Let’s Talk Water Quality
Recently, water quality has peaked my interest. From doing monthly water monitoring to participating in the 2022 Georgia Adopt-A-Stream Confluence, I have been able to see the importance of water quality efforts in the state of Georgia. For this month’s Let’s Talk interview, I speak with Mr. Galen Kaufman from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to find out more about his work with water quality.
1. What is your job within the EPA and what are you currently working on?
I’m an environmental scientist who works to prevent nutrient pollution in waters of the United States, such as lakes, rivers, and estuaries. I do that by using the best available science to create, or help states and tribes to create, water quality criteria for nutrients. These criteria describe the amount of nutrients, usually nitrogen and phosphorus, that can be in a waterbody and it still be healthy. Although I don’t create legislation, all of the work I do is guided by the policies laid out in Clean Water Act (CWA) legislation.
A lot of my work is focused on helping states and tribes use science and policy to make water quality criteria for nutrients that will be part of their state or tribal regulations and help them do their Clean Water Act duties. I do that in a lot of different ways. I help states and tribes understand and use technical and scientific methods to determine levels of nutrients that will keep their waters healthy. To do that I create technical documents, websites, talks, and webinars they can use as resources. I also work with state and tribal scientists and water quality managers to help them as they are creating policies. States and tribes also submit regulations to us for review to make sure they are consistent with the CWA and can be approved for use. I also occasionally help develop nutrient criteria in states where they haven’t been able to meet their CWA obligations for one reason or another.
2. Can you describe the Clean Water Act and how it affects your work?
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is a powerful piece of legislation that guides how we protect waterbodies in the United States. The goal of the CWA is to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.” The idea is to support the ways we want to use waters, such as “public water supplies, protection and propagation of fish, shellfish and wildlife, recreation in and on the water, agricultural, industrial, and other purposes including navigation.” The CWA covers a lot of ground, but a few of the major things it lays out include how to create water quality criteria that protect waterbodies, how to create permits to limit the amount of pollution put into waterbodies, how to monitor and determine if waterbodies are healthy or not, and how to help waterbodies recover if they suffer from the effects of pollution. The CWA also describes the relationship between states or tribes and the federal government in doing these things.
The section describing water quality criteria guides what I do at work. For any state, tribal, or federal water quality criteria to be considered legally binding under the CWA they must follow the guidelines laid out in the CWA. I use my knowledge of science and the CWA to make sure that water quality criteria meet that requirement. If you want to learn a little more about water quality criteria check out EPA’s website here.
3. What motivated you to choose to work with water quality?
Growing up, I was always fishing, swimming, water skiing, canoeing, tubing, surfing, boating, and doing so many other things in and around the water. If you spend time around special places like lakes, rivers, estuaries, and oceans you care about them, want to learn more about them, and want to protect them. When you see the effects of nutrient pollution for yourself – fish kills, stinking water filled with algae, beaches and lakes that are closed to swimming – it really hits you and you realize how big an impact it can have. I thought that maybe if I worked on the problem, I could do something to help the waters I love. I can’t say I’ve solved the problem single handedly, but I feel like at least I’m helping with my small part of it. If you see a problem, it’s important that you try to do something about it. You can’t always totally fix everything, but you can at least help to make things a little better. My parents always say that you should try to leave something better than you found it.
4. How can young people get involved with water quality legislation nationally?
There are a lot of great ways you can help shape how we protect our waters. To start, just pay attention to what’s going on in your city, county, or state. When you see or hear about issues or legislation happening you can become involved and get your friends involved. Write or call your local elected officials, give written comments on the legislation, attend public meetings. It’s really not hard to do these things and your input does matter. For federal activities, the Federal Register is the place to give comments and you can take a look at it here. You can also become active with organizations that protect water quality. EPA’s website has a list of some state, tribal, and federal organizations that work on water quality here. There are also a lot of non-profit organizations doing great work to influence and create legislation. Some ideas can be found here and here. You can volunteer in lots of different ways with these groups, or you can get even more involved by doing a summer internship or job. Many of these groups have programs that let you get short-term experience.
5. Why should young people care about water quality?
Clean water is an essential part of life. Humans absolutely need to have clean water to drink. The fish, wildlife, and crops that we depend on for food need it also. If you like fishing, swimming, riding around in a boat, going to the beach, or doing one of the many other types of recreation that depend on the water, you also know how important clean water is. What happens to water today can have long lasting impacts that are hard and expensive to reverse, so it’s important to protect the water today.
6. What are the important water quality issues in Georgia or the Southeast in general?
Nutrient pollution is one of the most common water quality problems in most states. Nutrients in water come from a lot of different sources, including agriculture, wastewater treatment plants, fertilizer, runoff, and septic tanks. You can learn more about nutrient pollution, its effects, and what you can do about it here. Chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, household cleaners, petroleum products, and other things that we put on the land and down our drains also often end up in our waters. So, pay attention to what you use, how you use it, and how you dispose of it. The amount of water that is available is also important to pay attention to. Especially with climate change causing big shifts in how much water we get and when, think about how much water you use in your daily life and ways you can reduce that.
7. Is there any advice you would give to my generation concerned about our future?
I like to hike and I recently heard someone say that when you’re hiking a mountain you shouldn’t focus too much on the top of the mountain because it feels like you’ll never get there. Instead, focus on what’s around you and the steps you’re taking – just keep taking those steps and you will get closer and closer to the top and eventually reach it. In some ways this applies to a lot of big environmental issues. They might seem too big to do anything about, but if you take some steps, and even better, get a few others to take some steps with you, then you’ll get closer to addressing the problem. But we’ll never get closer without taking those steps. So, pick a few things and get started. Here are a few places with ideas to help you get started
- What You Can Do | US EPA
- How You Can Help | US EPA
- Reducing and Reusing Basics | US EPA
- Protecting Our Planet Starts with You I NOAA
Thank you so much to Mr. Galen for being so willing to answer these questions and giving us insight into water quality and the EPA!
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