Mr. YATES. Well, that's the point, fellows. That's the point. You're being cut in your cooperatives and you're being cut in the others. All right. How important is that work? That's the question I'm asking you. Should some of that money be restored? If it should be, why should it be restored? What's missing? Will the country be able to get along without the information? If it won't, tell me that. Tell the country that. Dr. PECK. We think that's very important work. If the Committee in its wisdom Mr. YATES. But why is it important? Dr. PECK. It's important- Mr. YATES. Somebody looking at the hearings will say, well, my God, we can't get along without that, can we? So we have to have money to provide the work. Dr. PECK. One of our most important programs is the cooperative program, which helps support the network but which also supports a number of interpretive studies addressing specific water problems of the local communities or the States on a 50-50 share basis. More and more through the years, those interpretive studies have been addressed to-— Mr. YATES. How is this related to water quality? Dr. PECK. More and more of those studies are related to water quality. WATER QUALITY Mr. YATES. How are they related to water quality? Dr. PECK. Well, Mr. Cohen can give some examples. Mr. COHEN. A substantial part of the water quality work that we do relates to the quality of the Nation's rivers. Mr. YATES. Okay. Mr. COHEN. In most cases, one cannot assess the quality of the Nation's rivers, either the goodness, badness, or changes thereof, unless one knows the quantity of flow. Mr. YATES. As to whether any impurities are going to be carried away? Mr. COHEN. That's correct. Mr. YATES. Whether there is pollution there which could be carried away, or where you have an oil spill as you did in Pennsylvania and Ohio that went down the rivers. Mr. COHEN. That's correct. Mr. YATES. Okay. So you have to have a knowledge of the force and the stream flow. Mr. COHEN. That's correct. Mr. YATES. And that's this program? Mr. COHEN. That's one element of the program. Mr. YATES. That's just one element of this program. Mr. COHEN. That's correct. OHIO RIVER POLLUTION Mr. YATES. So that when this oil pollution came down the rivers into Ohio, the people of Ohio wanted to know how long it would be before the oil would sweep by them and into the Mississippi river and down into the Gulf, right? Mr. COHEN. That's correct. Mr. YATES. All right. Who else does that besides the Geological Survey? Mr. COHEN. Most of the stream gaging in the United States is done by the Geological Survey. I would estimate that we operate something on the order of 80 percent of the continuous-— Mr. YATES. All right. As this oil went down the waters of the-was it the Ohio River? Mr. COHEN. Yes. Mr. YATES. All right. As it went down the waters of the Ohio River, was it your agency that was keeping tabs on all this? Mr. COHEN. We had done what we referred to as time-of-travel studies. We've done them throughout many parts of the country. These studies are on the shelf predicting the rate of movement of the mass of water and any substances dissolved or being carried along. So yes, we have the information. Mr. YATES. So if a catastrophe or a calamity of a kind occurred with these oil barges-that can occur anywhere in the country, can it not? Mr. COHEN. That's correct. Mr. YATES. Depending on where the oil barges are. It could happen in chemicals, it could happen with other sources of pollution. So there's some element of value to the information that you're gathering. Mr. COHEN. That's right. Mr. YATES. Could the people of Ohio have gotten along without this information? Nature would have taken care of it anyway. Mr. COHEN. If I may, I would generalize the response to your question. This Nation cannot get along without a viable streamflow program. Mr. YATES. Okay. And why is that, Mr. Cohen? Mr. COHEN. For the reasons that I enumerated. Many of the engineering and environmental regulatory aspects of our Nation's streams depend upon a continual knowledge and a good knowledge, of the Nation's streamflow. Mr. YATES. Okay. PROPOSED BUDGET REDUCTIONS If that's true, are you being-is this program being cut too much by the budget that we have before us? Both in your program and in the cooperative program? Mr. COHEN. These are sizable reductions. Mr. YATES. I didn't use the word sizable, you are using the term sizable. We know they're sizable. Are they being cut too much? Mr. COHEN. I need to put it in a context of the total reductions. The proposed reductions in the Federal State cooperative program and then in the Federal component are rather sizable in terms of their potential impacts on the stream gaging program. But given the total proposed reductions in our water program, it does not represent an inordinate amount. Other things are being reduced, and we do have some flexibility with a network of this size. We are required to take reductions of this type, and we will have to take some in the stream gaging program. Mr. YATES. All right, then. Let's turn for a moment to Mr. Peck's wish