Forty years ago today, Congress enacted the Clean Water Act by overriding a presidential veto. Global Water Policy Project Director Sandra Postel is dead on: “As game-changing laws go, the 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act ranks high.”
Though Iowa is still not in full compliance with this law (and may never be during my lifetime), there’s still some good news in the links I’ve enclosed below.
First, a brief history lesson from Daniel E. Estrin:
In this age of partisan warfare, of politicians voting strictly along party lines, and of misguided efforts to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental regulation as we know it, it’s fascinating to look back and revisit the passage of the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972-also known as the Clean Water Act. For while President Richard Nixon is often credited with establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, and with signing many of our federal environmental statutes into law, those who were not old enough at the time to remember may not be aware that President Nixon actually vetoed the Clean Water Act out of a stated concern for “spiraling prices and increasingly onerous taxes.” […]
[T]he Senate voted by 52-12 to override, with 36 Senators not voting. Of the 52 Senators who voted to override President Nixon’s veto, 39 were Democrats, 17 were Republicans, with one (Buckley-NY) independent “Conservative.” Democrats accounted for 4 of the 12 “nay” votes.
The House voted after debate by a staggering 247-23 to override, with one Representative answering “present” and 160 Representatives not voting. Of the 247 Representatives who voted to override President Nixon’s veto, 96 were Republicans and 151 were Democrats. Democrats accounted for 10 of the 23 “nay” votes.
What the Clean Water Act accomplished
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency marked this anniversary with tons of information: a timeline of milestones in the battle to improve water quality across the country, core programs created to implement the Clean Water Act, “educational resources for students, parents and educators,” and links to non-governmental campaigns for cleaner water.
Natalie Roy of the Clean Water Network recounted,
Since the passage of the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1972, many of our waterways have become less polluted. Lake Erie, for example, which was declared “dead” in the 1960’s, now supports a multi-million dollar fishery. Pollution in river systems like the Mississippi from “point sources” such as sewage treatment plants and industrial facilities, has been dramatically reduced. In 1970, point-source contaminants from industrial facilities accounted for 85% of the pollutants in our waters, and today account for only 15%. The rate of wetland loss has declined by 90% since the 1970’s.
The editors of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel commented,
In 1972, two-thirds of the United States’ lakes, rivers and coastal water were considered unfit for one or more of their intended uses, such as fishing and swimming. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio had famously and repeatedly caught fire. In Florida, 26 million fish died from contamination in one lake; dumping raw sewage into rivers and lakes was standard practice.
Since the bill was enacted, reports the Natural Resources Defense Council, discharges of organic wastes decreased in the U.S. by over 45% from publically-owned waste treatment facilities and by 98% from industrial facilities.
Milwaukee has been part of that success story. Federal funds helped pay for the water pollution abatement program and the Deep Tunnel system that reduced the combined sewer overflows from an average of 50 to 60 a year to two and a half per year. Say what you will about the system, Lake Michigan is cleaner now as a result of the work of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and the Clean Water Act.
How the Clean Water Act could be improved
Global Water Policy Project Director Sandra Postel suggested five ways to give the Clean Water Act “new teeth and updated tools”:
First, clarify the scope of the Act. Recent Supreme Court cases have caused a great deal of confusion and ambiguity about what waters the Act actually protects. […]
Second, provide stronger incentives (or requirements) to curb fertilizer and pesticide runoff from farms. […]
Third, address pollution from urban storm water. […]
Fourth, bring the energy production practice of hydraulic fracturing under the purview of the Clean Water Act (as well as the Safe Drinking Water Act) and establish permitting requirements that safeguard surface and groundwaters from contamination. […]
Fifth, reinvigorate water conservation and efficiency. Water quality depends on having adequate quantity.
I couldn’t agree more with Postel’s action plan. Sad to say, there seems to be no political will in Washington to strengthen the Clean Water Act. On the contrary, the Republican-controlled U.S. House has repeatedly voted to weaken this law.
