More on that soon.
]]>
I am especially glad this year's conference is in Israel. Israel is a global leader in water recycling as well as creating new strategies to deal with drought. From drip irrigation to more energy-efficient desalination techniques, Israel has embraced technology in hopes of creating a more stable water supply.
These concerted efforts are paying off. No country in the world recycles more wastewater than Israel. Over 70 percent of their wastewater effluent is recovered and recycled, compared to the global average of 5 percent. When irrigating agricultural zones, more than half of the water comes from recycled sources and that amount increases annually.
The majority of wastewater in Israel is treated to the secondary level, but proposed regulation aimed at increasing recycling rates has shown that updating even more treatment facilities to the tertiary level is possible.
But Israel has not limited its focus to recycling. It is has also made impressive strides in water conservation. Since 1959, when Israel invented drip irrigation technology, it has continued to be the world's largest provider of drip irrigation equipment. The efficiency gains from switching to drip systems are impressive: Drip irrigation may exceed 90 percent efficiency, compared to 70 percent efficiency for sprinklers and 55 percent efficiency for flood irrigation.
In the meantime, Israel is also promoting greater conservation within homes and families. In July 2009, the government implemented a tax on excessive water use that is estimated to save 15,850 million gallons of water a year. Households will receive water allotments based on family size and will pay much higher rates for water use exceeding that amount. To help families cut back on their water use, the government has suggested numerous appliance options and behavioral practices that can dramatically reduce household demand.
While the contexts are different, the arid American West (and the U.S. as a whole) can learn a lot from many of these approaches. I am especially looking forward to seeing some of the wastewater reuse and efficiency techniques in action for myself, and I expect to blog more about it in the next few days.
]]>Water at that volume would be hard for any region to handle, but the Atlanta metro area had a disadvantage: miles and miles of asphalt. When the rains came, water rushed over the blacktop--where it picks up speed--got squeezed into overflowing drainage systems and then dumped into rising creeks and rivers.
One meteorologist explained, "There used to be a lot more earth and soil to help absorb this stuff. But the rain really fell on the concrete jungle.
While rainfalls like this may seem like the proverbial act of God, there is something cities can do to lessen or prevent the damage.
We may not be able to stop the rain, but we can change what it falls on to. Instead of rain hitting huge swaths of concrete in our cities, we can use things like porous pavement, planted swales around parking lots, rain gardens planted along sidewalks, green roofs, and additional trees to help absorb the water like sponges.
These forms of green infrastructure mimic nature's own hydrology. Trees, gardens, and parks let rain infiltrate where it falls. Under natural conditions, the amount of rain that is converted to runoff is less than 10 percent of rainfall volume.
In contrast, water quality in the lakes and creeks that receive stormwater runoff--which often picks up toxic pollution and bacteria as it travels across streets and parking lots--starts getting degraded sometimes when just 3-5 percent of a watershed is paved.
Clearly most metropolitan areas in America have paved more than 10 percent of their watersheds. But more and more cities are also taking steps to let rain fall on soil instead of concrete.
The Sunday before last the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a front page story about the city's $1.6 billion plan to use green infrastructure to cut down on its stormwater problem.
In a recent report, Rooftops to Rivers, NRDC described how nine different cities, from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh, are applying these same techniques. Most found that not only were they a cost-effective way to manage stormwater, but they were also welcomed by residents who enjoyed the added green space.
Green infrastructure alone would not have saved Atlanta from its deadly floods, but it could have softened the blow in some neighborhoods, and it might have bought the city more time before creeks breached their banks.
The region, still recovering from a punishing drought, is not accustomed to such intense rain events. But climate change promises to make these uncommon events more common. Green infrastructure gives cities a powerful tool for coping with what could become the new normal.
]]>
As the Times indicated, however, it is isn't just the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that needs to do a better job of enforcing the nation's clean water law and keeping our waters safe and clean. The states do too, not just because this is a good idea, but because they are legally bound to do so.
It's a little know fact that most states have entered into formal agreements with the EPA under a federal regulation that allows them to "step into the shoes" of the EPA and administer certain aspects of the Clean Water Act. For example, states can issue the basic permits that restrict water pollution-the very permits that the Times found were often violated with impunity in many instances.
States like to possess these permit-writing privileges, but to keep these powers, states have to ensure that the permits they issue are adequately policed.
This is where regular people have a role to play. When states fail to enforce their permits, citizens can petition the EPA to yank the offending state's power to implement the Clean Water Act (You can click here, here, and here to see relevant provisions).
This gives the communities that bear the brunt of water pollution in the form of skin rashes, gastrointestinal problems, and cancer some recourse.
The Times piece refers to one of these petitions filed by citizens living in West Virginia, but that state is not alone. The lack of enforcement in many other places may also provide grounds for citizens to file petitions to do likewise. Some years, ago, I filed a petition like this in California, and it had the practical effect of leading to new state environmental staff to improve California's Clean Water Act efforts.
