We All Live Downstream

Michigan Policy Director Susan Harley is joined by Clean Water Heroes for the release of our Midterm Legislative Scorecard

By Cyndi Roper, Michigan State Director

If you were a Lansing lawmaker with a perfect environmental voting record in 2011, you were voting no.  With a state House majority firmly in control of the legislative agenda, the opportunity to support good environmental protections simply didn’t happen last year.  So the ticket to getting 100% on Clean Water Action’s Midterm Scorecard released today was opposing bad environmental legislation, which is what dominated the Republican majority’s policy agenda.

A majority of Michigan’s State Representatives voted repeatedly in 2011 to whittle away at our water protections using phony job creation arguments as political cover. That’s right.  They argue that weakening protections on Michigan’s lifeblood – its water – will create jobs.  (What kind of water are they drinking?!)  Not surprisingly, their votes have done nothing to create jobs. Zip. Nada.  On the other hand, protecting our Great Lakes and Michigan’s other water treasures creates jobs for today and for our future. Read the rest of this entry »

By Colleen Meehan, Pennsylvania Program Organizer

Eagles Fans for PA's Forests!

On December 18^th, Clean Water Action staff served as the Community Partner for the Philadelphia Eagles home game against the New York Jets. The Eagles recognized our work raising public awareness about threats to public health and the importance of our person-to-person approach to public education. So, we wondered, what could we do that would both advance our goals and make a fun, quick way of interacting with Eagles fans on game day.

When in doubt, resort to arts and crafts. We wanted to give Eagles fans a chance to stand up for a public resource that everyone cares about in Pennsylvania: state parks and state forests. So we made two huge signs that looked like trees for fans to hold up in photos and show their support for keeping public lands public.

Most Pennsylvanians agree that all the effort the Commonwealth has put into restoring forests lost to the timber industry 100 years ago shouldn’t be squandered to turn a quick buck for the state. The average person wants to keep our public lands public. Hikers, hunters and day trippers enjoy our parks and state forests, and they also provide real environmental services. Forests help to control air pollution and they filter rain water. Read the rest of this entry »

By Lynn Thorp, National Programs Director

On the first day back after the New Year, with 2011 and all the resolution making behind us, I wondered what would be in store for our work in 2012.  If yesterday’s Washington Post is any indication, maybe we’ll find a renewed understanding of the critical need to protect public health and natural resources.

On the front page, above the fold, we learned that our nation’s public water systems and waste water systems  need to upgrade and replace our water infrastructure to the tune of over $300 billion.  That’s a tough reality to accept, but it’s true.   Our systems are old and they’re crumbling.  It’s time our water infrastructure got the same public attention that is paid to our roads.  I really liked this sentence, because it’s a fact we don’t hear enough: “Although they are out of sight and out of mind except when they spring a leak, water and sewer systems are more vital to civilized society that any other aspect of infrastructure.”  Meeting our infrastructure needs and acting like preventing contamination of drinking water is Job #1, rather than more Congressional attacks on water protection, is a debate I’d love to have in 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kerry Doyle, NJ Environmental Federation Community Organizer

Kerry organizes communities Monday through Friday year-round (in every type of weather) doing door-to-door environmental education and fundraising campaigns. She has been with the organization for seven years – her unrelenting dedication to helping protect the environment and public health is remarkable and has touched the lives of many.

It’s December, and I just saw lightning. At first, I thought it was the strobing LED peppermint candy Christmas lights, but then I got a text message from a trainee: “Kerry, what do we do when there’s lightning?” Darn.

As a seven year field organizing veteran, this is not the worst weather I have ever seen, but it will definitely crack the Top 20. My umbrella has been shredded, and my clipboard is almost too wet to sign. The last stop of my night is a house with a seemingly endless driveway where a young mother has *not* promised to write a letter and leave it on her door. She didn’t say “no” either, though, but she promised to think about the issue after I left and write the letter if she decided she agreed, so here I am climbing her driveway in driving rain because canvassers are inherently optimists. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jennifer Peters, National Water Campaigns Coordinator

For the past decade, Clean Water Action has led the fight to restore pollution protections for small streams, wetlands and other water bodies that risk being poisoned or destroyed by developers, Big Coal or other polluters because of weak Clean Water Act policies adopted by the last Bush Administration.  These weak policies were adopted in response to two misguided Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006, which effectively reversed nearly three decades of regulatory history.  Prior to these two court decisions, federal agencies asserted broad authority over most rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands. Read the rest of this entry »

No Fracking in the Delaware Watershed!