Of the 300-plus anti-environmental votes in the House during the 112th Congress, as toted up by Rep. Henry Waxman of California, perhaps three dozen were aimed in one way or another at undermining clean water protections or rejecting efforts to strengthen them. The most recent manifestation was the oddly-named “Stop the War on Coal Act,” a House-passed bill that would effectively strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to step in when state water quality standards are not strong enough to protect public health, as well as its authority to do something about mountaintop mining. The House has also cut funding for municipal water treatment plants and resisted efforts to strengthen protections for small streams and wetlands threatened by development.
What’s especially distressing is that over the last four decades few environmental laws have enjoyed as much bi-partisan support as this one. But bi-partisanship is becoming almost as faint a memory as the day when a Republican President and a Democratic Senate agreed on a whole series of laws protecting the air, water and endangered wildlife and, between them, constructed an environmental legacy of lasting value.
Iowa Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King have supported nearly all of those efforts, sometimes joined by Democrats Leonard Boswell and Dave Loebsack.
Local planners can do a lot to improve stormwater management, Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Peter Lehner writes.
In most cities, rainwater falls on paved surfaces, picks up oil, chemicals, and raw sewage, and dumps it into our waterways. This stormwater runoff is now the largest source of water pollution in many parts of the nation and a leading cause of beach closures. Water managers are realizing that if we design our communities to act more like natural systems, we can capture rain where it falls. A 1-inch rainstorm falling on a 1-acre meadow, for instance, would typically produce enough runoff to fill 28 bathtubs. The same storm falling on a 1-acre paved parking lot would produce 448 bathtubs of runoff-approximately 16 times as much.
We don’t want to turn our built environment into grassy meadows, but we can create a similar effect throughout our communities. A solution called green infrastructure-things like permeable pavement, grassy traffic medians, pocket parks, and green roofs-has been proven to reduce runoff. It is also often much cheaper than conventional cement storm drains. When Staten Island tackled stormwater using green infrastructure, it saved the city $80 million, increased nearby property values, and brought much needed green space to urban neighborhoods.
Other problems can’t be solved without federal action. Environment America Executive Director Margie Alt observed that a “frack-fueled drilling boom is putting our water at risk in several ways.”
Fracking produces billions of gallons of contaminated wastewater laced with toxics like benzene, heavy metals, and even radioactive material. This wastewater has contaminated drinking water sources from Pennsylvania to New Mexico. In addition, frack fluid chemicals are leaking and spilling into streams and creeks, and methane and other substances are contaminating nearby residents’ drinking water wells. Finally, with nearly a million gallons of water used in each frack job, this dirty drilling is placing an added strain on water resources.
Clearly, we need stronger rules and policies to safeguard our water. Yet two obstacles bar the path to tougher protections. First, our nation’s clean water laws are now hampered by significant loopholes and exemptions. The very reach of the Clean Water Act has been undermined by a set of court decisions. As a result, nearly 60 percent of our streams — including those feeding drinking water sources for 117 million Americans — may no longer be protected. This loophole has hobbled literally hundreds of enforcement cases against known polluters. Similarly, despite its wide-ranging damage, fracking is exempt from key provisions of several laws designed to protect our water and our health — including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Clean Air Act.
Conventional agriculture is a leading source of “non-point source” water pollution. Research has documented a link between pesticide and herbicide in groundwater and surface water and health problems including birth defects. Atrazine has been found in “approximately 75 percent of stream water and about 40 percent of all groundwater samples from agricultural areas.”
The quest to bring Iowa into Clean Water Act compliance
While Iowa still doesn’t fully enforce the Clean Water Act, some environmental groups have helped push state government in the right direction.
