Restoring the Clean Water Act
Did you know that more than one-third of Americans get their drinking water from water supplies that are currently vulnerable to pollution?
Or that millions of acres of prime waterfowl habitat--including the Prairie Pothole Region, breeding grounds for 50-75 percent of North America's duck population--are also at risk?
Find out what the loss of Clean Water Act protections means for your state.
Why are all these waters in jeopardy?
In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to protect all "waters of the United States." For almost 30 years, both the courts and the agencies responsible for administering the Act interpreted it to broadly protect our Nation's waters.
However, in two recent decisions, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC) in 2001 and Rapanos v. United States in 2006, the Supreme Court ignored congressional intent and narrowly interpreted the scope of waters covered by the Act, putting in doubt pollution safeguards for many vital wetlands, lakes and streams.
After the decisions, the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers excluded numerous waters from protection and placed unnecessarily high hurdles to protecting others. These decisions shattered the fundamental framework of the Clean Water Act.
On April 27, 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers released draft Clean Water guidance, a first step to restore Clean Water Act protections to many of the waters that were protected prior to the Supreme Court's rulings.
The clean water comment period closed August 1, 2011. The next steps are likely to be the release of the final guidance and proposed rule in the near future. In February 2012, more than 250 state and local sportsmen organizations, watershed groups and outdoor businesses from 11 Great Lakes, Southern and Western states called on the administration to act quickly toward this end. To read their letters, click here.
While the Administration must act within the bounds of these Court decisions, successful administration action will restore and clarify protections for millions of wetland acres and stream miles, placing these restored protections on a much more secure legal and scientific foundation.
To read joint comments from National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League of America, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Trout Unlimited, and the Wildlife Society on the 2011 clean water guidance click here.
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