We All Live Downstream

by Jonathan Scott

A version of this post was originally featured on SurveyMonkey’s blog site, and includes additional information on new survey results affirming the public’s overwhelming support for clean water.

Once Upon a Time: When Rivers Caught Fire

Not too long ago, things were pretty bad for our water. Unchecked industrial discharges and poorly-treated sewage in our water meant that massive fish-kills were commonplace. Lakes were “dead” or dying, and rivers containing more waste than water actually caught fire. It was around that time, in the 1970s, when Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund got their start. The organizations’ missions were – and remain – focused on a goal and vision of fishable, swimmable, drinkable water for all Americans.

Fast-forward four decades. Laws such as the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, created and passed with help from Clean Water Action and others, have brought incredible progress on water cleanup, water restoration and water protection. Everyone has benefited. Our clean water progress is one of the great environmental success stories of our time. Read the rest of this entry »

Maintain Our Clean Water Progress - Take Action Today

From our friends at National Wildlife Federation

By Jan Goldman-Carter

Our nation’s investment in clean water began forty years ago with the 1972 Clean Water Act – a bi-partisan congressional commitment to end the flagrant pollution of rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Republicans and Democrats alike recognized that to clean up our rivers, lakes, and bays, we had to stop pollution at its source – upstream in the multitude of headwaters, wetlands, and small streams that store and filter water before releasing it downstream. Since its birth, the Clean Water Act has guided the clean up of America’s waters, rendering many of our waters once again safe for fishing, drinking and swimming.
Read the rest of this entry »

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 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 »

By Joe Emmons, National Program Intern

Over the last couple weeks Clean Water Action and our allies have been fighting tooth and nail in the Senate against a massive affront to the Clean Water Act, the Barrasso-Heller Amendment.  This Amendment would permanently cut all funding from The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) and the EPA to classify levels of protection for water sources.   Luckily, with your help, we have had a great deal of impact on this Amendment.  Voting has been pushed back, allowing us more time to rally support for clean streams, wetlands, and drinking water for all Americans. 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.