Antidegradation: Protecting existing water quality

Antidegradation is the third major required component of a state's water quality standards. It is at least as important as the other two, but it is by far the least well known and least well implemented of the three. Designated uses and water quality criteria provide minimum goals for a water body. Antidegradation provides a framework for protecting hard-won gains once those goals are reached.

Equally important, it provides a system for protecting the good quality of waters that have always met or exceeded their standards. If the antidegradation policy remains poorly implemented, our national water quality goals will remain elusive forever.

The goal of the Clean Water Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters. The antidegradation policy can be thought of as the method to "maintain" the integrity of our waters.

What does the federal antidegradation policy require?

The federal policy provides a three-tiered approach to water quality protection:

• Tier I: Protect Existing Use: Permit not activity that would eliminate or interfere with an existing use. (In essence, Tier 1 reiterates and reinforces the requiremensts for designating uses and developing criteria, establishing the absolute floor for water quality protection.)
• Tier II: Maintain "High Quality" Waters: Avoid--or at least hold to an absolute minimum--any lowering of qualty of waters that currently meet or exceed standards.
• Tier III: Protect "outstanding" waters: Give the most ecologically significant and sensitive, the cleanest, and the most recreationally popular waters the strict protection they neeed and deserve.

What must states do with antidegradation?

Each state must develop and adopt an antidegradation policy that is consistent with the federal policy. It can be identical to the federal policy. It can be more specific and more protective. But it must not be any less specific or protective. States must also develop a system for implementing the policy. This system should ensure that the state's major programs, decisions, and day-to-day activities affecting water quality and aquatic ecosystem health will be consistent with all three tiers of its antidegradation policy.

HOW SHOULD ANTIDEGRADATION REVIEW WORK?*

MAINTAIN AND PROTECT ALL EXISTING USES
(Tier 1)

• Evaluate existing uses (visit, old timers, community newspapers).
• Determine whether a new or increased discharge will harm existing uses.
• If it will harm existing uses, require changes to the proposed discharge or prohibit the discharge.

MAINTAIN AND PROTECT HIGH QUALITY WATERS
(Tier 2)

• Determine which waters are high quality (all waters that exceed water quality standards for at least one parameter).
• Review the alternatives to the discharge.
• Perform social and economic evaluation of discharge (this should include an analysis of the social and economic benefits of not having the discharge).
• Allow for public review of the antidegradation process.
• Decide whether the discharge is necessary based on the analysis above.

If the discharge will be allowed:

• Put the most stringent limits in place.
• Implement cost effective and reasonable nonpoint source controls

MAINTAIN AND PROTECT OUSTANDING RESOURCE WATERS (Tier 3)

• Determine whether receiving waters are designated as outstanding.
• Determine whether receiving waters are of exceptional recreational or ecological significance.
• If receiving waters are of outstanding quality or significance, determine whether new or increased discharge will degrade water quality.
• If the discharge will degrade water quality, require changes to the proposed discharge or prohibit the discharge.

NOTE: The actual review of a permit would probably follow the sequence Tier 3-Tier 1-Tier 2 because it would first be determined whether the waters are designated as outstanding (official list, no degradation allowed), then whether the proposed activity would harm existing uses (not allowed), THEN the steps for allowing lowering of water quality in Tier 2 ONLY if the other steps are checked.

*U.S.EPA water quality standards handbook states that antidegradation review should occur for all new activities that may degrade water quality. This review looks only at NPDES permit changes.

Every state has adopted an antidegradation policy of some kind. State policies vary widely in clarity and strength. While there is considerable room for improvement in the states' policies, there is still more room for improvement in their antidegradation implementation procedures, many of which range from weak to nonexistent. Few states consider the policy in everyday permitting activities. Even fewer apply it regularly in any other types of water quality decisions. None have developed the kinds of comprehensive antidegradation implementation systems that are needed. How can I help bring the antidegradation policy to life? Fortunately, there are clear paths citizens can follow to correct problems they find with their state's antidegradation procedures - or with any of the other pieces of a state's water quality standards system.

Review your state's antidegradation process!

Pick at least 10 permits. Suggestions:

• major permits, the most recently issued or renewed
• mix of municipal and industrial
• try to review at least one or two draft permits that are out for comment, as your review can lead to immediate response and results

Compare current permits to old permits

Look for changes that could lead to degradation, for example: Look for any analysis in file, fact sheet or notes that could be an antidegradation review. Look for any reference to the antidegradation policy.

Talk with the agency about one or more of the permits with the most obvious changes.

Highlight parts of the federal policy that are not implemented.

Identify where the state regulatory language and implementation guidance could be improved.

Note: You can also do this for 404 permits or anywhere that 401 water quality certification is performed.

Why haven't I heard about the antidegradation policy?

Of the cornerstones of the Clean Water Act, antidegradation remains the most neglected to this day. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been distributed by federal and state agencies to help cities clean up their sewage treatment systems. Industries have spent at least that much more upgrading their technologies to meet higher discharge standards. Hundreds of thousands of pollution permits spelling out technology-based and in-stream water quality-based limits for individual dischargers have been developed.

In many watersheds, however, our water quality gains have been offset partially or completely by new discharges and activities, and the condition of many formerly very healthy watersheds has deteriorated dramatically. This is because there remains little in place today to keep clean waters clean. Today, even our most treasured waters remain vulnerable to exploitation. In fact, very high quality water often attracts proponents of new water quality degrading activities, because without antidegradation it is much easier to obtain permission to discharge to our cleanest waters than to any others.

Without antidegradation, we can expect a long-term trend toward uniformly degraded watersheds instead of steady progress toward our national clean water goals. We cannot restore and maintain the physical, chemical and biological integrity of our waters without antidegradation. And for the most part, antidegradation remains little more than some fine ideas on paper today.

How can I help bring the antidegradation policy to life?

Fortunately, there are clear paths citizens can follow to correct problems they find with their state's antidegradation procedures - or with any of the other pieces of a state's water quality standards system. They are described in the Triennial Review section, which follows on the next page.

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