Climate change will cause a rise in sea level and an increase in floods, storms, and droughts. All these problems deal with water. Holistic water management at a national level will be required if we intend on supplying drinking water and if we intend on protecting people and their property from increased water levels. Currently the United States does not have a federal agency that overseas all aspects of water management. Twenty-four different agencies in the federal government have water related responsibilities. These agencies regulate local and state governments that deal with water on the ground. Effects from flooding, increased storms, and sea level rise will require major federal support both financially and organizationally and should not be solely left to state or local departments. Water is a connected system and how you manage it in one area will affect another. These large decisions about who gets clean water and who is protected from the effects of rising water need to be decided at a federal level. Other countries have water agreements and regional commissions, and these will be used in this report as precedents for the outline of a future United States water department.

History of National Water Policy in the United States

In 1969 the National Environmental Policy Act aimed to control and regulate our natural resources. The Clean Water Act of 1972, provided requirements for the condition of water, making it fishable, swimmable, and drinkable, thereby improving water quality greatly. But since the 1970s we have done very little to further protect or manage our water resources. In 1993 the great flood of the Mississippi River forced a deeper look into the need for national water management. The Missouri River, a tributary of the Mississippi, has long been controlled by the federal government through the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Bureau of Reclamation. These organizations have focused on the Missouri River’s flood control, navigation, fish and wildlife protection, hydroelectric power public water, recreation, irrigation, and water quality. Droughts along the lower Mississippi caused by damming the Missouri River highlighted the lack of oversight the USACE had on the larger Mississippi River system (Galloway,2012).

In the late 1990s many reports suggested a need for a national water plan or agency. Given the increasing difficulty surrounding water usage in the western United States, congress created a federal and state public commission to review water resource problems in the western United States. This commission concluded that solutions would require fundamental changes in institutional structure and government process, and that the current federal water policy suffers from unclear and conflicting goals. Though this report garnered a lot of attention, no change was made. The urgent need for federal national water planning continued into the 2000s. In 2007 the American Water Resources Association was asked by agencies in the federal government to host a conversation about what to do about water management in the United States. They again conveyed that our nations water resources are being neglected and the four things to do would be: work to establish broad national principles, engender better national coordination over water activities, promote watershed planning, and gather more extensive water data (Galloway,2012). 

In 2009, Congressman James L. Oberstar, reported to a group of water experts in D.C., “today, the diverse water resources challenges throughout the United States are often studied, planned and managed in individual silos, independently of other water areas and projects. Generally, this has resulted in local and narrowly focused project objectives with little consideration of the broader watersheds that surround the project. There are 24 Federal agencies with water responsibilities and this does not count the land management agencies with related responsibilities. Policy is ad hoc, implementation is decentralized, coordination is fragmented, and communication is non-existent or fails to connect. We need a national water policy and unifying vision and guiding principles”(Galloway,2012).

In 2008, members of various federal departments came up with goals and cohesive vison for the Mississippi River Basin, these goals and vision where seen as the foundation for a potential federal policy. In 2011 President Obama’s white house came up with a water framework titled: Clean Water: Foundation of Healthy Communities and a Healthy Environment. Goals of this included (Galloway,2012):

·        Promoting Innovative Partnerships to restore urban waters, promote sustainable water supplies, and develop new incentives for farmers to protect clean water.

·        Enhancing Communities and Economies by Restoring Important Water Bodies

• Innovating for More Water-Efficient Communities.

• Ensuring Clean Water to Protect Public Health.

• Enhancing Use and Enjoyment of our Waters by expanding access to waterways

• Updating the Nation’s Water Policies including action to modernize water resources guidelines, and update Federal guidance on where the Clean Water Act applies nationwide.

• Supporting Science to Solve Water Problems.

In 2015, the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA wrote the Clean Water Rule, which was meant to define the term Waters of the United States (WOTUS) from the 1972 Clean Water Act. After the Clean Water Act, waters of the U.S. were protected from nearby polluters, however it was never clearly defined and infractions where handled on a case by case basis. The 2015 rule was meant to clarify which streams and wetlands where protected under the Clean Water Act. However, it faced push back from farmers and conservative, claiming it was federal government overreach. In 2017 President Trump signed an order to repeal Obama’s Clean Water Rule, and to set back the act to where it was before the definition of Waters of the US. This removed the protection of wetlands that didn’t have continual surface connection. President Trump officially repealed the WOTUS rule on September 12, 2019 (Plumer,2018).

