|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JUNE 15, 2007
CONTACT: Melissa Thorpe
(202) 347-3190
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINSTRATION PANEL
URGES EPA TO LEAD CLEAN UP OF POLLUTED WATER RUNOFF
Washington, DC—June 15, 2007—A new report by a National Academy of Public Administration panel urges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take the lead in creating new partnerships to pursue a comprehensive effort to clean up the polluted waters of America to health.
The report, “Taking Environmental Protection to the Next Level,” calls for giving special attention to reducing agricultural and urban runoff created from everyday activities, like fertilizing lawns, driving cars or washing dishes. It notes that, despite many years of concerted effort by Federal, State, and local environmental agencies to control pollution from municipal and industrial wastewater, polluted waters continue to be a serious national problem.
According to Panel chair Jonathan B. Howes, a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and former Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environment, Health, and Natural Resources, “Nearly 40,000 bodies of water, located in every U.S. state and territory, remain polluted or ‘impaired.’ This vast problem cannot be solved by simply adding more and better wastewater treatment plants.” The Panel’s recommendations provide a blueprint for implementing important new practices for controlling urban and agricultural runoff as part of the nation’s water pollution control program. Consistent with the partnership approach endorsed by the Panel, many of these practices are voluntary, incentive-driven, or market-based.
The EPA developed and is testing this new comprehensive approach in the six-State-plus-DC Chesapeake Bay watershed. According to the Panel, unprecedented partnerships and innovative land management practices are being demonstrated there. But accomplishing such innovative clean-ups will be challenging for EPA, as the agency must continue to effectively carry out its traditional regulatory role, even as it embraces new partnerships with other Federal, State and local government agencies and stakeholders.
“Implementing this new approach across the Chesapeake’s vast 64,000 square mile expanse of tributaries is the next step,” said Howes. “We hope it will set a course the entire Nation can follow.”
* * *
Created in 1967 and chartered by Congress in 1984, the National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to solution-oriented innovation to solve emerging issues of governance and public administration. For more information, please visit www.napawash.org.
|
