Skip Navigation
Our Water is at Risk!

For over thirty years, the Clean Water Act has provided essential safeguards to all waters. However, two muddied U.S. Supreme Court decisions and an organized attack by industry polluters and developers are threatening protections for 20 million acres of wetlands and 60% of our nation's streams! To add insult to injury, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently issued a vague and confusing "guidance" that further erodes critical protection on our waters.

The guidance is seriously flawed and will lead to more polluted water.  In its current form, the guidance leaves many so-called "isolated" waters such as wetlands open for destruction, leaves many headwaters and streams without clear protection, and ignores legal tools that could be used to preserve America's waters.

The EPA is currently taking public comments on this "misguided" guidance. But time is running out. The public can comment until January 21. Please take a moment to send a letter to the EPA urging them to revise this guidance and guarantee protections for all waters of the United States!



Are you having trouble with this page? Click here.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: EPA and the Corps Must Protect All Waters - EPA-HQ-OW-2007-0282

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I am writing today to say that I believe the June guidance issued by EPA and Army Corps of Engineers aimed at implementing the Supreme Court's decision in Rapanos v. United States is fundamentally flawed because it does not fully protect the all of the water bodies that the agencies have the authority and responsibility to safeguard, even considering the Supreme Court's decisions in Rapanos and the 2001 SWANCC case. I urge you to withdraw this guidance and issue a replacement document that protects waters to the fullest extent that the Clean Water Act allows.

The Supreme Court's decisions left the agencies a great deal of flexibility to protect the nation's wetlands and streams when they collectively contribute to water quality, yet the guidance wrongly takes a very narrow approach to considering such cumulative effects. The likely result is that more streams and wetlands will be found to be insignificant and, therefore, unprotected. The resulting adverse impact on water quality will almost certainly be substantial, threatening the safety of drinking water, the quality of waters where we fish and swim, and the health of wildlife that depend on clean water.

Another significant problem with the present proposal is that it leaves in place agency practices that have disavowed Clean Water Act protections for so-called "isolated" waters, leaving thousands of additional water bodies across that country without pollution protections. This policy is scientifically unwise and legally unsound, yet the EPA and Corps are simply ignoring these problems, even after the U.S. House of Representatives told EPA to stop following the "isolated" waters policy

These are just a few of the many problems with the June 2007 guidance. Please rethink and revise your current interpretation of the Supreme Court's decision and the Clean Water Act. Use your significant remaining legal authority to protect the whole aquatic system because its numerous components are interrelated.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
January 16, 2008


Background Information

For over 35 years, the Clean Water Act has explicitly included broad protections against pollution for all of the nation's waters, including the many streams, rivers, ponds, wetlands and lakes that supply drinking water, recreation opportunities, fishing, and wildlife habitat.

The Clean Water Act is one of nation's strongest environmental laws but has recently been under attack by mining companies, developers, Big Oil, and other industrial polluters who want to strip away fewer protections against discharging harmful chemicals, sewage, and other pollutants that dirty or destroy our nation's waters.

A fractured 2006 Supreme Court ruling in a case that challenged which waters should remain protected by the Clean Water Act greatly added to the uncertainty and confusion over which water bodies remain safeguarded by the law.  Especially at risk are seasonal and headwater streams, and also those freshwater wetlands that are not directly connected to larger bodies of water.

Now, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are reviewing a "guidance" policy they issued in June on how they interpret the Supreme Court ruling flawed guidance leaves many "isolated" waters, including wetlands, open for destruction; leaves many tributary streams without clear protection; and ignores legal tools the agencies could use to preserve streams and wetlands when they collectively are important to water quality.

Here are just a few facts about what is at stake for our nation's waters:

  • An estimated 53-59 percent of America's stream miles outside of Alaska are seasonal waters or headwater streams, representing nearly 2 million river miles - these could be denied protection even though these small streams contribute to the public drinking water supplies of over 110 million people.
  • Over 14,000 industrial facilities have Clean Water Act permits that regulate their water pollution - permits that would no longer be required by the Clean Water Act if the law is not enforced to safeguard all waters.
  • The EPA itself estimated that a policy it issued with the Army Corps of Engineers in 2003 could place as many as 20 million acres of the nation's remaining wetlands at risk.
  • Based on agency records, a wide variety of waters already have been denied Clean Water Act safeguards, including a 150-mile-long river in New Mexico, thousands of acres of wetlands in one of Florida's most important watersheds, a 69-mile long canal used as a drinking-water supply in California, and an 86-acre lake in Wisconsin that is a popular fishing spot - just to name a few.

What can you do
The EPA is currently taking public comments until January 21 on their "guidance" policy that removes federal Clean Water Act protections for many of our nation's wetlands, streams, rivers lakes and other waters.

Please send a letter to the EPA today.

TAKE ACTION NOW