Attacks on Clean Water, Fast and Furious

February 18, 2011 | Clean Water, Global Warming, Greening Water Infrastructure, Most Endangered Rivers, Water Supply, Stormwater & Sewage, Small Streams & Wetlands, Protecting Rivers, Outstanding Resource Waters

Katherine Baer
Senior Director, Clean Water Program

Have you noticed that all of the rhetoric around cutting the federal budget for our grandchildren, future generations, etc.? Why then in the same budget are some Members of Congress attacking clean water for these same grandkids? While the funds for clean water are being slashed, this proposed budget also contains some serious sneak attacks on our clean, drinking water.

First, there’s the amendment to prevent the protection of small streams. Any kid (or grandkid) can tell you that water flows downstream and that our mighty rivers start as small streams. Growing up in Georgia, my sister and I spent countless hours walking the banks of our little creek, crossing fallen logs, racing stick boats, and looking for buried treasure that we were sure lay beneath the sandbars. Our little creek, we would later learn, flowed into Peavine Creek, then to the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, to Peachtree Creek, and finally to the Chattahoochee River, which provides the drinking water for millions in metropolitan Atlanta.

And this is the case in many places – 117 million Americans rely on small streams as the source of their drinking water – not so surprising given that the majority of our nation’s stream miles are small streams that run throughout the land.

Fortunately, when Congress wrote the Clean Water Act, they understood this scientific connection, and realized that achieving clean water required protection of all of our waters, not only the big rivers. That’s why for 30 years the agencies responsible for implementing the Clean Water Act have based protections on a broad definition necessary to protect clean water. More recently, confusing Court rulings, poor agency guidance, and pressure from polluters has placed our small streams – like my little creek – at risk of losing protection. But this sneaky amendment would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from doing their job to clarify which waters are protected from pollution and destruction.

We know this attack isn’t about saving money for the nation – New York City just reaffirmed their commitment to protecting the many streams that flow into their drinking water source – saving the city over $10 billion. This amendment is about making it easier to pollute our streams and rivers.
Other such attacks on clean water include: 

• Stopping pollution cleanup in the Chesapeake Bay – this amendment would block investment in the long-negotiated water pollution clean up plan for the Bay.
• Promoting dead zones – another amendment would prevent implementation of standards for nutrient pollution in Florida that protect against toxic algae blooms that foul water and trigger fish kills.
• Stripping safeguards against harmful projects – Congress gave EPA the authority to “veto” really bad projects that adversely impact our streams and rivers. And that’s just what EPA did recently (it’s 13th veto ever) when it stopped a mountain top mining project that would have buried over six miles of streams causing irreparable harm to local communities and fish and wildlife. As a result – an amendment to strip EPA’s ability to stop such projects no matter what the impact.

And that’s just a sampling.  Attacks on clean water like these aren’t about the financial security of the nation. These attacks on clean water are about financial security for polluters, not the grandkids.

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