Number: 1987-18
WHEREAS, groundwater is a valuable natural resources that supplies approximately half of the drinking water in the United States and a large percentage of the nation’s water used for other domestic, agricultural, and industrial uses; and
WHEREAS, groundwater supplies nearly one-third of the flow in the nation’s streams, and much of the nation’s other surface water, so that contaminated groundwater can pollute interconnected surface water and affect sensitive aquatic ecosystems, harming fish and wildlife; and
WHEREAS, serious groundwater contamination occurs in every state in the nation, including contamination above safe health levels in many states by synthetic organic chemicals, petroleum products, nitrates, bacteria, viruses, and pathogens, and many other organic and inorganic contaminants; and
WHEREAS, according to a recent study, contaminated groundwater used as drinking water was the cause of over 34,000 documented cases of illness in the United States from 1971 to 982; and
WHEREAS, groundwater contamination from man-made sources, including hazardous waste dumps, industrial and municipal landfills, hazardous material handling, storage, and transfer, underground injection wells, excessive or inappropriate application of fertilizer and pesticides, intensive animal husbandry, leaking storage tanks above and underground, faulty septic systems, road salt storage and use, and many other sources, occurs across the country; and
WHEREAS, aquifers polluted by man’s activity often cross local and state boundaries and, therefore, this pollution will not respect these political boundaries; and
WHEREAS, states competing to attract or keep industries that may cause groundwater pollution may have the incentive to adopt lax groundwater protection rules in the absence of minimum national groundwater protection requirements; and
WHEREAS, the existing patchwork of state, territorial, local, and federal laws fail to adequately control groundwater pollution from many sources, and are implemented in an uncoordinated and potentially conflicting manner; and
WHEREAS, this existing patchwork of laws has not, and probably cannot, adequately protect public health and the environment from groundwater contamination; and
WHEREAS, government, private industry, and conservation organizations have a responsibility to act as stewards of the nation’s groundwater resources, protecting them for use by future generations;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in annual meeting assembled March 19-22, 1987, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, calls upon the Congress of the United States to adopt comprehensive groundwater legislation that will protect human health and the environment from significant sources of groundwater pollution; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that such comprehensive legislation should provide for groundwater control programs in each state and establish a regulatory partnership between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the individual state governments; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that state governments should be encouraged, where feasible, to assume primary responsibility for managing their state’s groundwater control program in compliance with minimum federal standards and subject to ongoing federal approval, oversight, and enforcement.