STATEMENT OF WILLIAM B. LORD CONCERNING SENATE BILL 904 TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL WATER RESEARCH FOUNDATION June 14, 1985 Federal funding for water resources research has declined precipitously in recent years. Yet the increasing seriousness of the nation's water problems is widely recognized. Furthermore, the inadequacy of traditional remedies to address those problems grows steadily more apparent. As a result, we are in a period of rapid innovation in the ways in which we manage our water resources. Research to assist and illumine that process of innovation was never more needed. S. 904 is a welcome and considered response to the challenge posed by this situation. S. 904 would authorize a program of expanded research and information dissemination. It provides a mechanism for isolating that program from partisan political control, from special interest pressures, from federal agency missions, and from the short-term fluctuations in priorities which can be so damaging to sustained research productivity. Yet this bill ensures that research will be responsive to real national needs, and not just to the whims of individual investigators. It further places emphasis on regional and national water problems, which are otherwise likely to receive inadequate attention from a system of state supported and controlled research. S. 904 recognizes and supports the water resources research and information dissemination system which has evolved over the past two decades. The nation has a considerable investment in this research community, and it can be mobilized quickly to even greater effectiveness by the encouragement, support, and direction which this legislation would provide. If anything, S. 904 could be even more explicit in its recognition of the need to strengthen and enhance this existing resource. The emphasis given in S. 904 to water problems of regional and national concern is welcome. However, serious problems still remain at the state and local level. It is unrealistic to expect that state and local governments, which are unaccustomed to supporting major research programs and which often find it difficult to take a long-range viewpoint when immediate problems are so pressing, will provide adequate support for the research which, in the longer term, may be most valuable to them. Prevailing attitudes and modes of political response change slowly, and the shifts of the last few years have diminished federal support for needed research so rapidly that state and local mechanisms have not evolved to fill the gap. For the moment, at least, the situation demands a continued federal effort in support of research on serious water problems, even those which may be geographically confined, as the Congress has so wisely recognized. The Water and Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association appreciates the opportunity to present our views on the proposed Water Research Foundation. WWEMA is a 77-year old organization of over 125 corporations that develop technology for and manufacture and supply equipment, materials and services to the water supply and water pollution control industries. Our plants, in nearly all 50 states, employ some 50,000 people. WWEMA believes that water will, indeed, be the "issue of the 1990's," requiring, even demanding, increased attention. In the past year, increased recognition has been given to the need for better management of our water resources; this recognition goes hand in hand with a realization that there is not a lack of water in the nation but a lack of good management as well as less than adequate coordination among the organizations involved in managing the nation's water resources. As you stated during the June 20, 1985 hearings on the proposed Water Research Foundation, and as Senator DeConcini recognized when he introduced S 904, there is an abundance of raw data on water. However, this raw data is scattered among numerous federal agencies and private organizations that do not always share either their research efforts or their research results. To cite just a few of the myriad organizations conducting water research and the types of information they collect: the US Geological Survey collects data on the location and amount of the nation's water resources; the Environmental Protection Agency studies methods of decreasing groundwater contamination and of limiting pollution of the nation's waterways; the AWWA Research Foundation conducts research on the health effects of contaminants in drinking water; and the National Governors Association, in conjunction with the Conservation Foundation, is studying groundwater pollution. As suppliers of technology used for treating our nation's water resources, WWEMA members continue to dedicate their research efforts, and dollars, to developing new techniques for improving the quality of the nation's water supplies through conservation and reuse. The manufacturing community believes in the value of research as well as in sharing the results of that research. While WWEMA members respect the proprietary nature of specific technologies developed in response to a particular water pollution problem, they feel that answers to pollution problems, whether for potable or waste waters, will come only with the availability of research results to all those involved in the field. The Water Research Foundation established under the Water Research Foundation Act, S 904, would include a water research planning center and a water information clearinghouse. WWEMA believes there is a critical need at this time for a water information clearinghouse; the same claim cannot be made for the proposed water research planning center. The clearinghouse would make credible information available to the public (including businesses, government and academia) as well as to water professionals. The function to be served by the proposed clearinghouse is currently missing from the water research field. Exchange of information and available data is essential to ensuring efficient allocation of tight research dollars. Given the tight budgetary constraints facing both the nation and the water industry, WWEMA believes that a national clearinghouse for water research data would reduce the likelihood that available research funds will be spent in duplicative efforts. Researchers should be encouraged to list ongoing research topics and projects with the clearinghouse. Organizations should then be encouraged to contact the clearinghouse prior to beginning a research project to determine whether a federal agency or another organization has conduct ed similar research. Such actions should prevent, to a large extent, expending scarce research dollars to "recreate the wheel." Thus, WWEMA supports the creation of a national clearinghouse on water research activities and the resulting exchange of information among water researchers. However, WWEMA cannot, with equal conviction, support the proposed water research center to promote and support water research activities in existence in states and make recommendations for long-term water research needs. There is currently a plethora of research activities focusing on water problems in the United States. Because of the amount of research currently underway in this country, WWEMA sees no need for a federal agency to either support ongoing research or to provide "incentives" for additional research. WWEMA shares your concerns about the price tag attached to S 904 and the potentially excessive investment of federal funds in yet another national agency. In this time of budgetary constraints and excessive federal deficits, WWEMA cannot in good conscience support creation of the proposed research planning center. The government currently supports myriad research activities, both by federal agencies and by private organizations receiving federal grants, through individual agency budgets; we see no reason for the federal government to begin supporting private research efforts as well. What is needed is neither additional research nor additional funding for research but rather coordination of existing research efforts. This goal will best be served through the water information clearinghouse proposed in S 904, a program that can be established with a minimal investment of federal dollars. WWEMA believes that with Congress, EPA, the industry and public interest organizations working together, we will be able to satisfy the nation's needs for sufficient data on the quality and quantity of water available without an excessive expenditure of additional funds. WWEMA would welcome the opportunity to work with you and your staff to assure passage of a modified, less costly version of the Water Research Foundation Act than that proposed in S 904. Thank you for your attention to our comments and concerns. Sincerely, J. ROBERT NICHOLSON WWEMA Chairman of the Board cc: The Honorable Dennis DeConcini TESTIMONY ON S.904 June 20, 1985 before the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations The Honorable David Durenberger, Chairman, presiding by Prof. James C. Warman, Chairman National Association of Water Institute Directors, and 202 Hargis Hall, Auburn University, AL 36830 (205) 826-5075 I am James C. Warman, Director of the Water Resources Research Institute of Auburn University in Alabama. I appreciate the opportunity to provide this testimony on behalf of the National Association of Water Institute Directors and the 54 universities throughout the United States that are the administrative seats of the Water Resources Research Institutes, supported in part under programs authorized by P.L. 98-746. Comments in this testimony reflect individual discussions with most of the 54 water institute directors about S.904. We are pleased to see in S.904 an expression of the keen interest of the sponsors in providing a mechanism for organizing and managing a water resources research program. The levels of authorized funding in S.904 document the perception of the sponsors of the seriousness of water resources problems throughout the United States and their confidence in research and the timely use of the new technology from that research as critical to the solution of those problems. I offer the following comments and suggestions: 1. A few water institute directors are strongly supportive of S. 904. 2. Most water institute directors have reservations about support of S. 904 in its present form. |