Groundwater Quality Protection: Setting a National Goal for State and Federal Programs

Concern for groundwater problems leads the current wave of public environmental consciousness.Reactions to long-hidden threats to the health of present and unborn generations resemble the environmental fervor that swept the country almost thirty years ago.But the quest for solutions to today's great unsolved pollution issue, groundwater contamination, is frustrated by the greater technical complexity and by the heightened controversy over how to allocate political responsibility for control programs.The federal leadership that was conceded in other pollution programs is less clear because the types of groundwater regulation that are most needed fall within the realm of traditional state and local responsibility.Other regulatory measures clearly belong with the federal government and many are in place, though they are rarely specified as groundwater protection measures.A national consensus favors action to protect groundwater quality, but there is a preoccupation with whether programs should be initiated and run by the federal government or by state and local authorities.Striking a federal-state balance has been an issue in all environmental control programs.The issue is particularly troublesome where many sources require national attention and standards, yet the resource to be protected is essentially local.Add to this the fact that protection of the resource is complex and expensive enough to require national attention, ingenuity and spending to support the exercise of state and local prerogatives over land use and water allocation.A true federal-state effort is needed, calling on each sovereign to perform fully the functions it does most effectively and efficiently.Congress should enact legislation to facilitate state groundwater protection programs and to define better the federal role in ensuring the groundwater quality.This principle requires strengthened federal responsibility for nationally uniform regulatory programs where they are most appro-