ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS "Clean Water Plan" calls for national wetlands gains
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n February, President Clinton announced a $2.3 billion effort to cut pollution in the nation's waterways over the next five years. The Clean Water Initiative, which if funded by Congress would be the largest effort to tackle water pollution since passage of the Clean Water Act, focuses on controlling nonpoint source pollution and calls for an ambitious goal to increase wetlands by 100,000 acres per year by 2005. The initiative outlines 100 new strategies for EPA, the Department of Agriculture, and nine other federal agencies and directs the agencies to work cooperatively to protect and improve water quality. It calls for the development of new water quality standards for nitrogen and phosphorus by 2000, a pollution discharge permit program for large animalfeeding operations, and an Internet database detailing the quality of beaches and watersheds nationwide, EPA officials say. To carry out these steps, Clinton has asked Congress to provide federal agencies with $568 million in new funds in his 1999 fiscal year budget. Of that, $145 million would be for EPA activities. Environmentalists and state regulators applauded the initiative, which many say could become the largest project to address water quality since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. Twentyfive years after that legislation, Clinton noted, 40% of the nation's waters are still too polluted for fishing and swimming, largely because of agricultural runoff. EPA has already begun several voluntary programs aimed at reducing pollution from runoff (ES&T, December 1997, p. 553A). These same supporters highlighted one of the initiative's more ambitious goals: to increase the amount of wetlands by 100,000
acres per year by 2005. The initiative proposes 14 key actions to reach the wetlands goal for several agencies, including mitigation for any losses resulting from development authorized under permits. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would increase by 50% its wetlands restoration projects, and Congress would expand the Wetlands Reserve Program by 250,000 acres per year. This proposal may be an effort by Clinton "to go one better than former President Bush's goal of no net loss," said Tim Williams of the Water Environment Federation. But given the failure of Bush's goal—current net losses are estimated at 75,000 to 117,000 acres per year—environmentalists question Clinton's plan. Regulatory initiatives in other agencies make the goal of net gain impossible, noted the National Wildlife Federation's Grady McCallie. For example, the Corps of Engineers' revision of Nationwide Permit 26, presently the largest source of wetland loss, allows small wetlands to be destroyed with minimal review. The
Corps' current draft replacement permit "would expand the old permit to allow all sorts of activities in all sorts of wetlands," McCallie said. In addition, a proposal for coordinating wetlands management on agricultural lands doesn't ensure proper identification of wetlands, McCallie said. Bill Matuszeski, director of EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program, admitted that "one of the difficulties is to make the [wetlands] goal real on the landscape." If states regulated more wetlands and at a higher level of protection than the federal government, and if they worked with communities, more wetlands could be saved, he added. The initiative's success, however, depends on whether Congress approves the funds and, if so, whether they would be sufficient. Congress is already $9 billion short of the discretionary funds that would have been used to pay for the initiative, according to Elizabeth Morra, a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee. —JANET PELLEY
President Clinton has called on Congress to approve $568 million in new funds next year alone for his five-year clean water action plan. (Courtesy AP/Wide World Photos)
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