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Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (CWNS) |  |
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Key Results
Table 2 presents EPA's estimate of total documented needs reported by the States. The difference in needs between Tables 1 and 2 is $13.1 billion, which represents the modeled needs for SW and NPS, in categories VI and VII A-C. The total SRF-eligible documented needs are $126.4 billion, which excludes the modeled SW and NPS needs presented in Table 1. States provided documented estimates of $3.2 billion for SW projects and only $2.6 billion for other eligible projects (under Sections 319 and 320 of the CWA) to include NPS. Total documented needs on a State-by-State basis are provided in Appendix A. How Have the Needs Changed? Table 3 is a summary of the total needs, by category, from each of the last four CWNSs, in 1996 dollars. From 1992 to 1996, the total needs decreased by $15.5 billion. This reflects, in part, progress made in meeting the nation's water quality infrastructure needs. For a given facility, a reduction in need may signify completion of project construction, reduction in the original project scale, or elimination of the need for projects included in previous CWNSs. In contrast, an increase in need signifies entirely new facilities being required or new projects to upgrade or expand existing facilities. Underlying factors that influence these changes include continued population growth, deterioration of existing facilities, and increasingly stringent water quality requirements. Substantial changes in needs occurred in four of the traditional needs categories since the 1992 CWNS: Category I: $8.9 billion decrease Category IIIB: $2.9 billion increase Category IVA: $9.5 billion decrease Category IVB: $5.8 billion decrease By contrast, there is little change in total needs in Categories II, IIIA, V, and VII. While there are substantial changes in Category VI, these reflect the introduction and use of a newly developed SW model and these 1996 needs are not directly comparable to the 1992 needs. Changes in needs also reflect efforts to improve the quality of the data in the CWNS database through a substantial redocumentation effort. Because of this redocumentation requirement, the States systematically updated their needs information. This updated information indicated that, for the most part, the facilities subject to redocumentation had either proceeded to construction or still had needs based on more recent documentation. Nevertheless, there were a noteworthy number of facilities where updated documentation could not be provided. Therefore the needs for these facilities showed a decrease between 1992 and 1996. In Category I, where the largest overall decrease in needs was found, the reduction in needs attributable to outdated documentation is estimated to be $1 billion, out of a total net decrease of $8.9 billion. Analysis of the needs categories with substantial change revealed a distinct pattern. In each category: A small proportion of the facilities analyzed (less than 5 percent) are very large and have changes greater than $100 million each. The impact of these very large facilities on the overall change in needs is substantial and disproportionate to the number of such facilities. For example, in Category I, the very large facilities resulted in a net decrease in needs of about $8 billion, accounting for almost all of the total change.
While new water quality or growth requirements have resulted
in new needs, it is evident that during the four years from 1992
to 1996, great progress has been made in satisfying previously
identified needs. How Are the Needs Distributed? Figure 2 presents the geographical distribution of needs. As in the 1992 CWNS, the largest needs occur in New York, Illinois, and California. New York has $16 billion in needs, while California and Illinois have needs in excess of $11 billion. Sixteen additional States have needs in excess of $2 billion. Needs continue to be generally concentrated in the highly populated northeastern States (New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) and in the Great Lakes States (Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio) as well as in Florida and Texas. The less populated States, generally located in the Rocky Mountains and the Plains, have lower levels of needs. Figure 3 presents the geographical distribution of the needs to
correct CSO problems. Again, as in the 1992 CWNS, most CSO needs
are concentrated in the northeastern States (Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) and in the Great Lakes States
(Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio). Illinois has the largest documented CSO needs ($9.4 billion), indicating that considerable effort has gone into documenting this State's CSO problems and into developing municipal CSO program plans. Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania all have CSO needs in excess of $2 billion. This geographical concentration of CSO needs reflects the age of the infrastructure in these areas and the fact that combined sewers were considered acceptable practice at the time many older sewer systems were built. Figure 4 presents the geographical distribution of the modeled
SW needs. The Phase I SW Program requires designated municipalities
and counties to obtain NPDES permits for the discharge from municipal
separate storm sewer systems (MS4s). Some of these jurisdictions' SW needs are reflected in the total documented needs. However, this total does not cover the entire SW needs because, in other jurisdictions, they are not documented. Accordingly, EPA has developed a national model of SW needs to provide a more complete estimate. A discussion of the SW modeling methodology and results is presented in the "Modeling of Storm Water Needs" section. This modeling effort identifies total SW needs of $7.4 billion. Most SW needs are concentrated in the south and the west, with both California and Florida having modeled SW needs in excess of $1 billion. Texas has modeled SW needs of $0.9 billion. The State-by-State modeling results are presented in Table A-4 in Appendix A. EPA also modeled estimates for the control of some categories of
NPS pollution. Figure 5 presents the geographical distribution
of these modeled NPS needs (Categories VIIA through VIIC). A discussion
of the NPS modeling methodology is presented in the "Modeling
of Nonpoint Source Needs" section. Category VIIA Category VIIB
What Are the Needs for Small Communities?
