James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time. Over 35 years ago this very year, a book with a very thought- provoking title prodded Congress and the then administration into thinking anew about our precious resources of fresh water. The title of that book, The Coming Water Famine, was written by a then junior member of the Committee on Public Works, the predecessor name of this committee. That junior member went on to become Speaker of the House, none other than Jim Wright, who, after considerable research into available and predictable uses of ground water, and population growth, and the availability of water in the Nation's major aquifers and other ground water resources, drew a curve in that book. It showed that here is this constant supply of water and use is climbing at an accelerating rate. He predicted that some time in the mid-1980s, not a specific date, the two would intersect. We passed that point well before the time Jim Wright predicted. He was on track. Congress and the administration, several administrations, have not been. We have not done enough to provide for the water resource needs of our country. All the water there ever was, and all the water there ever will be, is available today on the earth. We cannot create new water. We can only conserve that which we have and manage it well. On any given day, there are 160 trillion gallons of moisture in the atmosphere over the Earth. After it comes in the form of snow or rain, and after runoff, there is only about 160 billion gallons that actually penetrate into the Nation's aquifers. We are using it at a faster rate than it is coming down, or that is being conserved by the earth. The Ogalala aquifer has been depleted to a dangerous point, such that if we stopped all use, all withdrawals from the Ogalala today, it would take the next 3 decades to replenish the water to where it should have been 30 years ago. So, too, for many other basins throughout the United States. This legislation is not going to cure or correct that problem. It is going to take a much broader, thoughtful consideration by the Congress, by future administrations, by the public on wise use and conservation of our resources. As we paved over America, our streets, cities, housing shopping centers, that water runs off. We are not giving it an opportunity to penetrate into and restore the aquifers from which we are drawing this precious source of life. I commend the authors of the legislation, the two gentlewomen from Florida, who have advocated and brought it thus far; and I pay my great respect to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), our chairman, who has long been an advocate of wise use and conservation of our water resources, as well as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski), who has been a student of the subject and who has applied himself diligently. Mr. Chairman, it is going to take more, much more than what we are doing in this legislation. We are going to provide financing to conserve, manage, reclaim, reuse water, wastewater, and treat it. We have provided language in this legislation to assure that we are not duplicating in this bill what is already available through the Bureau of Reclamation. But the water needs go far beyond this halting step that we take here, a good step and an important one and very targeted, one that we must do; but we have to consider far greater concerns. The loss of the prairie pothole region. The loss of wetlands in America. We have half of what we had at the turn of the century and less than a third of what we had when America was formed as a nation. If we continue to allow the destruction of the water-conserving forces that nature created and continue to draw water from basins that cannot be restored. We will indeed have shortchanged future generations. So let us move with this legislation, but keep in mind that the coming water famine is with us and that it is up to us to address it for future generations.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, this certainly is the type of lake and these are the conditions that this legislation seeks to address. The authority provided in the legislation for grants to States and through States to municipalities is the appropriate venue for the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) to pursue this matter. We will certainly, on the committee, be very happy to support the gentlewoman's interest in seeing that there are adequate resources when appropriations are made. There are no appropriations available now. The point of this legislation is to authorize expanded funding through a program from EPA of grants to States and through States to municipalities or other lesser units of government that then will undertake cleanup plans. It would be useful if the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) could provide us with any restoration plan that either the city or county or joint powers agreement authority may have developed for the cleanup of this lake and any other supporting information, as the gentlewoman has already indicated. I am sure the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster) will support us in the initiative of appealing to EPA at the appropriate time for consideration of this project.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, but because the lake waters are contaminated, the fish are probably not fit for sustainable human consumption.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentlewoman from Florida, is it a lake that is used considerably for fishing as well? Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentlewoman from Florida, are boating activities prevalent on the lake? I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, could the gentlewoman from Florida describe for us the size of the lake in acres. Does the gentlewoman from Florida have that information available?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the Chair how much time remains on each side.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the very great significance of this legislation is underscored in many of the lakes and the communities throughout Minnesota. We are blessed, as other less fortunate communities across the country would like to be, in that many of our towns have a lake right in the town. Over the years, before the 1960s, before we had a clean water program, many towns just allowed their storm sewers to discharge into the lakes. Many even allowed their sanitary sewers, after primary treatment, to discharge into lakes. Then they began to realize what an important resource the lake is and diverted sewage away from it and diverted street runoff away from the lakes, although many in the northern tier continued to pile up snow from winter storms on the lake. Where else? It seemed sensible. Let it melt, add to the lake's waters. Now we know that there is pollution in winter as well as in summer. Cities now avoid that tragedy inflicted upon the Nation's lakes. So what we have is many lakes that should be great resources for swimming, for tourism, for boating, for fishing, that have substantial amounts of pollution embedded in the lake bottom. In the sediment under those waters, plants grow up, transmit the pollutants to the fish who feed on the plant life, and then humans consume the fish and in turn find embedded in their body cells the pollutants that we all know are so harmful. Why is this legislation so important? Because cities can have access to funds to develop plans to clean up those lakes, restore them perhaps not to their pristine original condition created by the glaciers when they retreated 10,000 years ago, but at least to be swimmable, to be fishable, to be usable, to be a community attraction rather than a point of shame for a community. This legislation will provide States, through States to communities, the resources, financial resources, they need to make their lakes the great treasures that they should be. As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) so poetically described in the closing words of his remarks on the House Floor, lakes should be the eye through which a community sees itself and sees its