We All Live Downstream

Sometimes, a system becomes so badly broken that no amount of tinkering around the edges – not even the world’s largest roll of duct tape – can make things right. When it comes to protecting water and health, it’s surely time for an overhaul.

Clean Water Action’s proposal for a new system based on preventing pollution and health harm before irreversible damage is already done has made it into the final round of voting in Change.org’s Ideas for Change in America competition. Your votes now could make the winning difference. This is a powerful yet practical vision for the kind of overhaul that offers real promise for America’s Clean Water future. If you agree, please show your support by voting in advance of the March 12 deadline (4pm Eastern). And, if you like what you’re reading here, help us to spread the word.

Look “Upstream” to Protect Water and Health:  Prevent Pollution and Health Harm Before Toxics Enter Our Water.

The Problem You’ve seen the reports on “gender-bending” fish in waterways around the country, and pharmaceutical drugs detected in drinking water sources… On the aging water treatment systems that spill raw sewage whenever it rains… And the thousands of water pollution or safe drinking water violations that go unpunished each year. For every “regulated” contaminant there are tens of thousands for which safety standards have yet to be set. Under-funded government agencies are years behind in meeting environmental cleanup, research and health protection targets.

Consider the latest on bisphenol A (BPA), the synthetic sex hormone found in many plastics. After years of study and debate, the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) finally took the baby step this January of classifying BPA as a “chemical of concern.” Meanwhile, BPA remains on the market and in products ranging from baby bottles and toys to water containers and linings in canned foods.

Solving these problems involves more than just updating a few laws, strengthening enforcement programs, funding more research, investing more and smarter in water supply and pollution treatment systems. All of these are needed, and more, but the system itself is in need of an overhaul.

The old ways of tackling one pollutant at a time and behaving as if water pollution is somehow separate from what’s in our air, on the land, in our food, in our bodies, affecting our health and that of the planet, are no longer up to today’s challenges – if they ever were.

The Solution: Look Upstream and Act Now to Prevent Harm

The “we all live downstream” view of things has never been more true than in our modern global economy and time of global ecological crisis. For solutions, we should be looking upstream.

Take BPA. Why delay, when we can protect children now from preventable exposures that are linked to cancers, behavioral changes, reproductive harm, heart problems and other illnesses? Get BPA-laden products off the market, and make more room for the safer alternatives that are already available.

Move away from our system of after-the-fact treatment and clean-up, which requires the conclusive proof of harm only us human lab rats can provide, before action is even considered.

Looking upstream means holding companies accountable for their products’ “downstream” impacts. Proof of safety should be required before any new chemical enters the marketplace, rather than proof of harm once the contaminant shows up in our water and our bodies.

Shift the focus to prevention, and whole new areas for problem-solving, innovation and green commerce open up. We can continue and accelerate progress toward cleaner water and healthier communities, even in the face of scientific uncertainty and resource constraints.

We can move upstream in 2010:

• give the public full access to information on chemical hazards in workplaces and consumer products by closing “trade secret” and “security” loopholes corporations use to sidestep disclosure rules;
• engage in the first-ever overhaul of the broken Toxic Substances Control Act; and
• support state-level campaigns to protect children from preventable toxic exposures.

Don’t forget, the deadline for voting on Change.org is this Friday, March 12.

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