For 30 years we've made progress in cleaning up our rivers and lakes and reducing the loss of wetlands. But confusing court decisions and Bush administration policies are threatening protections for 20 million acres of wetlands and a majority of the nation's streams. To ensure that all of our nation's waters are protected, Congress must pass the Clean Water Restoration Act, which writes into law the original scope of the Clean Water Act. Here is how you can help.
According to the EPA, over 90% of surface water protection areas contain headwater streams. The policy of denying Clean Water Act protection to headwater streams and wetlands is exposing these waters to unregulated pollution and filling, an especially great concern where no state-level protections exist. With the help of water activists in documenting examples of federal agencies unjustifiably denying Clean Water Act protection to streams, wetlands and other waters, we will promote improved protection of these waters through reversal of the administration's policy. Pollution of source waters by nutrient loadings poses risks to drinking water quality, as well as damage to aquatic systems. Reducing nutrient pollution in sources of drinking water is of especially great importance for public health, in order to minimize exposure to high nitrate levels among infants and small children, and to minimize the formation of cancer-causing by-products from disinfection of water. We will work with water activists in several states to promote adoption of effective water quality standards for nutrients.
Stop Sewage Pollution
Sewage and stormwater runoff are among the nation's largest sources of water pollution. Lack of investment in maintaining municipal sewerage systems and insufficient political will to curb new sewage hook-ups results in more sewage than many sewerage systems can treat, especially when stormwater enters the system. To compound the problem, sprawling forms of development, with ever-increasing acres of impermeable surfaces, generates more stormwater than treatment systems can handle. And when investments in infrastructure do occur, more often than not, the money goes toward these new developments rather than upgrading and maintaining current infrastructure. As a result, untreated or poorly treated sewage often flows into waterways and overflows into backyard streams, yards or even basements.
The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative Sewage component will focus on: ensuring the effectiveness of communities' long term control plans that are critical keeping sewage out of our waters; identifying a model sewage overflow notification system to advocate and engage activists to promote this system; and fighting efforts by municipalities to weaken water quality standards so that more wastewater can enter our waters.
Stop Mountaintop Removal
Blowing off the tops of mountains and dumping the
waste in the streams below to extract coal is widespread and ongoing in
Appalachia. We work with the Club's Energy and Environmental Justice programs,
with a focus on the harm done to water resources and communities. Our goal is
to pass the Clean Water Protection Act, which would prohibit the filling of
streams with waste produced by removing mountaintops.
Promote Safe and Healthy Rural Communities
Industrial agriculture is threatening the health of the nation by pouring huge quantities of pathogens and other pollutants into the nation's lakes and streams, including drinking waters sources. The prolific use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics in industrialized livestock operations to speed growth and prevent disease has created a witches brew of super-bugs that are increasingly entering our surface and groundwater, posing a threat to recreational users and the drinking water of communities downstream. Weak or non-existent state and federal programs fail to address siting and design problems, virtually guaranteeing pollution from industrial livestock operations will contaminate surface and groundwater, while the lack of clear policies on preventing disease-causing pathogens from entering the environment leaves our citizens at risk. Monocultural crops to feed livestock discharge additional nutrients into waters as well, contributing to dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other water bodies. The recent rise in promotion of CAFOs as part of an integrated program to promote bio-fuels has compounded the problems posed by building even greater pressure to build CAFOs with fewer and fewer restrictions.
The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative Rural Communities component will focus on: promoting the development and implementation of strong and effective regulations to limit pathogens releases from industrial livestock operations; engaging and supporting activists in challenging particularly egregious concentrated animal feeding operations; enacting state-level legislation to eliminate the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics in livestock operations; promoting state-level policies and legislation in support of producing bio-fuels from healthy sources, excluding environmentally destructive concentrated livestock operations; promoting consumption of locally grown and responsibly raised food among our members and the public; and engaging our members and partners (including family farmers, hunters and anglers) in these endeavors.
Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources
Global warming is contributing to
more frequesnt and severe water problems: droughts, flooding, and pollution
caused by runoff from more intense storms. To address the increased
vulnerability of communities to these challenges, we will promote water
efficiency and conservation alternatives and assist them in selecting
sustainable, water resource-protecting solutions. Our goal is protection and
restoration of ecosystems, wetlands, and floodplains. Protecting nature
protects people.
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The overall goal of the Safe and Healthy Communities conservation initiative is to foster vibrant, healthy communities with clean water and clean air, and that are free from toxic chemical threats. The initial focus will be to work at the state and local level to protect sources of drinking water from pollution, defend federal and state clean water protections from attack, and to address the largest sources of water pollution: sewage and storm water runoff.
Protect Drinking Water Sources