Figure 6 depicts the total documented needs for small communities, by category, comparing them with the needs of larger communities. The documented small community needs are estimated to be $13.8 billion, representing 11 percent of the total documented needs for the nation. In four categories, the small community needs are a higher proportion of the overall need. These are: secondary treatment ($3.9 billion, 15 percent), I/I correction ($0.7 billion, 21 percent), new collector sewers ($4.0 billion, 37 percent), and new interceptor sewers ($1.9 billion, 18 percent). New sewers and secondary treatment in small communities are relatively more important than the other categories when compared to overall needs. Figure 7 shows how small community needs are distributed geographically.
The States with small community needs greater than $0.5 billion
are contiguous from New York and North Carolina in the east to
Wisconsin and Illinois in the Midwest, plus Texas. Figure 8 shows the percentage of wastewater treatment facilities in each State that will serve small communities when all documented needs are met. With few exceptions, small community facilities comprise a large majority of the total number of publicly owned facilities in each State. It is noteworthy that 90 percent or more of the facilities in six States (Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia) serve small communities. Alternative documentation was accepted for small community needs. This is discussed in the "Documentation of Needs" section. This alternative documentation enabled States to document an additional $0.4 billion of small community needs in Categories I - V. This is approximately 3 percent of the total documented small community needs. The importance of this type of documentation is particularly significant for the very small communities with populations less than 1,000. Such communities submitted more than 50 percent of the needs that were supported by alternative documentation. Figure 9 contrasts the documented needs and facilities of small communities with total documented needs and facilities for the nation as well as with the population proposed to be served. A majority (71 percent) of the total number of treatment and collection facilities with needs will serve small communities. They will serve 11 percent (30 million people) of the total population and account for 11 percent ($13.8 billion) of the total documented needs. Figure 9 also shows how the small community facilities are further divided into those facilities serving populations of 3,500 to 10,000; 1,000 to 3,500; and less than 1,000. Consistent with the overall findings, it is the smallest facilities, those serving communities with a population less than 1,000, that represent the greatest percent (36 percent) of the total number of facilities. State-by-State presentations of various aspects of small community
needs are presented in Tables A-6 through A-13 and Table A-16
in Appendix A. What Are the Separate State Estimates? To maintain national consistency in documentation of needs, EPA has established strict standards governing the form and content of acceptable needs documentation, as described in the "Documentation of Needs" section. In those instances in which State documentation was determined by EPA to be at variance with these standards, the needs have been reported as Separate State Estimates (SSEs). In other cases, States themselves recognized that fully acceptable documentation was simply not available, but still wished to have their needs recognized as being a potential demand on State resources. Such estimates were also reported in the SSEs. The level of effort by each State with respect to SSEs was voluntary. Therefore, reported needs are not all-inclusive or representative of the total needs that would be reported as SSEs if State resources allowed. The States were allowed to report SSEs for all of the SRF-eligible categories (I - VII). Tables A-14, A-15, and A-16 in Appendix A provide a State-by-State presentation of the total SSEs for each category. Nearly all of the States reported some needs that could not be documented using the EPA documentation criteria. Figure 10 provides a comparison of the documented total needs and SSEs by category. The SSEs represent a total of $34.1 billion in addition to those needs meeting the EPA documentation criteria. The proportion of this amount reported for small communities was $6.2 billion, or about 18 percent of the total SSE needs. The types of needs that have been reported as SSEs by the individual States generally fall into the following groups: •Construction of centralized wastewater treatment facilities for unsewered communities that have not been adequately documented; •Upgrade or expansion of wastewater treatment systems based on anticipated changes to State regulations or water quality criteria; •Replacement of existing facilities that are currently operating at a satisfactory level but are projected to be replaced in the next 20 years; and •NPS, CSO, and SW control problems for which formal studies documenting a water quality or public health problem have not yet been completed. 
