The Clean Water Act Tmdl Program: Law, Policy, and Implementation

by Houck, Oliver A.

• ISBN13: 9780911937992
• ISBN10: 0911937994
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Environmental Law Inst

Summary

Houck (law, Tulane U.) guides people responsible for a company's compliance with water quality regulations through the new landscape as the technological standards used by the US Environmental Protection Agency for the past quarter century are being replaced by measures of Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) under pressure from citizens groups. He includes a history of water quality regulation since 1948. He does not provide an index.

Author Biography

Oliver A. Houck is a Professor of Law at Tulane University where he directs the Environmental Law Program. A graduate of Harvard College and Georgetown Law Center, prior to joining the Tulane faculty in 1981, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C. and then General Counsel to the National Wildlife Federation, also in Washington. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute and the Defenders of Wildlife and on the Litigation Review Committee of the Environmental Defense Fund. He has also served on the Environmental Advisory Board of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on two panels of the National Academy of Sciences.

Table of Contents

Foreword	1	(3)
Introduction	3	(8)
The History and Evolution of §303	11	(38)
Water Quality Standards Regulation and TMDLs	11	(1)
The Rise of Water Quality Standards in Federal Law	12	(2)
The 1972 Amendments: The States and the Regulated Community Make Their Case	14	(6)
Congress Disposes: §303(d)	20	(4)
The Backlash: Congress Stays the Course	24	(25)
The Commission Reports	24	(2)
The New Federalism, 1982	26	(2)
The Water Quality Act of 1987	28	(3)
The Argument Continues	31	(2)
Reflections on Water Quality Standards Legislation and Its Stakeholders	33	(16)
The Implementation of §303	49	(26)
Section 303(d): The Avoidance Years	49	(2)
The Constructive Submission Theory: Avoidance Might Not Work	51	(2)
Slow Motion	53	(2)
The Roof Falls In	55	(1)
EPA Takes the Lead	56	(7)
Eligible Waters	58	(1)
Scientific Uncertainty	58	(1)
Implementation	59	(1)
Nonpoint Sources	60	(3)
But Will Anybody Follow?	63	(12)
A New Framework	75	(56)
Pieces of the Frame	75	(33)
The Litigation	75	(2)
Further EPA Guidance	77	(1)
Listing	77	(2)
Total Maximum Daily Loads	79	(3)
The FACA Committee	82	(2)
The Federal Family	84	(1)
The Clean Water Action Plan	85	(2)
From Nonpoint to Point Source Regulation	87	(7)
Grazing and Timber on Public Lands	94	(5)
Coastal Nonpoint Programs	99	(5)
Early State Responses	104	(1)
Listings	105	(1)
TMDLs	106	(2)
What We Have Framed	108	(23)
The Final Frontier	131	(34)
Reviewing the Bidding	131	(5)
TMDLs and the Limits of Science	136	(6)
TMDLs and the Limits of Will	142	(23)
Concluding Thoughts	165
Appendices
Appendix A: Clean Water Act §303(d)-(e)	179	(4)
Appendix B: TMDL Litigation by State	183	(2)
Appendix C: Summary of Illustrative TMDLs	185	(6)
Appendix D: EPA Proposed TMDL Regulations	191	(1)
Introduction	191	(4)
Proposed Revisions to the Water Quality Planning and Management Regulation	195	(114)
Revisions to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program and Federal Antidegradation Policy in Support of Revisions to the Water Quality Planning and Management Regulation	309