but each with its own emissions control requirements. The president's plan would encourage emissions trading for smog-creating pollutants—volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides—and would allow states to more easily use such approaches to comply with Clean Air Act pollution reductions. The president also proposed allowing companies to trade pollutants discharged to water bodies. Such a plan may require amending the Clean Water Act. The proposal also would give companies the option of demonstrating an "alternative" compliance strategy to replace existing regulations, as long as full compliance is the result, the alternative plan is "transparent" to and supported by the community where the plant is located, worker safety and environmental justice are not threatened, and the plan is legally enforceable. Less sweeping proposals included postponement of courtordered deadlines for drinkingwater regulations while EPA "refocuses" drinking-water treatment priorities on the highest health risk pollutants; development of risk assessment computer software for nonspecialists in local government, small businesses, and citizens groups; use of risk-based enforcement to target EPA actions on violations with the greatest risk to human health and the environment; creation of "plain English" regulatory guides and small business compliance assistance centers; allowances for small businesses and communities of up to 180 days to correct violations without fines or penalties; reduction of penalties in some cases for violations found through self-audits if corrected and disclosed; greater use of the Internet for public access; establishment of an agency-wide information center; and presentation of national awards for "green chemistry" pollution prevention technologies. —JEFF JOHNSON
Water monitoring strategy begun
F
ederal, state, and regional agencies, along with nongovernmental organizations, have begun implementing a voluntary strategy for coordinating their water quality monitoring efforts and sharing the resultant data. The desired outcome, say sponsors, will be a clearer and more consistent picture of the condition of U.S. waters and the effectiveness of regulatory programs and, in some cases, a reduction in total monitoring costs. The basic implementation strategy for the effort was forged over the past three years by the Intergovernmental Task Force on Monitoring Water Quality (ITFM), which was charged with evaluating water-monitoring programs nationwide and recommending changes. Twenty federal, state, tribal, and interstate organizations are members of ITFM. "Our purpose is to locate water quality problems, measure programs' effectiveness, see that our program goals are being met, and describe our water resources," says ITFM chair Elizabeth Fellows, chief of the Monitoring Branch in EPA's Office of Water. "We have to standardize what we are doing so that we can actually provide benefits to the taxpayer," argues Ann Conrad of the Freshwater Foundation. "In Minnesota alone there are 12 different water programs; no two have the same way to report the data." In its final report published in April, ITFM outlines a strategy for water-monitoring efforts. Key points include "goal-oriented" monitoring using environmental indicators to measure changes in water quality that affect human or ecosystem health, a five-to-tenyear cycle to comprehensively assess ambient waters nationally, performance-based measurement methods that will provide data that are comparable across pro-
grams, use of data on how information was collected (metadata) to document and describe archived information, and electronic access to that monitoring data. At a February ITFM workshop participants agreed to collaborate on a core set of water quality indicators, establish on the Internet at least five water quality database systems representing five agencies, conduct a pilot biodiversity study, implement a plan for performance-based methods, and investigate collaborating among state and federal agencies to set reference conditions to be used for biological standards. One key to the success of the ITFM strategy is that states and localities derive some benefit. "In many cases for a state on the East Coast to have comparable data to Wyoming is not important," says Carlton Haywood of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. Fellows argues that neighboring states would benefit from looking at other states' data, especially where watersheds are shared. "Everybody gives a little to gain a lot." Although ITFM has officially completed its original assignment, according to Fellows the group will become the National Water Quality Monitoring Council. "The national council will be a forum for consensus building and communication," says Nancy Lopez, head of USGS's Office of Water Data Coordination. According to Fellows, ITFM has achieved some success in getting federal agencies to use common data-element names and reference tables in water quality databases and maintain common taxonomic codes. EPA is providing $500,000 for states and additional monies for tribes to revamp monitoring programs to follow the ITFM strategy. —ALAN NEWMAN
VOL. 29, NO. 5, 1995 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY • 2 0 5 A
