Celebrate Clean Water: A Look into the Crystal Ball

October 18, 2007 | Small Streams & Wetlands

Katherine Baer
Senior Director, Clean Water Program

For the third in our series of celebrating the Clean Water Act, I sat down with American Rivers’ Vice President for Conservation, Andrew Fahlund to talk about the future. Andrew has worked on Clean Water Act issues for many years, and although he is currently on paternity leave with his baby son Zach, he took the time to speak at a recent briefing on the Clean Water Act’s future and to answer some questions:

Q: What do you see as the biggest way that the Clean Water Act has helped rivers and communities?

A: One of the great success stories of the last 35 years of the Clean Water Act is that by beginning to clean up our rivers, we have brought about a renewal or resurrection of the heart of many of our communities. America has been settled along rivers, but when those streams were only used to dump waste, we turned our backs on the very center of town. Once that pollution begins to go away, people are recognizing the river as one of the greatest assets of the community – whether you’re talking about Augusta, Maine or even Cleveland, Ohio.

Q:  What is the biggest threat to clean water and how should the Clean Water Act adapt?

A: As we look out at the next 35 years, there is no question that the biggest threat to clean water is global warming. Changes to the climate mean changes to historic patterns of rain or snowfall. What we once understood as the “normal” amount of rain or snowfall for a particular place is not likely to remain. In fact, scientists predict that most places are actually going to experience an increase in the frequency of both droughts and floods – each likely to be more severe than in the past. For clean water, that means that during droughts there will be less water in the streams to assimilate waste from factories, sewage treatment plants, or city streets. During big storms, it means more polluted storm water runoff from parking lots and farm fields, and more sewage overflows. 
 
We must adapt the tools that we have, like the Clean Water Act, to address this emerging threat. Specifically, the Clean Water Act needs to adapt to address issues at a watershed scale. The growing threats to clean water are not factory pipes but the way we treat our landscape. Unfortunately, the Clean Water Act hasn’t adequately addressed those threats. The other area that the Clean Water Act must better address is the relationship between quality and quantity. Common sense tells us that you can’t have clean water without enough water, but we rarely implement the Clean Water Act to address this limitation. While this is a politically charged issue, it is one we cannot avoid in a warming world.

Q: What action can we take right now to make sure the Clean Water Act will still be providing clean water when it turns 40?

The most immediate action we can take is for Congress to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act. Regrettably, in light of the looming threats from global warming, there are efforts to actually roll back the gains we have made thus far by stripping protections for many of our rivers and wetlands that have long been safeguarded under the law. The Clean Water Restoration Act reaffirms the historic interpretation that all rivers and wetlands should receive baseline, federal protection from pollution. After all, all that bad stuff flows downhill.

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