Closing Clean Water Act Loophole Will Restore Drinking Water and Flood Protections for Millions

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Peter Lehner’s Blog

Closing Clean Water Act Loophole Will Restore Drinking Water and Flood Protections for Millions

Like millions of Americans, I love the water. I love to swim, boat and fish, as do many of my family and friends. We all recall swimming in dirty water; it wasn’t all that uncommon a few decades ago. I even recall being told I would need a hepatitis shot if I fell into the nearby river. At the same time, the wetlands and small streams that fed our drinking water supplies were vulnerable to being buried and destroyed...big polluters opened a loophole several years ago that made it easier to dump waste in many waters without fear of repercussions. In hundreds of cases, the loophole has rendered the EPA (and its sister agency on clean water matters, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) unable to protect communities and go after these polluters. Today, the Obama administration proposed long-awaited safeguards that would close this loophole and protect millions of miles of threatened streams and millions of wetland acres, and the millions of Americans who depend on them for drinking water.

Natural water systems are complex and interconnected; large or small, steady or intermittent, they all play an important role in the way we live. Near my family’s home in New York, I walk past little streams and wetlands that feed our drinking water supply and the lake where we love to swim. Nearly 2 million miles of little streams like these, even if their flow is seasonal, help provide drinking water for 117 million Americans; wetlands help filter water, even if they appear to be “isolated” on the surface, as are 20 percent of all the wetlands in the continental United States. Yet lawsuits filed by polluters and weak policies adopted under the previous administration have left these streams and wetlands without adequate protection. When a polluter dumps waste in these seemingly isolated or impermanent waterways, the EPA and the Corps often cannot hold the perpetrator accountable...When crude oil spilled into a small stream in Talco, Texas, for example, the EPA was forced to let the incident slide, despite the fact that streams like these help supply the drinking water system that serves more than half the residents of Titus County. The agency was similarly hamstrung in Lake Blackshear, Georgia, where swimmers and boaters had to contend with manure in the water following a discharge from a factory farm upstream.

Under the new safeguards proposed by the Obama administration, hundreds of communities previously left at the mercy of the polluters will now enjoy the full protections of our clean water laws. Bringing these streams and wetlands under the umbrella of the Clean Water Act will help protect drinking water for 117 million people. It will safeguard natural flood protection—wetlands and streams help catch and soak up rain. This is no small benefit; 9.6 million homes and $360 billion dollars-worth of properties lie in flood-prone areas. Similarly, brewers rely on clean water to sustain their businesses and are cheering the new protections, as are hunters, anglers and wildlife-lovers.

I’ve worked to protect the quality of our waters for many years. Polluters will claim that this proposal is rooted in politics. In fact, it is firmly rooted in law and science. The Supreme Court decisions that led to this rollback actually permitted the EPA and the Corps, based on scientific evidence that smaller waters significantly influence water conditions downstream, to close the gap in protections. These agencies are using strong, solid science, together with the venerable 41-year-old Clean Water Act, to protect and safeguard our waters and thus our health. It’s thrilling to see the EPA and the Corps do exactly what Congress and the Supreme Court expect them to do.

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http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/plehner/closing_clean_water_act_loopho.html

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