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 »

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 Lynn Thorp, National Programs Coordinator

Protect All our water!

Clean Water Action was founded to make sure we kept pushing our country to meeting the ambitious goals of the Clean Water Act.  That project is far from over. Next week the U.S. Senate will vote on a spending bill amendment that would move us backwards.

We’ve been working for almost a decade to restore water protections lost under what we have called the Bush Administration’s “No Protection” policies. Thanks to those policies, more than half the nation’s streams and 20 million acres of wetlands now lack clear protections under the federal Clean Water Act.

Next week’s Dirty Water Amendment would permanently block the Army Corps of Engineers from working to fix this problem, thus stalling all federal agency efforts.  This amendment would be a major setback. It would leave drinking water sources for over 117 million people vulnerable and perpetuate permitting and enforcement confusion.

The Administration is proposing common sense solutions to this gap in water protections.  We think it’s time to focus on the unfinished business of the Clean Water Act, not keep arguing about the definition of the word “All”.

Tell your friends and neighbors.  We all want clean water. Let’s do something about it.

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

Let's get it "over the hill"39 - will it get to 40?

By Lynn Thorp, National Programs Coordinator

Today is the 39^th anniversary of the landmark Clean Water Act.  Since Clean Water Action was  founded  as the idea became law, it’s a meaningful  date for us.  The idea then was that the long struggle to point to our nation’s water problems and win a national solution was not over when President Nixon signed the bill into law.  In fact, the struggle was just beginning.

With a goal like “zero discharge of pollution” into our nation’s water by the middle 1980’s, we knew it would not be easy!  The Clean Water Act includes numerous programs and many ambitious activities.  Not all of them have been put in place yet.  And every step of the way, those who profit from unfettered ability to pollute and damage our water resources have put their money and power to work to try to limit the Act’s scope or to question the federal government’s role in protecting our water resources. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Mark Schmerling

By Cord Briggs, National Programs Intern

Do you breathe air? Then I have some good news for you!  On July 28^th the EPA released a suite of new regulations that, for the first time, will control airborne emissions from oil and gas wells, and specifically those drilled using the risky practice of hydro-fracking.  This is truly a win-win-win.  Not only will the public reap the benefit of cleaner air (and water), but greenhouse gas emissions will drop, and the petroleum industry will actually end up making more money!

It works like this, when a natural gas well is first drilled or fracked huge amounts of natural gas along cancerous toxins, fracking fluid, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), water, and the -greenhouse gas methane are released in what is know as “flowback.”   Flowbacks spew these dangerous pollutants into the environment for anywhere from three to ten days. Unsurprisingly, flowbacks are currently unregulated! Read the rest of this entry »

Let's Stop this TRAIN Wreck

By Dan Endreson, Minnesota Program Coordinator

This summer was rough for the environment. The 112^th U.S. House of Representatives has been one the most anti-environment Congress’ in history by passing legislation that will severely impact water and air quality for generations. Congress continues to go after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by attempting to limit its ability to update and enforce the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. In August, Congress took on the Clean Water Act with the “Dirty Water Act” (H.R. 2018) that would prevent the EPA from being able to regulate nutrient pollution in our nation’s waterways and prevent toxic mountaintop coal from polluting our streams. Today, Congress is taking on the Clean Air Act.

As I write this, Congress is taking up what is called the TRAIN Act (Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act, H.R. 2401), the most dangerous attack on air quality standards since the Clean Air Act was signed into law 40 years ago. The bill would block the EPA from enforcing emission standards to limit mercury and other toxic pollution from power plants and standards to curb smog and soot pollution that crosses state lines. Keeping the EPA from enforcing these standards will expose our children, families and communities to toxic air pollutants that cause illnesses and developmental disorders, particularly in small children. Blocking these standards for just one additional year would result in: Read the rest of this entry »