Natural Resources
and the Environment
Better Management of Urban Runoff
 The majority of people in the United States now lives in cities, and urban areas are expected to expand even more in the future. As cities grow, so do their environmental impacts, especially on the nation’s waterways. Rain or snow in urban areas can cause large quantities of water to run over impervious surfaces, picking up various pollutants like garbage, asphalt sealants, motor fuels, and other chemicals. This polluted stormwater eventually makes its way to nearby streams and other bodies of water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has overseen stormwater discharge since 1987, but the current regulatory framework was originally designed to address mostly sewage and industrial wastes and has suffered from poor accountability and uncertainty about its effectiveness at improving water quality. In light of the challenges presented by urban runoff, EPA asked the National Research Council to evaluate its stormwater permitting program.
The resulting report, Urban Stormwater Management in the United States, says that radical changes to EPA’s program are needed to reverse degradation of water resources and ensure progress toward the Clean Water Act’s goal of “fishable and swimmable” waters.
To provide meaningful regulation, all stormwater and other wastewater discharge permits should be based on watershed boundaries instead of political boundaries, the report says. Currently, stormwater and wastewater require separate permits; within stormwater regulations, different types of permits exist for municipalities, industries, and construction sites. Rather than having many individual permits, a watershed-based system would encompass all discharges — including stormwater and wastewater — that could impact waterways in a particular drainage basin. A lead municipality should be assigned responsibility and authority for watershed-based permits and receive enhanced funding for that role.
Stormwater management will be ineffective without integrating land management practices, the report says. In the U.S., the area being appropriated for urban land use is growing faster than the population. Future land development and its potential to increase stormwater problems must be addressed in EPA’s program. Among the many stormwater controls examined, the report strongly recommends conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover such as roads and parking lots that channel stormwater into waterways, and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater.
The report calls on EPA to focus less on the chemical pollutants in the stormwater and more on the increased flow of water, since the volume of discharges is generally not regulated. In urban areas, stormwater flows rapidly across surfaces and arrives at streams in short, concentrated bursts, which in turn increase streambank erosion and sedimentation of surface water. Many urban streams are degraded because of this increased volume, but show no measurable changes in water quality.
The study was funded by EPA.
Zero Tolerance for Marine Debris
 For many years, it was commonly believed oceans were so vast that they would not be harmed by waste from ships and other vessels. But public perceptions have changed, due in large part to terrible images of seabirds, turtles, and marine mammals, dead or dying as a result of ingesting or becoming entangled in debris. Whether intentionally or accidentally dumped, man-made debris in the ocean causes significant harm to many species and also poses a health and safety hazard to beachgoers and divers. And despite more than two decades of international mandates restricting the disposal of plastics and other wastes at sea, large quantities of garbage still make their way into the world’s oceans.
The United States and the international maritime community should adopt a goal of zero discharge of waste into the marine environment, says Tackling Marine Debris in the 21st Century, a report from the National Research Council. The report, which focuses specifically on debris discharged at sea, says that the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex V should be amended to prohibit disposal of garbage into the ocean. In addition, the U.S. should adopt similar restrictions in domestic regulations.
Although Congress previously called for federal agencies to coordinate on tackling this problem, leadership and governance remain ineffective. Efforts to mitigate marine debris are not consistent and often are driven by crises. Congress needs to identify a lead agency that can coordinate a comprehensive effort to address ocean debris and expand programs for all aspects of the problem, including land-based marine litter, derelict fishing gear, shipborne waste, and abandoned vessels. A national strategic plan that identifies priorities for dealing with marine debris prevention and removal efforts should be established, the report says. To further discourage waste disposal by ships, vessels need to have access to adequate shoreside facilities to receive garbage and should be given incentives to use them, such as low disposal fees.
Some ships already have adopted zero or minimal discharge practices. The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should disseminate best management practices that demonstrate how vessels can attain zero discharge and minimize waste, the report says. Industry guidelines for source reduction, reuse, and recycling of solid waste during ship operations also need to be developed.
Despite current regulations, derelict fishing gear such as plastic net fragments, rope, and packing straps still poses a significant problem due to accidental losses and legal loopholes. Marking protocols should be developed so that discarded gear can be identified and traced to its source, the report says. Fishery management organizations also should implement a “no fault” policy regarding documentation and recovery of lost gear, develop removal and disposal programs, and provide financial credit for fishermen who participate. In addition, if they contain synthetic ropes, webbing, or other plastics, abandoned fish aggregating devices — man-made floating objects designed to simulate natural debris and attract fish — should be considered derelict and illegal.
