Opportunities to Improve the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Assessment Program

253 Pages·2002·4.5 MB·English

by  National Research Council, Water Science and Technology Board, Committee to Improve the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Assessment Program

OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE THE
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
NATIONAL WATER QUALITY ASSESSMENT PROGRAM
Committee to Improve the U.S. Geological Survey
National Water Quality Assessment Program
Water Science and Technology Board
Division on Earth and Life Studies
National Research Council
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the
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Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the
committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for
appropriate balance.
Support for this project was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey under Grant No. 99HQAG0184.
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National Research Council
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chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
COMMITTEE TO IMPROVE THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
NATIONAL WATER QUALITY ASSESSMENT PROGRAM
GEORGE R. HALLBERG, Chair, The Cadmus Group, Inc., Waltham,
Massachusetts
MICHAEL E. CAMPANA, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
DANIEL B. CARR, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
LORRAINE L. JANUS, New York City Department of Environmental
Protection, Valhalla, New York
JUDITH L. MEYER, University of Georgia, Athens
KENNETH H. RECKHOW, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
MARC O. RIBAUDO, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
PAUL V. ROBERTS, Stanford University, California (until August 2000)
KENNETH K. TANJI, University of California, Davis
RICHARD M. VOGEL, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts
MARYLYNN V. YATES, University of California, Riverside
Staff
MARK C. GIBSON, Study Director
LAURA H. EHLERS, Study Director (until December 2000)
ELLEN A. DE GUZMAN, Research Associate
v
WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BOARD
RICHARD G. LUTHY, Chair, Stanford University, Stanford, California
JOAN B. ROSE, Vice-Chair, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg
RICHELLE M. ALLEN-KING, Washington State University, Pullman
GREGORY B. BAECHER, University of Maryland, College Park
KENNETH R. BRADBURY, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History
Survey, Madison, Wisconsin
JAMES CROOK, CH2M Hill, Boston, Massachusetts
EFI FOUFOULA-GEORGIOU, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
PETER GLEICK, Pacific Institute, Oakland, California
STEVEN P. GLOSS, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona
JOHN LETEY, JR., University of California, Riverside
DIANE M. MCKNIGHT, University of Colorado, Boulder
CHRISTINE L. MOE, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
RUTHERFORD H. PLATT, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
JERALD L. SCHNOOR, University of Iowa, Iowa City
LEONARD SHABMAN, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
Blacksburg
R. RHODES TRUSSELL, Montgomery Watson Harza, Pasadena, California
Staff
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Director
LAURA J. EHLERS, Senior Staff Officer
JEFFREY W. JACOBS, Senior Staff Officer
WILLIAM S. LOGAN, Senior Staff Officer
MARK C. GIBSON, Staff Officer
M. JEANNE AQUILINO, Administrative Associate
PATRICIA JONES KERSHAW, Study/Research Associate
ELLEN A. DE GUZMAN, Research Associate
ANITA A. HALL, Administrative Assistant
ANIKE L. JOHNSON, Project Assistant
JON Q. SANDERS, Project Assistant
vi
Preface
From the 1950s through the 1970s, events ranging from health advisories to
burning rivers brought public attention and scrutiny to the deteriorating state of
water quality in the United States. Local, state, and even regional monitoring
data confirmed problems in many areas. Such information contributed to the
evolution of the environmental movement and the development of the Clean
Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. It also became clear that the nation
had no program that was providing an adequate or systematic monitoring net-
work to assess the status of waters throughout the nation, particularly related to
the contaminants that had become the major concern in this modern era. Some
federal, state, and even local organizations had developed excellent water quality
monitoring programs, but they were often focused solely on local problems, used
different methods, or were looking at geochemical phenomena, not the contami-
nant issues of real concern. As such, they could not adequately be amalgamated
to provide a national picture. In the 1980s, Congress, federal and state agencies,
and industry began to call for development of national approaches to assess and
track water quality and to answer such fundamental questions as, Is the quality of
water across the nation getting better or worse?
Since its inception in the late 1800s, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has
become a major national contributor of scientific investigations and information
about the nation’s waters. In particular, the USGS has long provided national and
scientific leadership in the understanding of surface water hydrology, runoff, flood
and discharge studies, water quantity issues, and more recently, groundwater
hydrology. In the 1980s, the USGS was challenged to expand this role to address
the quality of the nation’s waters, and it responded with the development of the
National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. In fiscal year 1986,
vii
viii PREFACE
Congress appropriated funds for the establishment of the NAWQA pilot pro-
gram. NAWQA has since evolved from a pilot program into a respected, mature
national monitoring program of unprecedented scope—one for which hopes and
expectations also run high. From its earliest concept to the current plans for the
future, three goals drive NAWQA’s design and development: (1) status—to pro-
