Claudia Copeland, the coordinator in this forum, is a specialist in environmental policy with the CRS Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division.

Magazine headlines in recent years paint a picture of enormous crisis in terms of the Nation's water resources--headlines such as "Don't Go Near the Water, Our Polluted Oceans," Newsweek, August 1988; "The U.S.: No Water to Waste," Time, August 1990. Water quality problems affect surface water and groundwater in all regions of the country: nearly 30 percent of U.S. waters do not meet water quality standards or support the uses (such as drinking water supply or recreation) for which they were designated.

At the same time, water supply problems are widespread. For example, large parts of the West that have been undergoing rapid growth and development have also experienced extreme, prolonged drought; resulting water shortages have affected people, the economy (particularly agriculture), and vital ecosystems. Other areas normally considered water-rich, such as the East and Northeast, are experiencing problems due to supply limitations, periodic droughts, and aging delivery systems.

Is there really a "water crisis" as these and a number of other recent articles and periodicals seem to suggest? Do these limitations and constraints on quantity and desired quality of water constitute a crisis for which national or other policy responses are appropriate? Experts generally dispute the notion that a national crisis exists, although regional and local problems are quite real.

Water: The Renewable Resource

Nationally, renewable supplies of water greatly exceed amounts needed by users. The United States averages nearly 30 inches of annual precipitation over the conterminous 48 states. Although two-thirds evaporates, the remainder provides a potential renewable water supply that is nearly four times the amounts withdrawn for use by all major sectors (public supply, agriculture, etc.) Beyond annual precipitation, stocks of fresh water stored on the surface or in accessible aquifers are equivalent to more than 50 years' cumulative renewable supply.

Participation is one element of the hydrologic cycle that provides the world's supply of water through continual interchange between the atmosphere, oceans and other surface water, and land surface. Solar radiation evaporates water from the oceans. In the atmosphere this water becomes water vapor, which later condenses and falls back to earth as rain, snow, or sleet. Precipitation may percolate through soil to groundwater in underground aquifers or move across land surface to streams, rivers, lakes, and estuaries. Interchange also occurs between ground water and surface water through lateral connections. Eventually most of the water reaches the ocean, and the cycle is complete. Throughout the cycle, water picks up materials--minerals, other natural substances, and pollutants--that are transported through subsequent phases of the cycle. Surface runoff carries with it sediment, for example, that is deposited in the ocean or stream and river beds.

Regional Variation

Globally and nationally, water is still available in amounts that are needed for man and commerce, and the quality of the supply is generally suitable for desired purposes. Still, national or average statistics mask regional variations and uneven distribution of precipitation (both long-term and seasonal) that greatly affect water use and management. In the 31 Eastern states precipitation averages 43 inches annually, while in the far West, precipitation averages 13 inches a year. Seasonal variations in many states mean that streams dry up during some months and flood their banks at other times of the year, necessitating reservoirs to regulate flow and provide reliable supplies.

Water Quality

Quality is as important as quantity to assessing the adequacy of water supplies, since the utility and value of the resource is diminished as levels of contaminants such as toxics, metals, bacteria, nutrients, sediment, and oxygen-demanding material increase. Approximately 70 percent of the Nation's rivers, streams, lakes, and estuaries assessed by states for achievement of water quality goals are clean enough to support their designated uses. As with water quantity data, national statistics that describe overall water quality do not reflect regional or local problems. For example, EPA reports that 73 percent of shoreline miles around the Great Lakes are threatened by water pollution or do not support designated uses. Hundreds of individual stream segments nationwide are known to violate water quality standards due to contamination by metals, pesticides, and other toxic elements.

Water Management Today

These data underscore the general theme of the articles in this CRS Review: because water management problems and concerns are increasingly localized and complex, the focus of policy decision making is now shifting to non-Federal levels. Where nationally consistent policies were appropriate to water quality or resource management in the past, today's problems require more finely tuned responses. These may take the form of supplementing national policies with flexibility to address local considerations or even of defining what is "national" in terms of diverse regional or local solutions to a particular water management problem.

The Federal role concerning water resources for nearly a century focused on planning, support and encouragement for resource development, and coordination of development activities. Within the framework of Federal development, however, decisions on allocating water resources and setting priorities among potential user groups have traditionally been and still are matters reserved to states (particularly in the West), not the Federal Government. Recently the traditional Federal role has been changing--as budgetary resources for development projects have been limited and the need for large- scale projects has decreased, and as the need for federally coordinated planning has been overtaken by regional and local decision on allocation, distribution, and pricing of water.

Concerning water quality, the Federal role has been to provide nationally consistent objectives, standards, and regulatory guidance. Many believe that current water quality problems are more diverse now than in the past, requiring policies targeted to specific regional needs and conditions.