Washington, D.C. – Clean Water Action today delivered more than 10,000 comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from Americans opposed to the agency’s decision to not protect surface waters from pollution that first flows through groundwater. EPA’s decision reverses decades of agency and state policy requiring permits for this type of pollution. The comments Clean Water Action delivered today urge EPA to reverse its decision, pointing out that it doesn’t make sense for the Clean Water Act to protect rivers and lakes from pollution discharged through a pipe, but to ignore pollution if it comes through groundwater.
Clean Water Action President and CEO, Bob Wendelgass, released the following statement:
“This is a reckless departure from past practice and agency precedent. It’s a senseless handout to polluting industries, at the expense of our water and health. That’s not surprising – Andrew Wheeler, like Scott Pruitt before him, has never found a safeguard he didn’t want to gut to help former clients and other corporate special interests. What is surprising is Wheeler and EPA continue to think that limiting comment periods and making it hard to find information will keep the public from speaking out. It won’t work – we’ve caught on to their scheme. EPA wants to pull the Clean Water Act apart, piece by piece, and we’re going to make sure the public knows it.”
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Since our founding during the campaign to pass the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972, Clean Water Action has worked to win strong health and environmental protections by bringing issue expertise, solution-oriented thinking and people power to the table. We will protect clean water in the face of attacks from a polluter friendly Administration and Congress.