International Examples of Water Management

The Netherlands: Expert in National Water Management

Increased storms, inland flooding, and sea level rise, all caused and exacerbated by climate change, has forced the United States to turn to other countries for solutions. The primary country that is turned to for solutions is the Netherlands. From the Netherlands one can learn about water control methods such as dike, polders, and levees, which allows them to control water and allow room for farming. I would argue that this is not the most important thing we can learn from the Dutch and would instead direct attention to their national water government system.

The Ministry of Water is Netherland’s oldest department that deals with national infrastructure development.  The Ministry of Water, Rijkswaterstaat, was started in 1809. It continued as such until 1831, where it combined with transportation under the Ministry of Interiors. The motto of the ministry at the time was “familiar with water, progressive with connections.” This combination of two sometimes competing infrastructure departments lead to the separation of water management and transportation in 1877. In 1906 water management regained its own ministry with transportation added as a secondary ministry. Today the Netherlands have a Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management with an appointed Minister (Lonnquest, 253).

Local governance of water and farms in Netherlands is done by water boards. Water boards are local regional governance of water management based off watersheds. Water boards where started around the 13th century and are older than the national ministry. Today water boards hold their own elections, levy taxes, transport sewage, issue permits, but can’t penalize offenders and are not responsible for water supply. The main functions of Netherlands’ water boards are: management and maintenance of water barriers such as dikes, and levees, management and maintenance of waterways,  maintenance of water levels with polders, and the maintenance of water quality through wastewater treatment (Lonnquest, 253).

Singapore: Modern Water Management

While Netherlands has set a historical precedent for national water management, Singapore has recently become an international precedent for smart water management. In 1963, to coordinate the supply of water, Singapore created a statutory board called PUB that later turned into a national water agency. The first infrastructure created by PUB was the enlargement of the existing natural reservoir system. The PUB realized the need for more local water sources, so they planned a string of unprotected reservoirs, meaning the water quality would be lower and therefore it would have to be cleaned before consumption. These was done through several initiatives; increased filtration techniques, stricter air pollution control, increased wastewater management, and launching a new “keep Singapore clean campaign” (Seng,2018).

In 2000 PUB was moved out of the utilities department and merged with the drainage agency under the environmental department to become the primary national water agency that oversaw all aspects of the closed loop system: water catchment, drainage, sewage, wastewater treatment, distribution and NeWater and desalination. It was in this merger that the ABC water program would be born. The merge allowed all departments focused on water to work together under a new mission of creating beautiful and clean waters while also engaging the public (Chyo, 26).

EU Water Framework Directive & the Mekong River Commission:

Multinational Water Cooperation  

The main criticism of looking at the Netherlands and Singapore as examples is the difference in scale compared to the United States. Examples of water management at a larger, multi-national scale, include the EU Water Framework Directive and the Mekong River Commission. The EU Water Framework directive covers 27 countries and sets requirements for water quality and community led watershed decisions. The directive makes sure there are watershed plans that outline water usage for navigation, hydropower and secures development from flooding. The directive maintains water quality, protects from flooding and upholds marine environmental policy. Each country must map flood risk for their rivers. The EU Water Framework directive is an example of multinational collaboration on water quality and management at a large scale (Galloway, 2012).

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) started in 1957 between the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. At the time it was the first large-scale UN cooperation around water resources. The UN saw it as a large, untamed river with huge economic potential. They began to sample the river and collect data in the 1950s. In 1995 the four countries signed an Agreement on Cooperation for Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin and in 1997 they started to do river basin development planning. They also started a consultative process where they get community input on projects that affect the river basin, such as hydropower (Mekong River Commission). The MRC has five sets of procedural rules that include; data and information exchange and sharing, water use monitoring, notification of consultation and agreement of development, maintenance of flows, and water quality. These procedural rules must be followed by all the countries and communities within the river basin. Both the MRC and the EU water framework show that multi-national water management takes collaboration and agreements.  It also highlights the first step in water management is the sharing and collecting of data on water quality, flow amounts and flood risk (Mekong River Commission, 2018).

Water Management in the United States: the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers

As mentioned, 24 federal agencies deal with water in the United States. The two primary federal agencies that deal with water in the United States are the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA regulates states’ drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Around 75% of Americans are supplied by these federally regulated, publicly owned water and sewer utilities. The rest are served by private, “investor-owned,” utilities or by their own wells. The EPA, along with state governments, also regulates wastewater under the Clean Water Act (CWA) (University of Michigan, 2019).

The Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the federal agency under the Department of Defense (DOD) that builds dams, canals, and flood protection. The corps mission is to, “deliver vital public and military engineering services; partnering in peace and war to strengthen our Nation’s security, energize the economy and reduce risks from disasters.” The mission involves infrastructural development missions such as; planning, designing, building and operating locks and dams, flood control, beach nourishment, and dredging for navigation. These operations largely attempt to control flooding from rivers and coastal flooding, leaving nuisance flooding and stormwater management to local city government (Lonnquest,201).

Problems with our current water management

Water is connected

The problem with our current management of our water resources is it doesn’t consider water as a connected system that flows where it wants irrespective of jurisdictional and governmental boundaries. Since all water is connected, pollutants that enter one part of the system affects the entire system. This also means that hard infrastructure does not completely solve the problem because it typically ends up pushing water away from one area and into another. 

Ground water and surface water are connected, which makes them hard to regulate and control. Streams connect to groundwater through three ways: streams gain water through the stream bed from groundwater, they lose water through the streamflow to the groundwater or they do both depending on the location along the stream.  Depending on the location of the water table the stream will either gain or lose water. Surface water bodies such as lakes and wetlands are also connected to groundwater and can be replenished by or replenish groundwater reservoirs. This connection between surface water and ground water can lead to mixing of water qualities and the transfer of chemicals and nutrients between surface water and ground water (American Geosciences Institute).

Besides the transfer of pollutants, surface and ground water are also connected to coastal water which means it’s susceptible to saltwater intrusion. Saltwater intrusion typically occurs at coastal aquifers but can move inward. Saltwater is denser than fresh water so it can move through fresh groundwater aquifers to inland waters. Groundwater pumping increases this chance that saltwater would move inland because it lowers the freshwater in the aquifer. Other contributions are navigation channels, agricultural and drainage channels. All water; coastal, freshwater and ground water, are connected and do not stop at state boundary lines, making them difficult to govern by state, locally, and especially by two separate federal government entities with different mission statements (USGS).  

Pollution moves

Because water is all connected and doesn’t stop at state boundary lines, pollutants that enter the water in one state, can and will move to the next state over. Thereby leaving land use and water quality up to each state to decide upon isn’t a viable solution because one state’s actions, or lack thereof, will affect another state. The idea that, it’s their states’ water they can do with it as they please, is an incorrect notion. The effects of state-based decision on water quality can be heavily seen in the Mississippi River and the creation of the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone. 

The Mississippi River is the one of the most polluted rivers in the United States, second only to its tributary the Ohio River. The largest source of pollution entering the Mississippi is nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers that are applied to farmlands. These nutrients travel down the Mississippi River accumulating, until the river empties out into the Gulf of Mexico. This creates a dead zone that negatively affects the fish and therefore Louisiana’s aquaculture business. Attempts have been made to organize a state-wide agreement on nitrogen loading, but none of the states will join Louisiana in signing it. Thirty-two states reside in the Mississippi watershed. Therefore, fixing the Mississippi and the Gulf will require a national mandate and mission, a national governmental body, and top down deployment of infrastructure projects. The two highest users of water: energy and agriculture have departments at the federal level, but there is no cabinet-level department for water. How are we to stand up for our water quality and make progressive changes in our water quality infrastructure without a department at an equal level to fight for it?

Gray Infrastructure isn’t a final solution

Because water is all connected and it can move from one place to another, gray infrastructure such as dikes, dams, and levees doesn’t make water disappear it just temporarily stops it from entering a select location by pushing the water elsewhere. Looking at the Mississippi River, the Army corps of engineers have historically tried to tame the wild Mississippi through a series of levees along its bank, primarily for navigation reasons. Recently, with an increase in flooding due to a changing climate, these levees have been breached and have flooded farms and small towns. The Army Corps is unable to keep up with the demand of levee building, so local towns have increased the height of their levees on their own, which may save their town, but does push the water down and onto another small town.

Levees and dams can also have adverse environmental effects by stopping fish and sediment from moving down stream. In the case of the Mississippi River the levees have caused sediment to build up and to not reach the Gulf Coast to replenish it which has increased the land subsidence and therefore Louisiana’s vulnerabilty to sea level rise. Poorly thought out and constructed flood control infrastructure negatively affects local communities. Which is why we need a holistic watershed plan for flood control done by a national department whose mission is to protect people from water.

