Stronger EPA leadership needed to improve water quality in Mississ...( WASHINGTON The U.S. Environmental Pro...)

WASHINGTON The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must take a more aggressive leadership role in implementing the Clean Water Act if water quality in the Mississippi River and the northern Gulf of Mexico is to improve, says a new report from the National Research Council. EPA has failed to use its authority under the act to adequately coordinate and oversee state activities along the Mississippi and ensure progress toward the act's goal of "fishable and swimmable" waters, the report says. States along the river also must be more proactive and cooperative in their efforts to monitor and improve water quality.

In particular, greater effort is needed to ensure that the river is monitored and evaluated as a single system, said the committee that wrote the report. The 10 states along the river corridor all conduct their own programs to monitor water quality, but state resources devoted to these programs vary widely, and there is no single program that oversees the entire river, making it an "orphan" in terms of monitoring and assessment of its water quality, the report says. It recommends that EPA take the lead in coordinating these tasks along the river.

"The limited attention being given to monitoring and managing the Mississippi's water quality does not match the river's significant economic, ecological, and cultural importance," said committee chair David A. Dzombak, Blenko Professor of Environmental Engineering and director of the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. "In addressing water-quality problems in the river, EPA and the states should draw upon the useful experience in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where for decades the agency has been working together with states surrounding the bay to reduce nutrient pollution and improve water quality. EPA should demonstrate similar leadership for the Mississippi River."

The report evaluates efforts to implement the
'/>"/>