The Clean Water Act is showing its age, and our neglect
Forty-four years ago today the Clean Water Act, our nation’s groundbreaking water law, was enacted.
Since then there has been significant progress in cleaning up rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands, bays and coastal areas across the country. Raw sewage and garbage may no longer be dumped into rivers and other water bodies. People can swim in the Hudson River, which was not safe to do forty years ago. Industrial factories no longer dump untreated waste into our waters. Cities like Pittsburgh, PA and Washington DC have invested in new parks and neighborhoods along waterfront areas that used to smell too foul to be near.
Despite these Clean Water Act successes, unchecked water pollution is still a dismal, daily reality in this country. Recent disasters like the Animas River toxic mining waste spill in Colorado or the Refugio oil spill off the Santa Barbara, California coast or the toxic algae blooms choking Florida’s east coast this past summer are shocking. But, frankly, they are very small pieces of a much larger and systemic problem. These incidents receive a lot of media and public attention because they are arresting — a river colored mustard orange for miles, a sandy beach coated in crude oil, a guacamole-like sludge clogging bays and coating coastlines.
Unfortunately less attention is given to ongoing water quality problems that are more difficult to visualize — the estimated 500,000 abandoned mines scattered across the west that leak constantly, polluting 40% of all rivers and streams in western headwaters with harmful mining waste; the oil that leaks every day from vehicles across the country, polluting streams, rivers and bays every time it rains; the excess fertilizer applied to crops and animal manure that too often pollute groundwater and rivers, contributing to toxic algae blooms downstream.
The Clean Water Act is not to blame for these challenges — it’s just showing its age and our neglect. When a bipartisan Congress passed this comprehensive water law in 1972 it established clear, ambitious goals to ratchet down pollution over time. Congress set a national goal to eliminate dumping of all pollutants into U.S. surface waters by 1985 and a goal to make every river, lake and bay safe for swimming and fishing by 1983.
In 2016 we are nowhere close to meeting those goals.
This is largely due to challenges not foreseen or fully understood in the early 1970’s. Our population has grown by over 80 million people, which has led to the paving and development of places that were once forests, meadows or family farms. More pavement and development means more disruption in the natural hydrological cycle in more places. When it rains in a meadow or forest, water can slowly percolate through plant roots and soils to recharge aquifers. In contrast, when it rains in urban or suburban areas rainwater picks up fertilizer and pet waste from yards, gardens and parks, and collects oil, salt and other harmful pollutants from roads, which all typically end up contaminating nearby streams.
Climate change, something that was only beginning to be understood forty years ago, exacerbates water pollution. Climate change is water change. Higher water temperatures make it easier for toxic algae to thrive in rivers, lakes and bays. More frequent and intense rain storms result in more polluted runoff to urban creeks and rivers. And in the already arid west, drought conditions mean less water in rivers and streams for fish, wildlife, and people.
Politics is also to blame. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been constrained by an increasingly hostile Congress, especially over the past 15 years. Powerful polluter interests like the American Farm Bureau Federation and oil and gas companies have managed to sway some members of Congress to support weakening critical clean water protections. The Clean Water Act has not been updated in nearly 30 years and EPA’s budget and staff size shrinks a little bit more each year.
There is hope, despite these environmental and political challenges.
One of the most important and powerful provisions in the Clean Water Act is the requirement for public involvement. Any citizen can provide input on how pollution limits should be set for their local stream or river; and, if they see a pollution issue that is not being adequately addressed by a state or the federal government, they can sue to fix it. Last year EPA finalized the first-ever safeguards to require coal-burning power plants to limit dumping of toxic metals and other chemicals into U.S. waters. This would not have happened without a citizen Clean Water Act lawsuit. Now the largest toxic water polluter no longer has a free pass to pollute.
EPA recently reaffirmed its commitment to work with states to address nutrient pollution, which contributes to toxic algae blooms. And in response to the ongoing drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, Congress seems to be getting more serious about fixing our nation’s crumbling water infrastructure. Clearly more needs to be done if we are to achieve our national goal of clean, swimmable and fishable waters.
All of us have a role to play in making this ambitious goal a reality.
Learn more here.
