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Clean Water Act Enforcement Action Plan

Clean Water Act

Shaping EPA’s Future Direction on Water Enforcement

On July 6, 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would develop an action plan to enhance public transparency regarding clean water enforcement performance at federal and state levels, to strengthen that performance, and to transform EPA’s water quality and compliance information systems.

Through the Clean Water Enforcement Action Plan Discussion Form, EPA solicited ideas from the public to create an action plan that encompassed a broad range of perspectives. Outreach to state, tribes, community groups, industry and environmental organizations ensured an opportunity for precipitation in the forum. The Table of Ideas (PDF) (30 pp, 121K, About PDF) captures that public input and EPA responses.

In addition, in July 2009, EPA made available comprehensive reports and data on water enforcement for all 54 state and territories.

The Action Plan

The Clean Water Act Enforcement Action Plan (PDF) (15 pp, 85K, About PDF) was submitted to the Administrator on October 15, 2009. (Transmittal Memo (PDF) (2 pp, 55K, About PDF)).

A press release announcing the Plan and the Administrator's testimony to the Congressional House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (PDF) (7 pp, 23K, About PDF) discussing the Action Plan were also released on October 15, 2009.

The Executive Summary from the Clean Water Act (CWA) Action Plan is reproduced below:

Despite progress reducing water pollution from the largest sources, our country still faces serious pollution challenges. Violations are still too widespread, and enforcement too uneven. We need to do better controlling pollution from large pipes, while we develop new strategies to address water quality threats from other sources. To follow through on the commitment of this Administration to clean and safe water, EPA is revamping enforcement of clean water laws.

Target enforcement to the most important water pollution problems

Over the last 30 years, water enforcement focused mostly on pollution from the biggest individual sources, such as factories and sewage treatment plants. Now we face different challenges. The regulated universe has expanded from the roughly 100,000 traditional point sources to nearly one million far more dispersed sources such as animal feeding operations and storm water runoff. Many of the nation’s waters are not meeting water quality standards, and the threat to drinking water sources is growing. To address these challenges, we must revamp federal and state enforcement to tackle sources posing the biggest threats to water quality while we intensify vigorous civil and criminal enforcement against traditional end-of-pipe pollution.

Strengthen oversight of the states

EPA is responsible for assuring that the protections of the Clean Water Act extend to all citizens. Many states have strong water quality protection and enforcement programs, but state compliance and enforcement vigor is uneven. Without consistent enforcement by EPA and states, there exists an unlevel playing field for businesses that do comply with the law, and also for our citizens who are not provided equal protection under our environmental legal framework. States labor under different political and resource constraints; nonetheless, EPA must ensure that states protect water quality and consistently apply the law by issuing protective permits and by pursuing vigorous enforcement. EPA must clearly articulate where the bar is for acceptable state programs, and consistently hold states – and EPA where it implements the law – accountable. Where states are not meeting these expectations, EPA needs to strengthen water quality protection by disapproving permits that are not protective and by pursuing federal enforcement against serious violators.

Improve transparency and accountability

The American public has a right to know what the threats are to water quality, where violations are occurring, and what we are doing about them. Moreover, the vastly increased and dispersed numbers of pollution sources require us to target enforcement to the biggest problems We can work towards both goals by requiring reports to be submitted electronically. Using 21st century technologies will free up time to tackle pollution problems. At the same time, we can provide more complete, accurate and timely information to both regulators and the public, enlisting an informed public as a powerful ally to press for stronger performance and accountability from the regulated community.

State Water Enforcement Reports

Through the State Review Framework, EPA has made available comprehensive reports and data on water enforcement for all 54 states and territories, including those states/territories where EPA directly administers the permitting and enforcement program itself. The reports also review the clean air and RCRA hazardous waste compliance enforcement programs for each state and territory. EPA has also developed new web-based tools to help the public search, assess, and analyze the water enforcement data that EPA used to help prepare those reports.

This new information will help the public find out the compliance status of local facilities how federal and state governments are doing in enforcing laws to protect the nation’s water.

You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.

To download the State Review Framework reports from this page, move your mouse over any state in the map below, and follow the links in the popup box. Both the map key and table show states that are not yet authorized to conduct some enforcement programs.

State CAA CWA RCRA
The following states have not been authorized or delegated responsibility for implementing the core CAA, RCRA or NPDES program.
Alaska - Alaska is authorized for part of the NPDES program, phasing in parts over 3 years X X
American Samoa X X X
Guam X X X
Idaho X
Iowa X
Massachusetts X
Northern Marianna Islands X X X
New Hampshire X
New Mexico X
Puerto Rico X X
Trust Territories X X X
Virgin Islands X

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