These citizen complaints are an effective tool for pushing states to live up to their responsibility to keep pollution out of our waters. Most states jealously guard their authority to implement the permit program, and when faced with the threat of losing it, they are inclined to clean up their act.
This is important because, in reality, the EPA will not be able to enforce every violation of the law that should be enforced-although EPA can and should do much more (see my colleague Jon Devine's post about why federal enforcement is currently lacking).
States have to do their part to address the striking findings in the Times' investigation if we are going to see real and lasting change in the health of our water--and the health of our citizens.
]]>
It has gotten people thinking about water in new ways.
I have worked on water issues for fifteen years, and never before have I seen so many disparate voices making connections between drought, climate change, and how we use water in our daily lives.
Here's one unlikely source. Last week, the LA Times' had a post by Emily Green in its At Home Blog about what global warming scientists have to say about California's energy and water use. This is a blog devoted to design, architecture, and gardens that usually covers Swedish furniture or bedroom sets that cost a few times more than I make in a month.
But in this installment, Green thoughtfully explored a central way Californians can combat global warming: by cutting down on their water use. To get water to LA taps or garden hoses from way up on Northern California takes an enormous amount of energy--energy that is largely generated by burning fossil fuels. If we reduce the amount of water we use, then we not only adapt to the region's desert climate, but we also reduce global warming pollution.
The LA Times At Home Blog is an example of a new medium bringing climate and conservation tips to a new audience. But old media sources are also getting more in the act.
On Sunday, the Sacramento Bee ran an op-ed I wrote about the enormous opportunity California has to tap into a new source of water: the rainwater that runs off our pavements by the billions of gallons. New construction and landscaping techniques--called low impact development--has the potential to capture this resource and help California adapt to our changing climate.
The drought--and the growing awareness that global warming will only make California drier--is making people open to new ideas. I am glad that conservation, green landscaping, and efficient energy use are among them.
]]>Californians have a curious relationship with water. When it rains, which despite the semi-arid climate present throughout much of California it does in great rushes, we take the water and channel it into concrete and metal pipes and dispose of it as fast as we can - directing it from the unending hardscape we've paved over the ground with into gutters and storm drains to wash it, and a flood of pollutants it picks up along the way, down to the ocean or nearest water body, never to be seen again. Then, to make sure we can enjoy a cold drink or water our lawns, we take water from hundreds of miles away, pump it through deserts and over mountain ranges, and direct it to our taps and sprinklers without a second thought as to where it came from.
This paradigm of water management causes a host of problems, from polluting the waterways where our rainfall runoff, or stormwater, ends up being dumped, to contributing to global warming pollution, because pumping water over long distances uses tremendous amounts of electricity (which then further threatens our water supplies by reducing snowfall and surface flows of freshwater we rely on for our drinking water supplies). Which is where LID comes in: LID involves cost-effective land use practices that effectively mimic nature's own hydrologic features - instead of channeling rainfall away from where it lands, LID seeks to collect the water onsite to be used later, either by letting it soak into the ground to recharge local groundwater supplies, or by capturing it in rain barrels or cisterns so it can be used to water lawns, flush toilets, or for other non-drinking water applications.
Because the rainwater, and the pollutants it would otherwise pick up as it flows over paved surfaces never leave the site, the benefit of LID is that it prevents pollution from flowing to our beaches and other waters. But a second benefit is that LID gives us a stable, local supply of water, especially important as we face a continuing drought, and a source of water that is a lot more energy efficient and climate friendly than pumping water from across the state. It takes a lot less energy to supply water from a tank 10 feet from your house or office, or to pump it from 100 feet down in the ground, than it does to supply it from hundreds of miles away.
Building on this principle, NRDC recently completed a report, titled "A Clear, Blue Future, How Greening Cities in California Can Address Water Resources and Climate Challenges in the 21st Century." The report concluded that if every new development or redevelopment project at a commercial or residential site in urbanized Southern California and portions of the San Francisco Bay area were built using LID practices over the next 20 years, channeling water into rain barrels, cisterns, or the ground instead of into pipes and gutters, by 2030 we could supply enough water for some 800,000 families in California every year, or roughly two-thirds of the water used by the entire City of Los Angeles. In fact, every time it rains, up to 10 billion gallons of water pass through Los Angeles' storm drain system alone, enough water in one day to supply more than 60,000 families for a whole year. By supplying water locally, through nearby groundwater pumping or onsite capture and use, LID practices could also save more than 1.2 million Megawatt-hours of electricity, enough to power more than 100,000 homes each year. That's the equivalent of preventing more than 535,000 metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere, the same amount emitted by nearly 100,000 cars on the road.
So the bad news is that drought and climate change will continue to pose a significant challenge to our ability to ensure the safe, reliable supply of water in California. But the good news is there's a clear, sustainable source of water right outside our doors and windows, falling on our roofs and driveways. All we have to do is reach out and catch it.
]]>