Rivers and Streams: Upgrading Mnitoring of the Nation’s Freshwater Resources: Meeting the Spirit of the Clean Water Act
The goal of the Clean Water Act (CWA) is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. Much of the monitoring is reasonably delegated to the States to perform and then to report to Congress through the Environmental Protection Agency. States have historically been fully occupied in monitoring the most egregious water quality problems along with high priority water bodies. Hence the expectations of many on our ability to report on progress of meeting the goals of the CWA have not been met. In this chapter we will describe the partnership between EPA and the States to remedy this information gap for rivers and streams. The efforts to move beyond water quality equating to water chemistry will be discussed as well as the design and indicators used to report on progress toward ensuring that the US is able to track progress in the goal of the Act…chemical, physical and biological integrity.