ELI Undertakes Research on Enforcement of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972

The Environmental Law Institute has recently undertaken a research project on the enforcement of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 for the National Commission on Water Quality. The project is designed to determine the effectiveness of the new enforcement provisions of the Act, to assess the role of citizen suits in achieving the objectives of the Act, and to evaluate the relationships between and among state and federal agencies involved in enforcement activities.

The project will address a number of specific questions, among them the suitability in different situations of each of the enforcement mechanisms provided in § 309 of the Act, including civil penalties, criminal fines, injunctive relief and administrative orders. It will seek to learn the extent to which the threat of a citizen suit promotes voluntary compliance with the Act's requirements. It will also attempt to define the circumstances for which federal enforcement may continue to be appropriate in states which are operating federally-approved NPDES permit programs.

The product of the study will take the form of a report to the Commission, due on May 30, 1975.

The Commission was created by § 315 of the Act to report to the Congress by October 18, 1975 on the basis of a "full and complete investigation and study of all of the technological aspects of achieving, and all aspects of the total economic, social, and environmental effects of achieving or not achieving the effluent limitations and goals" set forth in the Act. The Institute's report will be used by the Commission in preparing part of its report.

The information for the Institute's report is to be obtained principally from interviews, reviewing case files and reading secondary and primary source materials. The report will cover the nation but will concentrate on eight states selected by the Commission — Maine, Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Utah, Texas and California.

The project is being directed by William A. Irwin on the Institute staff and Edward Selig, a partner in the Boston law firm of Bracken and Selig. Anyone who wishes to ask questions about or provide information for the study is welcome to do so and should please contact Will Irwin at the Environmental Law Institute.