The study was funded by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Slow Progress in the Everglades
 The Florida Everglades is one of the nation’s most treasured ecosystems, supporting a great diversity of plant and animal life. Today, however, as much as half of the Everglades is used for agricultural and urban development, and an extensive water-control infrastructure has drastically altered the ecosystem and changed the landscape of the entire area. To stem the ecosystem’s decline and return it closer to its natural state, the federal government and the state of Florida launched the multibillion-dollar Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) in 2000. As mandated by law, the National Research Council convened a committee to review the restoration plan’s efforts every two years.
Although sound science is available to guide restoration efforts, progress is being hindered by budgeting, planning, and procedural matters, says the Research Council’s Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades: The Second Biennial Review, 2008. And unless major restoration initiatives move forward, further loss of species and habitat deterioration will likely occur, and they may be impossible to reverse.
Ongoing delays in restoration have allowed ecological decline to continue because improvements in quality, quantity, timing, distribution, and flow of water in the Everglades keep being postponed, the report says. The numerous delays in implementing the “Mod Waters” project, authorized nearly 20 years ago to restore flows in the northeastern portion of Everglades National Park, have been particularly discouraging. Meanwhile, construction costs continue to rise, and population growth and associated development make restoration increasingly difficult.
A major cause of delay for CERP projects is the complex federal planning and approval process, and the slow pace of federal funding has resulted largely due to this problem. The U.S. government should consider departing from standard project-by-project review, authorization, and yearly funding to provide assured funds over many years. However, both federal and state partners are facing budget constraints that also threaten to impede progress.
Deficiencies in ecosystem-scale planning and a lack of a comprehensive approach to analyze costs and benefits across multiple projects are also hampering restoration efforts. Clear priorities and strong political leadership are needed to avoid further lengthy delays. CERP planners should prioritize and properly sequence projects so that public funds are allocated by the degree to which projects are essential to restoration, rather than by local stakeholder support or the order of project authorization.
The study was funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, South Florida Water Management District, and the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Barring Invasive Species From the Great Lakes
 Since 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway has been a gateway to the Great Lakes for ships from the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. While the economic benefits have been considerable, the trade route also has had an unintended effect: It has opened the door to aquatic species that are not native to the Great Lakes ecosystem. Many species enter the lakes in ballast water, the source of as much as 70 percent of the aquatic invasive species in the Great Lakes including the zebra mussel, one of the most successful invaders to date. These non-native species can radically alter ecosystems and have severe environmental and economic impacts for the entire region. The problem has grown so great that there have even been proposals to close the St. Lawrence Seaway.
A report from the National Research Council says that a better way to deal with invasive species is to require ballast water management by all international ships entering the seaway as well as ships coming from the coasts of the United States or Canada. The report, Great Lakes Shipping, Trade, and Aquatic Invasive Species, says that, like Canada, the United States should adopt ballast water standards identical to those proposed by the International Maritime Organization.
Invasive species can enter the Great Lakes not only via shipping but also through recreational boating, bait fishing, disposal from home aquariums, and many other avenues, the report says. Closing the St. Lawrence Seaway would not stop future invasions, and it would be a severe detriment to trade in the area. Instead, policymakers should adopt the international standards as part of a suite of preventive measures designed to evolve over time in response to practical experience and technological advances. The United States and Canada should also develop a joint surveillance and eradication program to monitor and eliminate any new invasive species that appear in the lakes.
A number of ballast water management regulations are already in place within the Great Lakes region. However, Canada and the United States have different requirements, and the United States allows individual states to set their own standards. These inconsistencies can create confusion within the shipping industry and make monitoring of compliance difficult. The entire region should have a uniform set of standards for combating invasive species, the report says. The IMO and identical Canadian regulations require specific saltwater exchange and flushing protocols and monitoring for organisms after treatment.
The report says that uniform ballast water standards could be the first step in converting the fragmented system of Great Lakes governance into a comprehensive, cooperative, and coherent binational system.
The study was funded by the Great Lakes Protection Fund.
