Building the Institutional Memory for Federal Water Pollution Control Policy: Shared Goals and Incrementalism Define Trends

Abstract

The reauthorization of the Clean Water Act of 1972, as amended, will be built on twenty years of national experience with that Act. Tasks ahead for the nation to revitalize planning and, thus, water quality policy that appropriately build on the historical base include, (1) the completion of the secondary treatment requirement as the equitable and attainable floor for waste reduction; (2) expanding the supplementation of that policy by implementing standards using appropriate risk management oriented criteria; and (3) plan for and implement a policy of higher water quality in appropriate basins and watersheds throughout the United States; (4) recognize the indispensable ingredient in planning that it is a process of fashioning political commitment on the part of a variety of interest groups, agencies and units of government that affect and benefit from pollution management in those basins and watersheds and not primarily a technical design process; (5) continue to expand the nonpoint source management institution building into a variety of programs of other agencies and non-water quality parts of US EPA; and (6) greatly expand the efforts to build capacity in the smallest governments who serve a majority of the landscape needing protection.