vide a nationally consistent description of the current water quality conditions for
a large part of the nation’s water resources; (2) trends—to define long-term trends
(or lack of trends) in water quality; and (3) understanding—to identify, describe,
and explain (to the extent possible) the major factors that affect (and cause)
observed water quality conditions and trends. Although the exact wording of the
goals has been refined over time, these three goals are the organizing themes for
NAWQA’s past, present, and future.
Designing and implementing a national water quality assessment program is
obviously a challenging task. Throughout the history of NAWQA, the USGS has
periodically requested input and assistance from the Water Science and Technol-
ogy Board (WSTB) of the National Research Council (NRC) to provide program-
matic reviews of NAWQA or its key components—a reflection of the USGS’s
ongoing concern to ensure the quality of scientific approaches for this important
program. In 1999, the NRC was again approached to have WSTB convene a
committee of experts to assist the continued development of NAWQA.
For this study, the committee was charged to provide guidance to the USGS
on opportunities to improve the NAWQA program. More specifically, the com-
mittee was to conduct an initial assessment of general accomplishments in the
NAWQA program to date by engaging in discussions with program scientists and
others such as users of NAWQA products and by reviewing USGS internal reports
on opportunities to improve NAWQA. The statement of task notes that the four
main activities of the study committee was then to: (1) recommend methods for
the improved understanding of the causative factors affecting water quality con-
ditions; (2) determine whether information produced in the program can be
extrapolated so as to allow inferences about water quality conditions in areas not
studied intensely in NAWQA; (3) assess the completeness and appropriateness of
priority issues (e.g., pesticides, nutrients, volatile organic compounds, trace
elements) selected for broad investigation under the national synthesis compo-
nent of the program; and (4) describe how information generated at the study unit
scale can be aggregated and presented so as to be meaningful at the regional and
national levels.
Though not specifically noted in the committee’s statement of task, the timing
of this latest request carried with it an imperative implicit in its initial charge to
“provide guidance to the U.S. Geological Survey on opportunities to improve the
NAWQA program.” As the committee was being formed, NAWQA was com-
pleting its first decade of extensive nationwide monitoring (called Cycle I) and
refining plans for its second decade (Cycle II). Cycle I focused on status assess-
ments (also called occurrence and distribution assessments) that define the condi-
PREFACE ix
tion of the water resources throughout the nation. Defining status is an important
and sometimes daunting task by itself, but Cycle II must now move beyond and
build upon these status assessments to begin assessment of water quality trends
and to further our scientific understanding of the why and how behind water
quality status and trends. These goals are integral to the grand design of NAWQA
and largely reflect the charge that policy makers have placed on NAWQA since
its inception. As noted in this report, if there are substantive opportunities to
improve NAWQA, then this is an ideal time to do so as this new round of moni-
toring and studies is about to begin.
The members of this committee brought a wide range of water resources
expertise and a range of experience in interacting with NAWQA that made for
enlivened and enlightening discussion throughout and ultimately led us to the
forward-looking recommendations contained herein. Some members have had
associations with NAWQA since its very inception, including service on earlier
NRC committees’ reviewing NAWQA (which provided institutional memory and
perspective); other members were primarily users and consumers of NAWQA
data and reports. The committee held five deliberative meetings; at four of these
meetings the committee heard presentations from and engaged “in discussions
with program scientists and others such as users of NAWQA products,” as
required in its statement of task. The committee did so, not just to “conduct an
initial assessment of general accomplishments,” but also to gather testimony and
insight on where the opportunities existed to improve NAWQA. Throughout the
course of the study, committee members personally visited with NAWQA staff,
particularly field (study unit) staff; other USGS (non-NAWQA) personnel, other
local, state, and federal agency “users” of NAWQA data and information; and
other research users, casting a wide net for input to the deliberative process. The
committee also collectively reviewed scores of NAWQA-related reports—both
as users and to support these deliberations.
The committee thanks several persons external to the USGS who nonethe-
less provided highly informative and useful presentations regarding their collec-
tive experiences with the NAWQA program at the first three committee meetings,
including: Margarete Heber, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Emery
Cleaves, Maryland Geological Survey; Greg Woodside, Orange County (California)
Water District; Karen Schaffer, New Jersey Department of Environmental Pro-
tection; and Jim Reilly, New Jersey Office of State Planning. We would particu-
larly like to thank the USGS NAWQA staff as a whole, particularly Tim Miller,
Bill Wilber, Bob Gilliom, and Carol Couch, for answering our many inquiries
and requests for reports and documents. The committee also thanks the NRC
WSTB staff for their support and leadership. When the study was initiated, Laura
Ehlers was the study director. When she had to move to other responsibilities in
December 2000, Mark Gibson assumed the study director post. We thank them
both for their support and leadership. In particular, we thank Mark for his signifi-
cant contributions to the report and efforts to bring the study to completion. Ellen