Editorial: Upgrade system for ensuring clean waters

Thursday, May 29, 2003 | 8:37 a.m.

There has been a lot of agricultural and industrial change in this country since 1982, the last time the Environmental Protection Agency revised its system for tracking allowable discharges of pollution into bodies of water. A report released May 20 by the EPA's inspector general says the computerized system is now so backlogged and outdated that it's nearly useless.

This news, reported Tuesday by the New York Times, is alarming because the computer system is the nation's chief method of enforcing rules set by the Clean Water Act. The inspector general said expired permits cannot be detected, new permits cannot be processed on time, new categories of pollution cannot be programmed and that tens of thousands of new pollution sources have not been entered into the system's database.

Imagine all of the mining, manufacturing and agricultural operations that have sprung up over just the past decade. It's frightening to learn that no one is adequately supervising their permits for pollution discharges into streams, rivers and lakes. President Bush hailed the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act with a proclamation declaring 2002 as the "Year of Clean Water." With the publication of this report, such words must be greeted with skepticism. The EPA estimates it would cost about $14 million to upgrade its monitoring system. An exact figure should be calculated and the money should be appropriated immediately.