Beating Around the Bush:
Pollution Pumping Rule
Bush administration to allow polluted water transfers between waterbodies

The 18-mile Shandaken Tunnel was built in the early 1920s to carry 650 million gallons of water from a Catskill Mountain reservoir to Esopus Creek to help supply New York City with drinking water. Each day, this extra silt-laden water from Schoharie Reservoir chokes the otherwise pristine Esopus Creek, turning the water murky brown. A federal court ruled that this water transfer requires a Clean Water Act permit.

Thousands of water transfer projects like this one operate across the U.S., transporting enormous quantities of water from one waterbody to the next, often without regard to environmental, human health and economic consequences. The Clean Water Act is the only safeguard against the pollution of waterways through inter-basin transfers. 

But EPA wants to change this. This past June, EPA proposed a rule to exempt water transfers from the Clean Water Act permitting requirements. If approved, waters, no matter how polluted, can be transferred into waterways, no matter how pristine, without review or authorization. Why? The Bush administration wants to undercut the growing number of lawsuits against this practice. If EPA legalizes the transfers, it cuts down their paperwork.  

Inter-basin transfers can spread any number of pollutants including industrial and agricultural waste, sewage, invasive species and other contaminants to our nation’s waterways. Greater incidences of fish kills, human illness and other disastrous impacts of pollution in our waters will result if EPA’s proposal to exempt polluted water pumping from the Clean Water Act is finalized. Waterkeeper Alliance has submitted extensive comments in opposition to the rule on behalf of more than 50 Waterkeeper programs, urging the EPA to withdraw the proposal and establish proper permitting requirements for water transfers as required under the Clean Water Act.