Turning The Tide
On Water Pollution

“[T]oday, the rivers of this country serve as little more than sewers to the seas. Wastes from cities and towns, from farms and forests, from mining and manufacturing, foul the streams, poison the estuaries, threaten the life of the ocean depths."

These are the words of U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie on November 2, 1971, during his introduction of the bill that would become the Federal Clean Water Act. At that time pollution and raw sewage from 60 percent of the nation’s population was dumped directly into our rivers and lakes. Ninety percent of U.S. watersheds were characterized as polluted. And in January 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland burst into flames (not for the first time) fueled by oil and industrial wastes. Then, in June 1969, a blowout at an oil-drilling platform off the coast of Santa Barbara spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil, marring 35 miles of California coastline.

Congress Passes the Clean Water Act
Public outrage over these and similar incidents drove the passage the Clean Water Act. In warning the U.S. House against the dangers of failing to override President Richard Nixon’s veto, Representative Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill from Boston stated, “Should we fail to act, future generations of Americans living with dirty, unsafe rivers and lakes would know where to squarely fix the blame with the Congress that refused to override the groundless objections of the President.”

I remember the Cuyahoga River ablaze and that I couldn’t swim in the Hudson, the Charles or the Potomac growing up. In 1970 these insults helped trigger the largest public demonstration in American history. Twenty million Americans hit the streets on Earth Day, demanding that our political leaders clean up our water and air. The Clean Water Act was the legislative response. It promised to make every American river fishable and swimmable and to end all discharges of pollutants into America’s waterways.

The results of that environmental law are demonstrated in improved water quality in rivers, lakes and coastal waters across this country.
In many ways, the Act truly did turn the tide on water pollution. We drastically reduced the percentage of our waters deemed unsafe for fishing and swimming, invested billions in sewage treatment plants and cut the rate of wetlands loss by three-quarters.

A key element to the successes achieved to date is the Act’s combination of techniques to revive the nation’s waters. The Act sets minimum standards for wastewater treatment and provides funding for improvements at municipal wastewater treatment plants; it requires all discrete dischargers of pollutants (i.e., point sources) to obtain individual, tailored permits that clearly specify the discharge requirements necessary to prevent degradation of its receiving waters; and it requires states to identify all waters that are too polluted to be used safely, determine maximum pollutant loads for those waters and implement a cleanup plan.

But even after 34 years of progress, clean water remains an elusive goal. Most Americans believe that the national bipartisan consensus for clean water still holds. Like motherhood and apple pie, they don’t believe that an American politician or corporation would oppose clean water. Unfortunately, this belief is wrong. The Bush administration has weakened or eliminated requirements for treating raw sewage, cleaning up polluted waters, keeping solid wastes out of waters and protecting wetlands and streams. The Clean Water Act’s principal goal of eliminating all pollution discharges has been disregarded like water in a flush toilet.

Standing in the Way of Progress
Unfortunately, each one of the Clean Water Act’s core concepts is under attack by President Bush. This administration has derailed clean water advances, broadened loopholes and legalized previously prohibited destructive practices. The rules and policies of the Bush administration are rapidly undoing past progress and undermining the billions of dollars our country has invested in the effort to clean the waters.

While overall water pollution levels have decreased dramatically since the passage of the Act, data show a dangerous trend. In 2002, EPA released its biennial survey of the quality of the nation’s waters. It showed that for the first time since the passage of the Clean Water Act water pollution levels were again on the rise. A recent EPA survey found that more than half of all U.S. streams are now polluted. Many of the details of the decline of our waterways remains obscure because the White House has derailed funding for scientific studies and resisted the requirement in the Clean Water Act that EPA report to Congress and the public on the health of America’s waterbodies. Waterkeeper Alliance is working to force EPA to release this information.

We know that thanks to Bush administration policies the amount of untreated sewage still reaching our rivers, lakes and coasts is massive and growing. Modest rainstorms send billions of gallons of raw sewage carrying infectious pathogens – microbes, viruses and parasites – into our waterways and drinking water supplies. Even during dry weather outdated and badly maintained sewage systems spill untreated waste into our waterways.

Each year the U.S. experiences about 40,000 overflows of raw sewage and the attendant garbage – such as syringes, toxic industrial waste and contaminated stormwater – into our waters.  And each year about 400,000 sewage backups pollute the basements of American homes.  These overflows expose communities to a host of deadly diseases. These overflows contaminate drinking water and cause beach closings, fish kills, shellfish bed closures and gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses. Sewage-infested waters pose the greatest threat for children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems. Indeed, each year 3.5 million people are made sick from swimming in water contaminated by sewage overflows and an additional 500,000 from drinking contaminated water. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 900 die from waterborne infections each year.

Authorizing Raw Sewage Discharges
We also know that regulation of sewage treatment is flowing backwards. Right now, EPA is in the process of approving a Blending Policy that allows for the mixing and releasing of sewage and stormwater. But for decades we have known better. Dilution is not the solution to pollution. Fixing the problem is.

Allowing improperly treated and/or untreated wastewater to enter waters of the United States represents a giant step backwards from the goals and spirit of Clean Water Act. Yet, instead of tackling this problem by requiring sewage treatment agencies to remedy or cease their illegal discharges, EPA wants to sanction illegal blending and allow the discharge of raw and partially treated sewage from inadequate treatment plants. The implementation of the proposed Blending Policy will increase levels of pathogens and other dangerous pollutants in our waterways and mean more of our sewage will reach our rivers and beaches.

While the Bush administration rolls back protections for water quality, and state and federal officials avoid their responsibility to enforce the law, raw sewage flows into our waters. Meanwhile, Americans are often denied even rudimentary public notice of such contamination in the waters from which they drink and where they swim and fish. As the late Senator Edmund S. Muskie said in 1971, “The fact of raw sewage floating in our river outrages us.” 

More than thirty years later, it still outrages your local Waterkeepers.