220
waterways through non-point source pollution. As with the CWA, the EPA shares
enforcement responsibilities with state and local agencies. Also like the CWA, the
SDWA largely fails to prevent the negative impacts of agriculture on water resource
integrity. Groundwater quality thus falls under the purview of the SDWA and the
act’s sole source aquifer provisions. Groundwater quantities, meanwhile, may be
subject to federal reserved water rights or regulated at the state level through
adjudicated wells, as discussed in Sect. 5.3 below, or may be virtually unregulated.
Pollans explains that SDWA standards governing public drinking supplies shift
the burden of clean water to public utilities by requiring municipalities to pay for
cleaning water after it has been polluted or to invest in watershed conservation
measures to prevent pollution in the first place. One of the most significant economic
incentives for municipalities is the filtration avoidance provision of the SDWA,
which allows municipalities with heavily protected watersheds, such as New York
City, to avoid the significant costs of filtering their drinking water. Yet, the law does
not mandate protection of watersheds, nor provide other mechanisms to attain it.
In contrast, SDWA groundwater protection plans are somewhat more structured.
Section 1424(e) of the SDWA specifies protective measures for aquifers qualifying
as sole source aquifers (SSA), or those which provide 50% or more of the drinking
water in a service area and for which there are no alternatives. SSA designation
prevents federal financial support for any project within the aquifer recharge zone
that could contaminate the aquifer but does not prevent all contamination.
8.2.2 Energy
As described in Chap. 2, Energy and water are intimately connected. Their use
converges at three critical junctures where efficiency policies can make significant
sustainability gains. First, pumping and treating water for drinking, and removing
contaminants from wastewater, require significant energy. The California Energy
Commission (n.d.) estimates that 30% of non-power plant use of natural gas goes
to meet water services directly. Similarly, one study of major municipalities in
southern California tied roughly one-fifth of electricity use to “water-related services” (Stokes and Horvath 2009). Even in the simplest and most straightforward
of cases, energy costs can account for 30–50% of a wastewater treatment
plant’s budget.
When technologies such as reverse osmosis, currently the dominant technology
in desalination plants, are employed, energy (and financial) costs increase even
further. The Yuma Desalting Plant on the lower Colorado River in Arizona, designed
to reduce the concentrations of salts and farm chemicals in the river before it passes
into Mexico, is a prime example; since its completion in 1992, it has operated only
intermittently due to costs related to energy and brine (i.e., concentrated saltwater
waste) disposal. While higher-than-average precipitation in the US Southwest
during the first decade of the twenty-first century made it geopolitically and hydrologically feasible to idle the plant, such wet conditions were anomalous, and the
B. Kinne and D. Magee
waterways through non-point source pollution. As with the CWA, the EPA shares
enforcement responsibilities with state and local agencies. Also like the CWA, the
SDWA largely fails to prevent the negative impacts of agriculture on water resource
integrity. Groundwater quality thus falls under the purview of the SDWA and the
act’s sole source aquifer provisions. Groundwater quantities, meanwhile, may be
subject to federal reserved water rights or regulated at the state level through
adjudicated wells, as discussed in Sect. 5.3 below, or may be virtually unregulated.
Pollans explains that SDWA standards governing public drinking supplies shift
the burden of clean water to public utilities by requiring municipalities to pay for
cleaning water after it has been polluted or to invest in watershed conservation
measures to prevent pollution in the first place. One of the most significant economic
incentives for municipalities is the filtration avoidance provision of the SDWA,
which allows municipalities with heavily protected watersheds, such as New York
City, to avoid the significant costs of filtering their drinking water. Yet, the law does
not mandate protection of watersheds, nor provide other mechanisms to attain it.
In contrast, SDWA groundwater protection plans are somewhat more structured.
Section 1424(e) of the SDWA specifies protective measures for aquifers qualifying
as sole source aquifers (SSA), or those which provide 50% or more of the drinking
water in a service area and for which there are no alternatives. SSA designation
prevents federal financial support for any project within the aquifer recharge zone
that could contaminate the aquifer but does not prevent all contamination.
8.2.2 Energy
As described in Chap. 2, Energy and water are intimately connected. Their use
converges at three critical junctures where efficiency policies can make significant
sustainability gains. First, pumping and treating water for drinking, and removing
contaminants from wastewater, require significant energy. The California Energy
Commission (n.d.) estimates that 30% of non-power plant use of natural gas goes
to meet water services directly. Similarly, one study of major municipalities in
southern California tied roughly one-fifth of electricity use to “water-related services” (Stokes and Horvath 2009). Even in the simplest and most straightforward
of cases, energy costs can account for 30–50% of a wastewater treatment
plant’s budget.
When technologies such as reverse osmosis, currently the dominant technology
in desalination plants, are employed, energy (and financial) costs increase even
further. The Yuma Desalting Plant on the lower Colorado River in Arizona, designed
to reduce the concentrations of salts and farm chemicals in the river before it passes
into Mexico, is a prime example; since its completion in 1992, it has operated only
intermittently due to costs related to energy and brine (i.e., concentrated saltwater
waste) disposal. While higher-than-average precipitation in the US Southwest
during the first decade of the twenty-first century made it geopolitically and hydrologically feasible to idle the plant, such wet conditions were anomalous, and the
B. Kinne and D. Magee