We All Live Downstream

Preventing Tomorrow’s Drinking Water Problems Today: It’s the Least a Superpower Can Do

by Lynn Thorp

During the last few weeks, Clean Water Action helped coordinate a United States site visit by the United Nations Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque is the first such Expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. One of her roles is to undertake visits like this one and make recommendations to governments on improving access and ensuring protection of human rights associated with water and sanitation.

In preparation for a meeting with Ms. De Albuquerque, I reflected on how the facts on the ground in the United States might appear to a person who has done a similar investigation in Bangladesh and who plans a visit to Namibia. It’s important to note here that, while we enjoy a relative prosperity in terms of water, access to clean water and sanitation are by no means universal  in the U.S. Our friends from the Canaan Valley Institute, for example, point out that Central Appalachia is emblematic of rural access issues and that the state of West Virginia alone has identified 140 communities that lack adequate wastewater treatment.

Still, it seems to me that the U.S. comes at this question from a far different place than countries that are struggling with the basics.

Clean Water Action makes a number of recommendations informed by our 21^st Century Smart Clean and Green Project on innovations in water use and management.

But I wanted to make a contribution on this question: What is the biggest challenge to accessing clean drinking water here in the United States?

There’s one really big one that I came up with:  the special interest stranglehold that controls “upstream” contamination sources.

Human activities – building cities and towns, agricultural practices, chemicals in products we use, choices we make in energy production, etc – are at the root of most drinking water problems. We have rules and regulations governing these kinds of activities, but none of them make drinking water impacts a primary consideration. Just think how an increased emphasis on drinking water protection might counter the special interest interference that weakens and often defeats prevention policies.

You’ve probably read at least one story in the newspaper and worried about a chemical found in drinking water because this chemical is an “endocrine disruptor.” That means it interferes with the most fundamental processes in people’s bodies – like reproduction and metabolism. That doesn’t sound healthy.

But did you notice any news coverage on how a policy that could eliminate that contamination-causing chemical in consumer products is mired in special-interest-driven debate over the science? Did you know that this chemical is found in all kinds of products that you didn’t even know contained it? Did you know that this chemical product ingredient isn’t even all that good at doing the job it claims to do? That’s exactly what’s happening with the anti-bacterial chemical triclosan.

In just about every area I can think of, the burden of pollution is left to people in “downstream” communities to deal with, while unsustainable activity is allowed to continue upstream. For the 85% of people in this country who are served by Public Water Systems (those regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act), the cost of monitoring and treatment is reflected in their water bills.

With municipalities stretched to the limit in today’s tough economic times, it’s fair to wonder why we must wait to deal with pollution until it reaches the drinking water treatment plant.

Just last month, a report by Earthjustice exposed how the waste from coal-burning power plants is a source of the notorious chemical hexavelant chromium and other contaminants in drinking water sources. EPA is updating its analysis of this chemical’s health impacts, and consumers nationwide are concerned about it. Why then are we unable to finalize regulations for disposal of this coal ash, which leaches the toxin into streams where it ends up in drinking water sources? And why in the world does building a new generation of coal plants, which will produce even more of the same toxic water contaminants, sound like a good idea?

The United States could aspire to show the world that we’re ahead of the curve in preventing drinking water contamination before it starts.

We won’t be able to do this if we can’t stop arguing about which bodies of water qualify to be considered “waters of the United States” and therefore protected under the Clean Water Act. This Orwellian bureaucratic confusion, driven by more special interests, has left drinking water sources for more than 110 million people in our country at risk.

We’ve got to stop sticking communities with the bills for pollution — in the form of drinking water contamination. In the coming months, regulators and Public Water Systems will deal with issues ripped from the headlines – perchlorate, lead and hexavelent chromium.

We knew enough decades ago to have prevented these drinking water contamination problems, and now the burden is right where it does NOT belong. Preventing tomorrow’s drinking water problems will not only improve public health and take this unfair economic burden off of local communities and ratepayers, but will also demonstrate to the rest of the world that integrated thinking and strong prevention policies can lead to innovations that are wins for everyone.

It’s the least a superpower can do.

You can read Clean Water Action’s letter on this subject to the United National Independent Expert here.

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Lynn Thorp is National Campaigns Coordinator for Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund

Posted on March 24, 2011  | Filed Under Global Warming and a New Energy Economy, Healthy, Safer Families and Communities, Making Democracy Work, Protecting America's Waters | Comments Off

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