Clean Water Action Urges Congress To Move On New Bill

Washington, DC - Clean Water Action strongly endorsed legislation introduced today in the United States Senate to restore critical Clean Water Act protections lost through six years of confusing and contradictory court and government agency decisions.

The measure was introduced by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-WI, and several co-sponsors.

"Restoring the ability of the Clean Water Act to protect our water resources must top Congress' water agenda," said John DeCock, President of Clean Water Action. "The annual Gallup Poll on the environment again showed this is the top environmental priority for Americans, with 84 percent saying they are concerned about pollution of drinking water. Yet since 2003 drinking water sources for 110 million of us are at risk because of policies that give free reign to pollution and destructive activity. It's past time for Congress to act."

Supreme Court and agency decisions in recent years put at risk Clean Water Act protections for headwater, intermittent and ephemeral streams that put 59 percent of the nation's waterways and millions of acres of wetlands are at risk.

"Today Sen. Feingold gives us our best opportunity yet to fix the problem and end the disconnect between what the public wants and deserves and what their government has thus far failed to deliver. Congress should follow the advice of more than 160 leading scientists and pass the Clean Water Restoration Act. "

Since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, federal, state and county regulators had worked out jurisdictional issues around enforcement based on rules established by federal agencies. That arrangement was upset beginning in 2001 when the Supreme Court issued a set of confusing decisions in contested cases involving Army Corps of Engineers permitting.

Confusion over Clean Water Act jurisdiction has led to delays in permitting decisions. Under new rules put into place by government regulators, permit applicants must complete a 12-page form. To figure out that form, applicants have to study an 86-page instruction booklet. The Corps of Engineers says that this increases the time it takes to get a permit by up to three months. The Clean Water Restoration Act cuts the red tape and eliminates this onerous process, which has been criticized by public officials for adding cost and delay.

Waterways at risk until the Clean Water Restoration Act passes range from most of 53-mile stretch the Los Angeles River basin-declared exempt from Clean Water Act protection by the Corps of Engineers-to Avondale Creek in Birmingham, Alabama, a continuously flowing stream that eventually flows into a large, navigable river.

In the LA River case, the EPA eventually overruled the Corps of Engineers following intense public scrutiny over the controversy. In Alabama, even though a jury found a pipe manufacturer guilty of knowingly discharging oil and other toxins into Avondale Creek and fined the company $5 million, the conviction was later overturned on appeal. The case will have to be retried because the court questioned whether this stream still qualified for Clean Water Act protections after the Supreme Court rulings.

The Supreme Court decisions called into question the scientific relationship between vitally important wetlands and large rivers downstream. Earlier this month more than 160 scientists sent a letter to President Obama urging him to support the Clean Water Restoration Act, which would clarify in law the connection between waterways-connections well understood by scientists.

According to Ducks Unlimited scientists, 96% of the remaining wetlands in the prairie pothole region and the Gulf Coast, and up to 88-90% of the remaining wetlands in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic Coast regions, might no longer be protected by the Clean Water Act. These wetlands provide critical habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife, provide flood control and base flows for rivers, streams and groundwater aquifers, and protect and improve the quality of water that flows downstream to other users. Without these wetlands, property owners and others could face up to $30 billion in annual flood damages in the continental United States and the loss of $122 billion of fish and wildlife-recreation expenditures.

"Congress understood the importance of protecting small streams and wetlands 37 years ago when it passed the Clean Water Act with the intent of protecting all of America's waters," said DeCock. "But the courts and government agencies have decided for Congress and the rest of us that somehow this doesn't matter. Only Congress can fix this problem and it is important President Obama make clear his strong and unequivocal support for the Clean Water Restoration Act."

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Clean Water Action: empowering people to protect America's waters, the health of our families, and to make democracy work.