Continuing to Protect the Country’s Waters
Water is something deeply personal to each of us. We depend on it for running our homes and operating our businesses. Americans collectively drink one billion glasses of tap water each day. We need it for fishing, swimming, and boating with our families. If we want to continue to seize opportunities for improvement in clean and reliable water, we must make water a top national priority.
We have challenges to address together. Our country’s aging infrastructure is in dire need of investment and improvement. Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution continue to impact our streams, rivers, and lakes. Although we have the safest drinking water in the world, there are still systems that aren’t meeting all of our standards all of the time. We’re learning more about the presence of emerging contaminants in water. And climate change is causing stronger storms, drought, warmer waters, and sea level rise.
There’s no doubt that we’ve made tremendous progress in recent years. During President Obama’s administration, we’ve funded water infrastructure that provides essential public health services. We’ve dramatically reduced pollution in our nation’s waterways. We’ve also strengthened the resilience of our water sources as utilities and communities prepare to withstand the threats of climate change.
To highlight the progress we’ve made in the water sector, EPA unveiled an interactive story map. I encourage you to explore the story map to see how EPA made a difference in your community. Also, please be sure to read about the advancements we’ve made through common-sense regulations, support for communities, investments in projects, and support for innovation and technology, all in a way that will carry us forward.
The Protecting America’s Waters story is told through six chapters. Each mini-story map highlights a distinct set of accomplishments through a mix of narration, interactive maps, videos, and graphics. Here are some highlights:
Advancing Clean Water Protection: Thanks to the strong partnerships built under the Clean Water Act, we’ve restored nearly 600 waterbodies, improved protections for nearly 725,000 acres of estuary habitat, and issued historic public health rules like setting the country’s first national limits on toxic metals released into America’s waterways by steam electric power plants.
Through the Clean Water Rule EPA clarified protection for 60 percent of the nation’s streams and millions of acres of wetlands, which are vital to public health, the environment, and the economy. For example, the streams protected by this rule feed into the drinking water for 117 million Americans.
Increasing the Safety of Drinking Water: Today, more than 90 percent of the country’s water systems consistently meet EPA’s drinking water standards. To ensure that all Americans have access to safe drinking water, EPA released a Drinking Water Action Plan that will:
Rebuilding the Nation’s Aging Infrastructure: To support communities with their replacement or upgrade efforts, EPA’s state revolving funds have provided more than $66 billion in low-interest loans for water infrastructure projects since 2009. Check out our map to see how much federal funding was allotted to your state.
Making a Difference in Communities: From supporting communities with green infrastructure projects and restoring urban waterways to providing rural Alaska native villages with access to safe drinking water and sanitation services, EPA made a positive difference in the lives of American families and communities for years to come. Check out our map to see where EPA provided funding and assistance to local partners to revitalize urban waterways.
Building Resilience for the Future: Since 2009 EPA helped Americans save $32 billion on utility bills and 1.5 trillion gallons of water by providing easy ways to save water through WaterSense. EPA also partnered with state and local governments and utilities to boost the resiliency of coastal communities and critical water infrastructure through the Creating Resilient Water Utilities and Climate Ready Estuaries initiatives.
Moving Science & Innovation Forward: During the last eight years, EPA completed the first set of National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS), which provide nationally-consistent data on the condition of the nation’s coastal waters, lakes and reservoirs, rivers and streams, and wetlands. The latest NARS provided critical and groundbreaking findings including the discovery that habitat degradation and nutrient pollution is much more widespread than previously thought.
As we celebrate these accomplishments, we also look forward to the future. Yes, there is a lot more work to do but I’m confident that the agency’s commitment to providing American families with clean water, coupled with the momentum and innovation we’ve unleashed over the last eight years, has put our country on a path to a safer, healthier future. We look forward to our continued partnership and making our planet a better place for generations to come. That’s EPA Forward.