How to implement a National Water Department

Organizational Structure

According to “Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to do about it,” by Robert Glennon “change must come from an invigorated federal role in water management” (Glennon, 318). The potential national water department should utilize existing national organizations to collect data, to plan, and to implement holistic water improvement projects. As mentioned earlier, the two primary federal governments who work with water are the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. These two organizations should primarily make up the new department of water. This would mean elevating the EPA to cabinet level position and hopefully changing it from a reactionary agency that sets water quality standards to a proactive water agency that can plan and budget projects that will help communities to clean and manage their water resources. The Army Corps would move out of the department of defense and to a different department with a different overall mission. The mission of the newly created water department should be to provide clean drinking water and to protect communities from the effects of increasing water levels. 

Step 1: Collect Data

After the creation of the new department the first thing would be to start collecting data. There is a lack of national data on river systems. In order to plan, collection of geospatial data on water systems and the creation of a national database would need to happen first. We would need to collect bathymetry for the river systems so that we could project flood levels and create more up-to-date floodplain maps. The Mississippi River, for example, lacks a complete bathymetry dataset, making future planning of our largest river near impossible. Besides the lack of data on riverine systems there is a lack of data on water supply systems, primarily for national security reason. According to “The Environmental Planning Book,” by Tom Daniels, “the two main strategies in water supply planning are (1) ensuring a reliable long-term water supply and (2) managing water demand” (Daniels, 184). Currently, the government can’t tell who is using water and how much if it they are using, so are unable to adequately plan for long term water supply and demand. Companies and individuals in certain areas can simply dig their own wells and procure groundwater without telling the government, making accessing data on water use extremely difficult. Data procurement and management is the first and most important action of a national water department.  

Step 2: Make a National Watershed Plan

The national water department would be organizationally broken down into larger watershed districts, much like the Army Corps of Engineers is currently organized. From there they would be broken own into smaller local watersheds that would have water boards that would be led by democratically elected community members, much like in the Netherlands. Once the department is organized, water board leaders are elected, and data is collected, a national watershed management plan would be created. This plan would use the collected data to map future floodplains which would enable local and national planning of where gray or green infrastructure can be used and where buy-outs and a managed retreat should happen.

Step 3: Develop a Priority Projects List

The national watershed plan, besides large planning initiatives would also create a list of priority projects. The main priority may be the Mississippi river, due to the watershed covering 40% of our country and having 30 of the 50 states within its watershed. It is also one of the most polluted and its impacts greatly affecting the already climate change vulnerable community of New Orleans. Some watershed improvement projects would involve wetland subsidies to local farmers to build wetlands within 100 feet of the floodplain. These wetlands would act as nitrogen buffers as well as carbon sinks. Besides building wetlands for floodplain storage, the department would plan for levee elevation, levee lowering with floodplain extension, perhaps even levee removal at determined spots along the river.

Step 4: Continued Data Collection and Maintenance 

The Dutch continually check-in and update the water management infrastructure to make sure it is operating and will continue to function. This means infrastructure reports should be produced every five years and a new watershed plan every ten years. Besides continual planning and infrastructure updates and maintenance, water flow and water quality will need to be continually monitored.  The water flow needs to be maintained so that the water systems can act as ecological corridors for fish, and other animals. Once water quality is achieved it should be continued to be monitored so that any decrease in quality can be corrected before it worsens. 

Conclusion

People have realized the need for a United State National Water Department since the 1990s. In “Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to do about it,” by Robert Glennon says, “we need leadership at the federal level to move the country toward recognizing the value of water and to clarify our national policy concerning water”(Glennon,318). Given the recent effects of climate change the need for a national water department has only increased. The United States needs a national water policy or department that operates under an environmental and public ethic. The United States also needs a national water plan which is based off river basins, in Tom Daniels “The environmental Planning Handbook,” it says “river basins are useful units for planning because water availability affects settlement patterns, economic activity, wildlife habitat, and overall environmental robustness”(Daniels, 192). Looking at the Netherlands and regional river commissions in other countries, as well as our exiting organizational structure and recent political efforts, I believe there is a pathway for which a national water department can be implemented. Utilizing the regulatory arm of the EPA and the implementation strength of the Army Corps of Engineers our county could build a powerful water department aligned under a single mission of providing water and protecting communities. Without a holistic national department and mission, and subsequent watershed plan, water will be continued to be managed in a style of haves and have-nots, where those we can afford to build levees and water quality plants will, and those who can’t will perish.

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