Non-Point Source Pollution Research

Paying landowners not to pollute, providing free technical advice, and relying on voluntary adherence to BMPs has proven to be an incomplete strategy in many cases. Gradually, states are turning to enforceable mechanisms — including discharge prohibitions, direct enforcement of water quality standards, pollution abatement orders, required operating practices, nuisance and misdemeanor prosecutions, and civil and administrative penalties — to supplement other approaches.

ELI has studied the ways to address non-point sources of water pollution, primarily through innovative uses of state and local laws, and examination of synergies among cost-sharing, technical assistance, enforcement, and liability. Also see ELI's Ecosystem Services program.

Priority Areas of Expertise and Resources:

• ELI has examined obstacles to funding green infrastructure through traditional SRF planning. See Funding Green Infrastructure on a Watershed Basis: Lessons from the Pennypack Experience (2011).

• In 2009, ELI held a workshop entitled The NPS Problem: Designing TMDLs for Implementation. The workshop, supported through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, brought together state TMDL Program officials from more than twenty States. Along with EPA headquarters and region staff, the officials focused on the obstacles to and opportunities for addressing nonpoint source pollution — through the specific lens of the TMDL Program.

• In 2006, ELI examined the evolution of state regulation and management of nonpoint sources, focusing on experiences in Tennessee, Maryland, and Minnesota, as well as findings for federal programs and the need for monitoring. This study was published by the Villanova Environmental Law Journal as Inventing Nonpoint Controls: Methods, Metrics and Results, 17 Vill. Envtl. L. J. 87 (2006).

• States have begun to regulate some animal feeding operations that are not as fully regulated by EPA. See ELI's State Regulation of Animal Feeding Operations: Seven State Summaries, (2003)

• In 2000, ELI published Putting the Pieces Together: State Nonpoint Source Enforceable Mechanisms in Context. This study examines representative experiences in eight states. It is intended to assess how enforceable mechanisms are used in practice. The study builds on several prior studies by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and available at www.eli.org.

• In 1999, ELI released Locating Livestock: How Water Pollution Control Efforts Can Use Information from State Regulatory Programs, which analyzes whether and how animal facilities potentially subject to regulation could be located using data from existing state regulatory programs. The study suggests how water quality programs can work with other agriculture regulatory programs to encourage compliance with pollution control requirements.

• In late 1998, ELI published Almanac of Enforceable State Laws to Control Nonpoint Source Water Pollution, a companion state-by-state compendium of the enforceable laws report (below).

• In 1997, ELI published Enforceable State Mechanisms for the Control of Nonpoint Source Water Pollution, a detailed analysis of enforceable state laws that were being used, or could be used, to address nonpoint source pollution. The report identifies the types of enforceable mechanisms available to the states and described their legal advantages and limitations.

Related ELI Project Areas: Ocean; Water Resource Management; Wetlands; International Water

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