Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design

Department

Division of Resource Economics & Management

Committee Chair

Levan Elbakidze

Committee Co-Chair

Alan Collins

Committee Member

Alan Collins

Committee Member

Suhyun Jung

Committee Member

Jason Hubbart

Abstract

This dissertation empirically examines three issues related to CWA and SDWA: 1) Financial Assistance and Environmental Compliance; 2) Financial Assistance Priorities from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund; and 3) Drinking Water Compliance during COVID-19 Pandemic.

Using the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System compliance and the Clean Water State Revolving Funds (CWSRF) data for wastewater treatment plants in nine states between 2010 and 2018, chapter 2 examines a) the effect of non-compliance on the distribution and size of awarded CWSRF loans, and b) the effects of the CWSRF provision and award size on post-funding compliance. Funded facilities are found to have poorer compliance records than the unfunded ones and that funded facilities decrease violations within two years after receiving financial support. On average, a $50 million CWSRF loan decreases violations by one count within two post-funding years.

Adequate investment in wastewater infrastructure remains a critical challenge for environmental protection in the US. In Chapter 3, I examine states’ prioritization of investment in wastewater treatment facilities using the Clean Water State Revolving Funds (CWSRF) allocation and wastewater treatment plant data from 2010 to 2019 from nine states. Discrepancies and consistencies between regulators’ stated and revealed funding priorities are documented based on the records of intended and observed allocation of CWSRF support. I find that states intend to and provide CWSRF assistance to wastewater treatment plants with poorer Clean Water Act compliance records in previous years. I also find that larger facilities are prioritized in intended as well as observed allocation of assistance. Although impairment of discharge receiving streams is not a significant factor in assistance distribution plans, the observed allocation of funds is positively correlated with receiving stream’s impairment. Poorer communities are prioritized in intended as well as observed assistance allocation. However, income-based prioritization is weaker in states with greater corruption.

According to the USEPA, the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected water systems’ operations due to supply chain disruptions, water workforce staffing shortages, financial effects, and operational difficulties. Such challenges for drinking water systems functioning need to be analyzed to ensure current and future public health safety. In Chapter 4, I empirically examine SDWA violations to identify environmental regulatory risks emerging from COVID-19 pandemic. Using annual data from 2011 to 2020 for all 50 states, I observe that counties with more COVID cases experience decreased facility level SDWA health-based violations relative to the counties with fewer COVID cases. Also, the reported number of health-based drinking water violations decreased after February 2020 when the pandemic hit US. The decrease in health-based violations can be a result of weakened monitoring or reporting (M&R) activities. SDWA monitoring and reporting violations deceased with growth in the number of COVID cases.

Using mediation analysis, I observe that the direct effect of COVID on health-based drinking water violations vanishes once I account for M&R violations as one of the regressors for health-based violations. Thus, I conclude that COVID-19 had no direct effect on health-based violations but did weaken monitoring and reporting activities. Staff and equipment shortages, limited access to sample collection locations, and EPA's temporary enforcement discretion policy for regular monitoring activities are some of the possible channels that could have affected M&R activities during the pandemic. On the other hand, staffing, chemical treatment, and operational budget shortage can also increase the number of health-based violations. However, in the presence of degraded M&R activities, such health-based violations can remain undetected. Our negative and significant estimate of the effect of the number of COVID cases on health-based violations supports such possibility. We observe a positive and significant effect of COVID cases on M&R violations, which explains the decrease in health violations when COVID cases increase.

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