By Jenny Vickers, New Jersey Communications Coordinator and Organizer

In just a few days the Delaware River Watershed could be opened up to a controversial method of natural gas extraction – hydraulic fracturing – putting the drinking water for 15 million people, including 3 million in New Jersey at risk.

On Monday, November 21, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), consisting of the governors of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, plus Army Corps of Engineers which represents the federal government, will vote on proposed rules that would lift a moratorium and allow tens of thousands of gas wells to be drilled in the basin. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joe Emmons, National Programs Intern

As a Canvasser in our San Francisco office, and more recently in DC, I have spoken to thousands of people of all political views from coast to coast.   One thing remains the same; everyone knows healthy local economies rely on clean water for recreation, for farming, and most importantly, for drinking.  That’s why I wasn’t surprised to read in the Washington Post today that clean air and public health protections are, in fact, not bad for our economy.

Regrettably, many in Congress are still stuck in this line of thinking.  Since the beginning of this congressional session we have fought to enforce safety standards concerning serious issues that otherwise could result in severe environmental damage.  Basic health and safety concerns from Coal Ash and Mountain top removal to the Keystone pipeline have consistently been tagged by our opposition as ‘Job Killers’.

Fortunately Clean Water Action is making sure the US Senate doesn’t block a common sense fix to our foundation, the Clean Water Act.  Please join us in this fight, together we can show Washington that common sense solutions to protect America’s resources and beauty are a fight we are happy to take on, and with your help, win.

By Clean Water Action Minnesota

Contact your Senators today!

Congress continues to strip out standards that protect our health from hazardous pollution. In the coming days, the U.S. Senate will vote on the Congressional Review Act (S.J. Res. 27) sponsored by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). The Congressional Review Act is an anti-regulatory, rarely-used mechanism for blocking federal agency rules. Senator Paul is using this political tactic to block the Cross State Air Pollution Rule.

Finalized this past July, the Cross State Air Pollution Rule improves air quality for 240 million Americans by cutting power plant smog and soot emissions that cross state lines and contribute to unsafe levels of air pollution. This rule is needed to protect Americans in downwind states from the health and economic costs caused by pollution emitted in other states.

The Cross State Air Pollution Rule will have significant health benefits. It will save up to 34,000 lives by preventing 15,000 heart attacks and 400,000 aggravated asthma attacks and hundreds of thousands of cases of other respiratory ailments every year. In 2014, the rule is estimated to result in up to $280 billion in annual health care savings.

Your Senators need to hear from you! Tell them to stand up for clean air and vote NO on the Congressional Review Act!

Please call the Congressional Switchboard, (202) 224-2131 and ask for your Senator

Power Plant Emissions

By Cord Briggs, National Programs Intern

Since taking control of the House, Republican leadership has been hard at work dismantling our clean water and air protections.  To date they have passed a whopping 160 anti-environmental bills, and that number is only continuing to sky-rocket. They have effectively made the 112^th Congress the most anti-environment Congress in history.

Last week, House Leadership pushed through a bill that would slash long-overdue air pollution standards for cement plants.  These plants are the second largest source of mercury pollution in the US and also are known producers of toxic metals like arsenic, chromium and lead.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that these standards would annually save as many as 2,500 lives and prevent 17,000 cases of asthma and 130,000 days of missed work.

There’s something new every week with this Congress. So, what’s on the agenda this week?  First up is a bill that would prevent new emissions standards for industrial boilers from taking effect and permanently exempt incinerators from the Clean Air Act.  Earth Justice estimates that, if passed, the bill could result in anywhere between 7,500 and 19,500 deaths.  After Boilers is a motion to block new protections for coal ash, which is currently largely unregulated and contains such lovely compounds as arsenic, lead and mercury.  Read the rest of this entry »

By Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania State Director

"Flaring" a fracked well

The EPA’s strong proposal to restrict air emissions from oil and gas extraction operations is a good start.  EPA regulations of these large pollution sources are urgently needed in cities like Pittsburgh and in many other communities across the country.  Gas drilling has been poorly controlled by state governments and we desperately need the federal government to take a strong role in protecting public health and the environment.

Take a look at the picture to the left.  That is a Marcellus Shale gas well being “flared” and it was taken from the backyard of a Washington County, PA resident.  This is one of the most drilled regions of Pennsylvania and it’s just outside of Pittsburgh.  This is not an isolated photo – Pennsylvania allows gas wells as close as 200 feet from a residence.  People are living extremely close to these pollution sources.  The EPA and state governments must take this into account when making any new rules on emissions from fracking operations.
Read the rest of this entry »