U.S. Department of the Interior
Office of the Secretary

Paul Bledsoe (202)208-6416


For Release: September 5, 1996

Focus on Alerting All Communities to Potential Water Hazards

In an effort to ensure that all Americans have the information they need about the health and quality of their water resources, the environmental initiative announced by President Clinton last week includes major additional funding--$45 million over four years--for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to extend water quality testing to 75 key cities across the country.

"Every American should have the right to know about the quality of the water in their community," Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said, "Right now, fewer than half of the nation's rivers, lakes, streams, and beaches are being monitored adequately to provide that information. President Clinton's plan would bring accurate water quality information to tens of millions more Americans."

"As the Interior Department's chief science agency, USGS is responsible for providing communities and local governments with the kind of information they need to alert their citizens about toxic contaminants of concern in local rivers and streams," Babbitt said.

The USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) is currently focused on 35 of the most important river basins and ground-water systems, looking at the status and trends in the quality of the nation's ground water and rivers. Each NAWQA study is conducted in cooperation with a local liaison committee to ensure that community interests and concerns are addressed and incorporated into the assessment. The new initiative, if funding is approved by Congress, would expand existing USGS programs in which data collected on the major rivers, drinking water wells and water-supply watersheds is made available to the public on the Internet and the WorldWideWeb. The USGS would work closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local utility companies to provide the public with overviews and updates on the quality of water in a particular area, as called for by the Safe Drinking Water Act. This information can be used by communities and states to set priorities for waste treatment, hazardous waste clean-up and other problems. "By providing accurate and current information, this initiative would not only give local citizens current information about their water, it would also directly help local communities in developing strategies for maintaining and improving the quality of local water resources," said Patricia J. Beneke, Assistant Interior Secretary for Water and Science. "This program can provide the sound science needed to improve water quality."

Results from the USGS NAWQA program have helped states and communities to address critical water quality problems and save money. "The NAWQA program has already provided us with critically needed information to help in the management of the nation's vital water resources," said USGS Director Gordon Eaton. "In Washington state, for example, the USGS worked with the Washington State Department of Health to assess the vulnerability of public water supply wells to pesticide contamination. The results of the NAWQA study, which provided information on pesticide contamination at extremely low levels of detection, enabled the state health department to obtain waivers for quarterly monitoring that are required under the Safe Drinking Water Act. By using the USGS information to assure the U.S. EPA that the water in the wells was safe to drink, Washington state was able to save at least $6 million in costly additional monitoring -- a savings of about $70 per household."

As the nation's largest water science and water information agency, the USGS is charged with monitoring the quality, quantity and use of the nation's surface and ground water resources across the country in cooperation with more than 1,200 state, local and other federal agencies. Information from the overall science programs of the USGS help to minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters, manage water, biological, energy and mineral resources, enhance and protect the quality of life and contribute to wise economic and physical development of the nation's vital natural resources.

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