The Clean Water Act required states to enact “anti-degradation rules” by 1985 to “prevent the further pollution of lakes, rivers and streams.” The Iowa Department of Natural Resources adopted rules, but in 1997 the EPA “informed Iowa that its rules were weak and violated federal law.” Years of foot-dragging followed. The Iowa Environmental Council’s blog picks up the story:
Repeated delays in rewriting the rules led a coalition of environmental organizations – Iowa Environmental Council, Hawkeye Fly Fishing Association, the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Environmental Law & Policy Center – to file a Petition for Rulemaking with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in 2007. This compelled the State to act immediately to initiate the rule-making process. Over a period of two years, a dozen meetings were held around the state to gather public comments, rule revisions were made in reaction to the comments, and a hearing before the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission was held.
From the beginning of the rulemaking process in 2007, Iowa Environmental Council staff traveled to various parts of the state, educating Iowans about Antidegradation rules and encouraging them to attend public comment meetings and mail written comments to the DNR. Members of lake protective associations in northwestern Iowa, river advocates from central and northeastern Iowa and people from around the state who care about water quality sent hundreds of letters and attended local meetings in support of the rules. In the end, over 900 Iowans provided the DNR with feedback about the rules.
At the December 2009 meeting of the state’s Environmental Protection Commission, the revised rules were approved.
The state legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee allowed the anti-degradation rules to go into effect despite Republican opposition. The EPA formally approved Iowa’s rules in the autumn of 2010.
Several interest groups representing polluting industries then filed suit to block the anti-degradation rules. But in March 2012, a Polk County District Court declared all the legal challenges “without merit” in a summary judgment. Plaintiffs have appealed that ruling, but I am hopeful that higher courts will uphold District Court Judge Mary Pat Gunderson’s well-reasoned decision.
Environmental groups have also worked other angles to improve Iowa’s Clean Water Act enforcement. The Iowa Environmental Council, Sierra Club Iowa Chapter, Hawkeye Fly Fishing Association, Environmental Law and Policy Center, and Midwest Environmental Justice Advocates requested help from the EPA in 2004 in prodding the Iowa DNR to implement “three key elements of the Clean Water Act.”
In 2007, the Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club Iowa Chapter, and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement petitioned the EPA to address “Iowa’s failure to issue adequate National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits to open feedlots.” In 2011, the same three groups notified the EPA of their intent to sue:
EPA has long recognized the need to regulate CAFOs that discharge pollutants into waters of the U.S. under the CWA NPDES permit program. However, Iowa has failed to meet its obligation to effectively regulate this industry through permitting, inspections, and enforcement. EIP, Iowa CCI, and Sierra Club petitioned EPA to exercise its oversight authority, asking it to review Iowa’s CAFO program and initiate withdrawal proceedings if the state does not come into compliance. Nearly four years later, the state steadfastly refuses to implement federal CAFO regulations and unpermitted manure spills pollute the state’s waters unabated. EPA has an unambiguous obligations to timely respond to the Petition, and its delay in doing so is unreasonable.
The EPA issued a damning preliminary report about Iowa DNR’s failure to regulate water pollution from CAFOs. The DNR responded with an action plan that could be a lot stronger. The Iowa Environmental Council “identified several areas of concern regarding DNR’s treatment of large animal feeding operations.”
Earlier this evening (October 18), EPA regional officials held a meeting in Des Moines to hear from Iowans who favor stronger DNR enforcement of Clean Water Act rules on CAFOs. David Osterberg of the Iowa Policy Project discussed the DNR’s inadequate staffing and funding. (The Iowa Policy Project posted Osterberg’s letter to EPA staff here.) Several members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement submitted public testimony. The EPA could take over Clean Water Act enforcement from the Iowa DNR if state government proves unable to deal with these problems.
What individuals can do to keep water cleaner
Some water pollutants are so widespread that reading about them becomes depressing and overwhelming. Nevertheless, individuals can help reduce these problems locally.
The Chesapeake Bay News published a great post this week on 10 things people can do to improve water quality. These ideas range from simple (dispose of medications properly, use non-toxic household cleaners) to ambitious (install a rain garden in your yard, grow oysters, “a natural filter feeder”).
Please share any relevant thoughts in this thread.