A new report has found thousands of facilities are out of compliance with the requirements of the Clean Water Act. The report blames declining support for environmental enforcement during the Bush administration as a major cause of the regulatory violations. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), a nonprofit organization working on environmental policy and public outreach, published the report titled Troubled Waters: An Analysis of 2005 Clean Water Act Compliance.

According to the report, more than 3,600 facilities — or 57 percent of the national total — accounted for more than 24,400 violations of the Clean Water Act in 2005. The report also finds many of the violations to be "egregious." The report states, "Major facilities exceeding their Clean Water Act permits, on average, exceeded their permit limits by 263%, or nearly four times the allowed amount." PIRG also makes available on its website data on facilities by state.

The primary regulatory framework for enacting the Clean Water Act is the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). Any facility, including an industrial, commercial and agricultural source seeking to discharge waste into U.S. waters must first obtain a permit. The permit system sets limits on the amount of waste that facilities can discharge and allows regulators to monitor pollution by requiring discharge reporting.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for administering the NPDES program but may also delegate responsibility to the states upon request. Currently, 45 states have EPA-approved NPDES programs, according to the report. However, EPA still bears some responsibility, the report says: "In general, once a state is authorized to administer a part of the NPDES program, EPA no longer conducts these activities. EPA still maintains an oversight role and retains the right to take enforcement action against violators if the state fails to do so."

The report chides the Bush administration for enacting policies that ease requirements for polluters and for failing to prioritize environmental enforcement. In 2003 and 2007, the Bush administration issued policies that undermine the ability of EPA to enforce the NPDES system, according to the report. One policy attempts to redefine "waterway" as it pertains to the Clean Water Act. "EPA has acknowledged that the 2003 policy alone could remove federal Clean Water Act protections from 20 million acres of wetlands, or about 20% of the wetlands in the lower 48 states," according to the report.

The report also blames declining budgets for EPA's growing inability to enforce Clean Water Act regulations. "From 1997 to 2006, EPA's total budget has declined 13 percent, when adjusted for inflation," the report says. The report also cites President Bush's requested cuts in the proposed FY 2008 budget to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund — a federal program that helps local governments improve water treatment and clean water practices — as illustrative of the administration's declining support for clean water protections.

The report comes as EPA faces scrutiny for what critics deride as lax enforcement practices. A recent Washington Post investigation finds EPA is failing to pursue criminal prosecutions of some of the nation's worst polluters and repeat offenders. According to the article, "The number of environmental prosecutions plummeted from 919 in 2001 to 584 last year, a 36 percent decline."

The U.S. PIRG report also mentions a recent EPA Inspector General investigation, which found that even when EPA identifies polluters exceeding their NPDES permit limits, the agency is neither thorough nor timely in pursuing corrective action.

The report concludes with recommendations that U.S. PIRG believes would enhance facility compliance with the NPDES program. The recommendations include reversing the 2003 and 2007 policies, revoking the permits of repeat violators, easing requirements for citizen suits against polluters under the Clean Water Act, and expanding information reporting to enhance the public's right to know about the status of its waterways.