Realizing that documentation criteria for NPS activities were evolving,EPA
encouraged the States to submit all NPS documentation for review.
All documentation was reviewed by EPA in consultation with State representatives
in an effort to establish criteria and documentation requirements
for NPS program needs. As a result, the States reported more than
$1.3 billion in NPS needs as SSEs, in addition to the $2.6 billion
in NPS needs that satisfied the accepted documentation criteria. As
individual States progress in developing their NPS programs, it is
anticipated that more detailed documentation will be available in
the future, thus increasing both documented and SSE needs for NPS
pollution control.
What Is the Status of the Municipal Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure? Tables 4 and 5 present the recent and anticipated trends in treatment technology in the United States. In 1988, the CWNS reported a total of 15,591 operational publicly owned wastewater treatment facilities. This number increased to 15,613 in 1992 and to 16,024 in 1996, a 2.8 percent increase over the eight-year period. The factors leading to these increases are summarized below. First, there was a significant effort to ensure that the data were
comprehensive and current. The States invested a significant amount
of time in identifying and updating both new and previously existing
projects. Second, States examined individual facilities to determine if proposed projects had been built, or if subsequent planning documents had shown consolidation or splitting of specific construction projects. Depending on the magnitude of these changes, the number of facilities in individual States may have increased or decreased. A third factor contributing to the change in the number of operational facilities was project completion. There was significant facility construction, including expansions or upgrades, in many States from 1992 to 1996. This is reflected both in the number of grant/loan cost reductions recorded in the 1996 database and in the increase in the number of facilities providing treatment at secondary and advanced treatment levels. The overall result is a net increase in the number of active treatment
facilities from 1992 to 1996. In addition, the 1996 CWNS reports
that increasing numbers of treatment facilities are proposed to
be built. As is evident from Table 4, the level of treatment has changed significantly over the last eight years. The number of facilities providing less than secondary treatment has declined by 90 percent since 1988, while the number of facilities providing secondary treatment has increased by 10 percent. The number of facilities providing advanced wastewater treatment increased by almost 30 percent since 1988. Table 5 projects the continued improvement in wastewater treatment
infrastructure to the year 2016 based on the 1996 CWNS documented
needs. The number of facilities providing less than secondary
treatment is projected to decline by 65 percent between 1996
and 2016, while the number of facilities providing secondary or
more advanced treatment is projected to increase by 15 percent.
Once all of the needs are met, there are projected to be a total
of 18,303 operational facilities serving a population of 275 million
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Table
1 presents EPA's estimates of the investment necessary to address
the nation's municipal water quality needs. The table is a summary
of both documented needs and modeled estimates, with total SRF-eligible
needs of $139.5 billion. The needs for wastewater treatment (Categories
I and II) and collection (Categories III and IV) are $44.0 billion
and $31.9 billion, respectively. Needs for CSO controls (Category V)
total $44.7 billion. The modeled needs for SW (Category VI), estimated
to be $7.4 billion, reflect the programs in those communities
required to obtain a Phase I SW Program National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permit. The total NPS needs are $11.5
billion, including modeled and documented estimates. 
Many small communities lack the resources to adequately document
their existing needs. Accordingly, beginning with the 1992 CWNS,
EPA has made a special effort to obtain a better representation
of the needs of small communities. For purposes of the CWNS, a
"small community" has fewer than 10,000 people and a wastewater
flow of no more than 1 million gallons per day (mgd). To address
the needs of the smallest communities, three population ranges
were examined: (1) below 1,000; (2) between 1,000 and
3,500; and (3) between 3,500 and 10,000.
Thus, these data reflect two of the objectives of the CWNS. First,
these data show the continuing commitment to provide treatment
to all areas of the United States. Second, these data reflect
the improvement of the technical information stored in the database.