treasurers. So I have great hopes for this legislation; and I want to take this opportunity to urge the administration to, in the future, include funding for the Clean Lakes program, which they have not done for several years, and to urge our colleagues on the Committee on Appropriations, it was very encouraging to have the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) address the issue rather directly, that enactment of this legislation will give the Committee on Appropriations an opportunity to provide funding for the Clean Lakes program. That will be the ultimate success of this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 2328, to reauthorize the Clean Lakes Program. I want to express my appreciation to our chairman for his support of this initiative and for launching the hearings directing the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), to move ahead with this legislation, which is a derivative of and an extension of the monumental Clean Water Act of 1972. That legislation, which I had the privilege to participate in as a member or administrator of the staff of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation at the time, was then, as it still is, one of the most far-reaching and successful environmental laws Congress has ever enacted. We have made a lot of progress over the years with the Clean Water Act. It is going on 30 years. One of the reasons is the collaborative partnerships that the act established between the States and the Federal Government to restore and maintain, as the opening directive of that act provides, restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters. We have not quite reached the objective of swimmable and fishable in all of the Nation's waters, but we are moving in the right direction. Section 314 of that act established the Clean Lakes Program. That program directs EPA to work with the States to identify and implement programs to control, reduce, and mitigate levels of pollution in the Nation's lakes. It has been a valuable resource to reduce pollution. We have funded approximately $145 million of grant activities since 1945 in 49 States and 18 Indian tribes, 700 individual site assessments, restoration, and implementation projects. But it is only a start. The most recent national water quality inventory shows that States have reported that only 40 percent of lake acreage across this country has been assessed to determine whether the lakes meet the designated uses. Of that number, 40 percent are still impaired in some fashion. That means that 30 million acres of lakes across this country have a significant likelihood that the waters are not safe for fishing, swimming, or to support aquatic life in the lake and in the surrounding basin. Body contact sports was one of the principal objectives of the Clean Water Act of 1972, so people could indeed use the lakes: swim, fish, walk through the lake waters on the edge, as we do with small children in Minnesota and elsewhere across this country. But we have not attained that objective. This bill will help move us in that direction. It reauthorizes the Clean Lakes Program through 2005. It increases significantly the level of funding to $50 million a year. The funding would be directed to the States to diagnose the current condition of individual lakes and their watershed, to determine the extent and source of pollution, to develop lake restoration and protection plans that can actually be implemented, not just ideas and studies that remain on a shelf and gather dust, but plans that can actually be implemented. Secondly, to address the concern of acidity in lake levels, in lakes across this country, we provide authorization for programs aimed at restoring lake water quality and mitigating the harmful effects of lake acidity. Canada actually was ahead of the United States in addressing the problem of acid rain. Sweden was ahead of Canada. It was in the mid-1970s that Swedish scientists examined lakes that were in the early stages of death, death from acid rain coming from the Ruhr Valley in Germany, traveling over a thousand miles and being deposited on Swedish lakes that soon became clear, so clear you could see right to the bottom, no fish, no plant life. Dead lakes. We were slow to assess that problem and appreciate the United States. Canada caught on first because the prevailing winds carry acid depositions from the United States north into Canada. Canada mounted a massive counterattack on acid rain problems, and that led to the U.S.- Canada Air Quality Agreement, in addition to the U.S-Canada Great Lakes Quality Agreement, that has resulted in restoration in lakes in Canada that were nearing the death levels of lakes in Sweden. Mr. Chairman, this legislation will move us further along in the United States, in the direction of addressing the problems of the harmful effects of acid rain and high lake water acidity. This legislation also adds four lakes to the priority demonstration projects included in the Clean Lakes Program, one of which is Swan Lake, which is in my district, which is of tremendous regional significance for the people living in the iron ore mining country; a 100-square-mile lake in Itasca County that includes the City of Nashwauk, northeast of that lake, there are a wide range of recreational activities very popular there in the 5 months or 6 months that we can actually enjoy lake activities when they are not frozen over in Minnesota, boating, fishing; significant economic benefit to the entire region. Mr. Chairman, the water quality has deteriorated over the years, poor soil surrounding the lake and poor lake edge protection and watershed protection, as well as sewage into that lake. We will be able to address this problem and learn from it and apply its lessons elsewhere across the country and across, of course, my own State of 10,000 lakes, which really is about 15,000, actually more than that. We do not really count lakes under 200 acres. Mr. Chairman, I am really delighted; and I wanted to compliment the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), our subcommittee chairman, for their support and also the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski), who does not have as many lakes in his district, but who has been very generous in giving his strong support for this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, we certainly share the view just expressed by the chairman on the gentleman's concerns and his intent, and we will look forward to working with the gentleman on a consensus- based, cooperative approach to protecting the Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), who has been a vigilant participant in protecting the resources of the bay. I am grateful for his leadership.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, we have reviewed the gentleman's amendment. It is in conformity with the rules of the House, and it is a sense of Congress buy American amendment. We are happy to support Mr. Buy America.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a diligent member of the Committee.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the ranking member of the Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin, (Mr. Kind). (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the answer to the gentleman's question will be found in each of the remedial action plans developed by the communities and the States and EPA in conjunction with each other. And those plans, depending on the nature of the problem to be addressed, may require sediment removal. Some of them, in fact, will require sediment removal, but we are not in a position to say which ones or how much. That information, by the way, would be available from each of the States and from the localities because it all has to be part of the public record, and the companies in the gentleman's district can certainly access that information through the appropriate State agency. I am quite certain that the remedial action plans for each community or council of governments or State will undoubtedly require some sediment removal in order to remove the toxics from the ecosystem.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?