Sacrificing water quality for quantity

the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to assess water use nationwide. At the same time, however, the ad ministration has proposed slashing funding for USGS’s wellestablished National WaterQuality Assessment (NAWQA) program. Water experts are concerned about money being taken away from programs that assess water quality, even if it is to focus more on water quantity. “Water avail ability is, frankly, a growing im pending crisis in this country,” says George Hallberg of the Cad mus Group, but he adds that both quality and quantity must be con sidered together. Hallberg notes several concerns for future water resource management that will impact both quality and quantity, including saltwater intrusion in coastal regions, wastewater treat ment infrastructure issues, and contamination from surface runoff in urban and rural areas. To pay for an inventory of water use in the U.S. (the first national