Wastewater Treatment

While pollution from point sources has greatly improved, funding for the grant program to build sewage treatment plants is reduced with each set of Clean Water Act amendments. In 1972, the grant program is a 75%-25% cost share with local governments, with the federal government committing $6 billion a year to the program. This is an increase of over $5 billion from support prior to 1972.

The federal government’s share is reduced to 55% in 1981. Grant criteria also limit the expenditure of funds to address present needs rather than the capacity for future growth. In 1987, this grant program is phased out and replaced with a State Revolving Loan Fund from which states are able to make loans for the construction of sewage treatment plants. Local governments’ matching share is 20% (Tyler 1992).

Since 1972, 13,000 grants for 5,811 facilities are funded under the construction grants program. The total amount appropriated for this program is $55.2 billion. Despite these expenditures, in 1992 it is estimated that an additional $80.4 billion is needed to meet the population needs in 2010. The existing revolving loan fund can meet only a small amount of these needs (Tyler 1992).

According to Tarlock (2001), researchers have demonstrated that the many gains in cleanups from point source discharges have been offset by increased pollution from unregulated non-point sources. This conclusion warrants further examination.