Preventing Groundwater Contamination

Report Outline
Threat to Vital Resource
Curbing Contaminants
Turning to Alternatives
Special Focus

Threat to Vital Resource

Increased National Awareness of Need to Act

For every gallon of fresh water flowing in the nation's rivers and confined by lakes, roughly 24 more are hidden underground—enough to fill the Great Lakes at least four times. Groundwater forms a vast natural resource that has grown in importance even as it has become increasingly endangered. U.S. consumption of groundwater rose from 34 billion gallons a day in 1950 to 88 billion gallons a day in 1980. Approximately half the nation now depends on groundwater—often untreated—for drinking water. Yet contaminated groundwater has been reported in every state. Household, farm and industrial wastes are being detected in the nation's underground water supplies with increasing frequency.

Groundwater protection is limited in part because there is no explicit national policy to protect its quality. There are, however, numerous federal and state laws that affect groundwater quality by regulating activities and substances that pollute it. At least 16 federal statutes authorize programs that in some way touch on groundwater protection. All 50 states have ground-water programs of some type; some have tougher regulations than those required under federal laws. Taken together, these programs have made significant strides in detecting, correcting and preventing groundwater contamination, particularly pollution caused by hazardous wastes.

Achievements under these programs have been significant but have not solved the problem. The federal “Superfund” program has cleaned up relatively few of the abandoned hazardous-waste sites scattered across the country. Instead of encouraging waste recycling and incineration, restrictions on land dumping have increased the use of deep-well injection to get rid of hazardous waste. But there is no guarantee that wastes pumped deep into the earth eventually won't pollute nearby groundwater supplies. And scientific uncertainty about the health consequences of waterborne chemicals has turned federal standard-setting into regulatory quicksand, leaving disposal of many known contaminants uncontrolled.