Hurricane Protection for Louisiana
 Despite decades of hurricane planning by federal and state agencies, Hurricane Katrina illustrated how structural failures and breakdowns in communication and management contributed to one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. As one step toward improving hurricane protection and preparedness, Congress in 2006 directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a comprehensive analysis and design of a full range of flood control, coastal protection, and restoration measures for coastal Louisiana. The National Research Council was asked to evaluate these efforts, beginning with a review of a draft technical report released by the Corps’ Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration (LACPR) study team in March 2008.
The draft fails to clearly prioritize preferred choices of hurricane protection, risk reduction, and restoration alternatives, says the Research Council’s report. First Report from the National Research Council Committee on the Review of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration (LACPR) Program calls for the Corps to provide better explanation of the relative merits of various alternatives — including cost estimates — and to correct several other weaknesses in the draft.
All of the plans for restoring Louisiana’s coastal areas in the LACPR draft depend on sustaining the existing landscape. However, the draft does not provide an analysis of the amount of sediment that would be available to construct needed levees and sustain existing wetlands. If there is inadequate sediment available to maintain or restore coastal areas, the Corps will have to reconsider many of its plans. The LACPR study team should develop sediment budgets for the wetlands of coastal Louisiana to determine whether it would be feasible to maintain the coast in roughly its present condition, the Research Council report says. In addition, the LACPR program should evaluate whether a significant realignment of the lower Mississippi River and its delta — which would involve erecting structures to divert some portion of its flow — could further restoration efforts.
The draft proposes constructing levees to protect existing communities and infrastructure. However, adding new barriers may encourage people to live and work in hazardous low-lying areas, putting them at risk in future hurricanes. The Corps, state of Louisiana, and local governments should cooperate more closely in exploring and implementing nonstructural measures — such as zoning regulations and public acquisition of land for open space, ecosystem restoration, and recreation — to steer future development away from more vulnerable, flood-prone areas, the Research Council report says.
The possibility of relocating people or assets from flood zones is also discussed in the LACPR draft. These permanent evacuation plans include “buyouts,” in which a residential property generally is purchased, razed, and rezoned as floodway or for open space. The option of voluntary buyouts in some instances may represent a cost-effective alternative for removing vulnerable properties and residents from hurricane risks, the report says. LACPR should expand and move ahead with its planned voluntary buyout and relocation demonstration projects as early as possible.
The study was funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Can Desalination Address Water Woes?
 Water is scarce in many areas of the country. From Atlanta in the east to California and several other states in the west, the struggle to provide enough water to meet the demands of the public, agriculture, and industry while still protecting fragile ecosystems seems to have no end in sight. Some water managers and policymakers are turning to desalination as a possible solution. Though desalination technologies generate less than 0.01 percent of U.S. water supplies, the nation’s capacity to desalinate water grew by around 40 percent between 2000 and 2005, and plants now exist in every state.
Desalination could be a viable way to boost scarce water supplies in some parts of the country, but a report from the National Research Council cautions that uncertainties about the possible environmental impacts can create significant barriers to its wider use. The report, Desalination: A National Perspective, says that a coordinated research effort is needed to better understand and minimize potential environmental damage from desalination and to find ways to further lower its costs and energy use.
A few studies suggest that desalination may be less environmentally harmful than many other ways to supplement water, such as diverting freshwater from sensitive ecosystems, but definite conclusions cannot be made without further research. Researchers need to assess the environmental impacts of desalination, such as the extent to which fish and other creatures get trapped in seawater intake systems, and seek ways to mitigate these impacts, the report says. Comprehensive environmental evaluations of large desalination plants should also be conducted, including ecological monitoring before and after a plant begins operations. Seawater desalination also raises concerns about greenhouse gases because the process uses a lot of energy. The technique most widely used is called reverse osmosis, which in seawater desalination uses about 10 times more energy than traditional surface water treatments.
Finding ways to lower costs and energy requirements of desalination should be a goal of the research effort. For example, larger reductions in energy costs may be possible using desalination methods other than reverse osmosis that can be powered with low-grade heat left over from other industrial processes. In addition, developing cost-effective, environmentally safe ways to dispose of the resulting waste product, salt concentrate, should be a priority, the report says. Costs of disposing wastes vary widely, and inland sites have few viable disposal options.
Currently, there is no overall strategic direction to federal research on desalination, which is conducted by many agencies and does not have steady sources for much of the funding. The report calls for a federal R&D program planned and coordinated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and funded at about $25 million a year — roughly the same federal funding level of existing desalination research programs. Both the public and private sectors can contribute to the proposed research agenda, the report says.
The study was funded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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