Excerpt
GROUNDWATER pollution is a growing environmental quality issue characterized both by scientific uncertainty and by contradictory and complex governmental legislation. Gaps in scientific knowledge, scientific controversy, and uncoordinated state and federal pollution statutes pose significant barriers to better management of groundwater resources.
Despite these barriers and in the absence of coordinated federal actions, state governments have taken the lead in developing groundwater management policies. Some states, such as Arizona, have developed comprehensive groundwater policies. Others, such as New York, rely on land use management for groundwater quality protection. Still others, such as Wisconsin, have implemented a system of groundwater quality standards.
In designing these policies, states must address a common set of key policy choices. The choices are of two types: fundamental and operational. Fundamental choices are components of the age-old question: “Who has the right to do what to whom?” Operational choices address the pragmatic technical, institutional, and political realities of state groundwater management.
Fundamental policy choices
There are four fundamental policy choices with respect to groundwater management.
1. What are appropriate groundwater management goals?
2. What is the appropriate role of government?
3. Who should bear the costs, and who has the rights to benefits of groundwater …
Footnotes
Sandra S. Batie is a professor and Penelope L. Diebel is a graduate assistant in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, 24061. This research was partially funded by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior (under award numbers 14-08-001-1305 and 14-08-0001-G1724). All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency. Portions of this article draw heavily from a contribution by Dr. Batie in the book Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies—1988, published by the Farm Foundation and from a National Govenors Association policy study, Managing Agricultural Contamination of Ground Water: State Strategies, by Dr. Batie, William E. Cox, and Ms. Diebel.
- Copyright 1990 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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