Lynn Thorp - National Campaigns Director

We can and should do more to put the Clean Water Act to work to protect our drinking water. That’s where the Source Water Collaborative comes in.

This Earth Day, take a moment to make your voice heard! Earth Day can be overwhelming. There is no shortage of troubling information about increasing climate change, and what that means for our communities and our health.

Perhaps nothing makes people run for the hills faster than the prospect of a meaty discussion about federal appropriations of funding for the federal government. At least that what happens whenever I try to talk to my friends about it. But keep your seat for a minute.  

Today, we’re joining more than 1300 other organizations and individuals in the Value of Water Campaign’s “Imagine A Day Without Water.” Imagine a Day Without Water is a national education campaign that brings together diverse stakeholders to highlight how water is essential, invaluable, and in need of investment. Activities include events, resolutions, student contests, social media engagement, and more, all across the country.

I’ve been working on the question of what water should be protected by the Clean Water Act for 19 years. Polluters and their allies in Congress have been trying to remove some water bodies from the Act’s jurisdiction for just as long, so you would think I ran out of outrage a long time ago. But no.

President Biden proposed a lot of money for funding of lead pipe replacement in the American Jobs Plan.  This could be a game changer. Removing the largest source of lead in drinking water is an enormous and expensive task. The cost of lead service line replacement has been the biggest barrier to both decisive federal regulation and proactive water system and community action. In addition to the President’s plan, significant funding has been included in several bills introduced or in the works in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House this year.

During the past three months of stay-at-home time, obtaining “things” took on new complications. I’ve found that I don’t really need all the items that might pop into my head. “Do I really need this?” is a daily question. This came to mind last week as we commented to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on regulating PFAS chemicals in drinking water (See here for background on these chemicals and drinking water challenges.).

What's with all the bottled water?

As people stocked up on food and essential items for their time at home to help slow the spread of the COVID-19, I saw shopping carts full of bottled water.  Television shots and videos on social media of shoppers often showed the same thing. It seems that over the last two decades, our preparation for natural disasters started to include bottled water -- and a lot of it..  There is reason to prepare for disruption in water service in a hurricane. What about during a pandemic? 

As I watched a February 11 hearing about regulating lead at the tap, I experienced one of those “Opposite Day” episodes where two objective realities collide. I listened to 7 witnesses talk to the U.S. Congress about the proposed revisions to the Safe Drinking Water Act Lead and Copper Rule. My colleague Kim Gaddy, who lives in Newark, talked about what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should do to improve the proposal.