list. FEDERAL GROUNDWATER LEGISLATION Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman? Would you yield for a moment? Mr. REGULA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have you been following the Congressional actions that are creating a Federal groundwater protection program which includes a large role for the USGS, and do you have any position on that? Dr. PECK. This has to do with the variety of legislation in the Senate. Our position has been in opposition to those bills, in that we feel that we have through our Organic Act, and succeeding legislation, sufficient authority to carry out our groundwater programs. In some cases the proposed legislation tends to muddy the waters, if you'll pardon the expression, between the Department of Agriculture, the EPA and the Geological Survey, about our authority. Furthermore, some of the legislation mandates a system of grants to States and local agencies at a variety of ratios. We for example, are very enthusiastic, and at the top of my wish list is the Federal-State Cooperative Water Program. Mr. REGULA. This is a clearinghouse program? Dr. PECK. No, this is a cooperative program of stream gages and interpretive studies and a lot of information flow, too. Some of the legislation does have a clearinghouse function. We have the beginnings of a clearinghouse function already, and I think it's proper that we have that responsibility. That could be augmented to be more effective in conveying information. Finally, our stance is in opposition to that proposal. Mr. REGULA. Well, the House passed H.R. 791, which includes provisions to establish a National groundwater information clearinghouse. This program would be essential to State and local governments, given the estimates of what the startup for this program would be. Are they budgeted? Dr. PECK. Our present water information program is budgeted at $1 million for FY 1989, something like that. So, elements of the water information clearinghouse function carried out by the Geological Survey are already budgeted. I would like to add, Mr. Regula, that we are sympathetic to the concerns of Congress about groundwater quality and the motivation and concerns that have led to this legislation. My concern is about some of the details of that legislation. Mr. REGULA. I assume that you already would have in place, information on groundwater, and that it would be a National policy to do a comprehensive review, Nationwide, of groundwater problems, that you would have a base to work from. Dr. PECK. Yes, and indeed we started a National Water Summary. The first one was on issues, and the second one was groundwater, and then surface water. The one that will be published within about two or three months is on groundwater quality. It's using existing information; it's not a comprehensive job that could be done over a five or ten year period, but I think it will be a very useful summary of our current knowledge of groundwater quality. There will be a State by State summary. In fact, those State by State summaries have already been open filed and are available. STUDY AT UNIONTOWN, OHIO Mr. REGULA. In last year's bill, we included language requesting a study into the possibility of migrating gases along the water table at the site of the industrial waste landfill in Uniontown. Your agency postponed this action until the remedial investigation preliminary report would be available. As I understand it, you've now received that report. When do you think that you'll start that study? Dr. PECK. I'm not sure. We'd better turn to Mr. Cohen for that. Mr. COHEN. Mr. Regula, we have an agreement with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to review reports of that type at their request. This was a result of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, and Liability Act of 1989 and the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization of 1986. They have a formal role, along with EPA, in reviewing those reports. The report was delivered to us the eighth of this month. Our commitment to that agency is to have a written assessment within 30 days. Mr. REGULA. Of the report? Mr. COHEN. Of the report. So we will surely have a written assessment which will be completed in-house. Any delays thereafter will be our own to make sure we do a good job, since it is a sensitive issue. Mr. REGULA. Then once you've done all this, the study will begin? Mr. COHEN. Yes. Once we've done all this, we'll be in a position to respond to the Committee's request as to what additional studies would be useful to speak to the problems. Mr. REGULA. Resulting from the migrating gas? Mr. COHEN. Migrating gas, and also closely related toxic chemicals. SLAR PROGRAM Mr. REGULA. Turning to the SLAR program, when do you_contemplate finishing Ohio? The reason that I ask is that our State director is very interested in that information and has found it extremely useful. Mr. PECK. Lowell, are you up on that subject? We've got a poster up there, and Mr. REGULA. I have a chart. And you show that two areas in Ohio are not yet finished. [The information follows:] |