Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
“I expect every state would fi ght valiantly to not lose the
authority to regulate its water,” adds Tuthill. “It's an authority that's
been entrusted to the states, and nationalization would meet huge
resistance. Don't forget that national support for infrastructure
played a big role in development of the West. . . . Structures built
by the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers [think
Hoover Dam] have been very important in the development of the
West and they continue to be important in the economic climate
and fabric of the West. The day of building important structures
should not be ended, either.”
Water quantity control.
However, there is no national plan for the
federal government to take over regulation of water quantity from
the states, says Warren. “State law largely prevails, and I know of no
federal initiative to override state law. But EPA has acknowledged
the advantages of what it calls watershed management, which is
a signifi cant advance from more traditional end-of-the-pipe or
piecemeal analysis,” he says. He likes a holistic approach to water-
shed management. Historically, agencies like the EPA regulate
water quality but have virtually no regulatory authority over water
quantity. States have traditionally handled water quantity in part by
statute and in part through the common law.
“The modern view is that water quantity and quality are intimately
related to each other,” says Warren. “So to have two separate regula-
tory regimes to govern quantity and quality doesn't work very well.”
For that reason, regional agencies like the Delaware River Basin
Commission, which has authority to regulate both water quality and
quantity, present a good structure for integrated management of
regional water resources, Warren adds.
The Delaware River Basin Commission and the Susquehanna
River Basin Commission are two of the best examples of interstate
cooperation over water issues, concurs Dellapenna. Both have
been established by compacts that spell out their powers. “They
can regulate what states do; they can regulate what the federal gov-
ernment does; they can regulate what individual users do. That's
a model for others,” says Dellapenna. “The commission is composed
of one representative of each state plus a representative of the fed-
eral government—each with one vote—so the federal government
can be outvoted. Both commissions strive for consensus. Given that
