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Say No to Dumping Industrial Waste in US Waters! Support H.R. 4683
On May 3, the Bush administration signed a rule that reversed a twenty-five year old Clean Water Act regulation to, for the first time, allow the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to issue permits allowing polluters to fill our nation's waters with waste material. Finalizing this ill-considered rule will give polluters the green light to use streams, rivers, and wetlands all over the country as waste dumps. Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) have introduced a bill, H.R. 4683, that would clarify that it is illegal under the Clean Water Act for the Bush administration to try to allow our nation's streams, rivers and wetlands to be buried in wastes and destroyed forever. Please ask your representative to cosponsor this important bill.
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: Oppose Dumping Industrial Waste in Streams, Rivers and Wetlands (H.R. 4683)
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
I am deeply concerned that the Bush Administration recently changed an important Clean Water Act regulation in order to authorize the Army Corps of Engineers to permit industries to bury waters of the United States with waste materials.
The Clean Water Act was adopted in 1972 to protect our rivers, streams, wetlands, and coastal areas. There is nothing more inconsistent with this landmark environmental law than allowing waters to be buried under tons of waste.
This rule change is an attempt to legalize the illegal practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, in which the tops of mountains are literally blown apart to reach seams of coal and the millions of tons of waste generated are dumped into nearby streams. If this were not bad enough, by changing longstanding regulations to allow companies to dispose of wastes as "fill" material, other industrial wastes - such as hardrock mining waste and construction debris - will end up in our waters.
Please co-sponsor the bipartisan Pallone-Shays bill, H.R. 4683, to reaffirm that the Clean Water Act was not meant to allow coal mining companies or others to bury waters under tons of industrial wastes.
Sincerely,
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Campaign Launched:
July 02, 2002
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"When valley fills are permitted in...streams, they destroy those stream segments... If there is any form of life that cannot acclimate to life deep in a rubble pile, it is eliminated. No effect on related environmental values is more adverse than obliteration." - District Judge Charles H. Haden II, Bragg v. Robertson (S.D.W.V. 1999)
The Bush administration's Clean Water Act rule change, finalized on May 3, was made in an attempt to legalize the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, where the tops of mountains are literally blown apart and the millions of tons of waste generated are dumped into nearby valleys, permanently burying the streams that once flowed there.
The rule change centers on the definition of "fill." Since 1977, Clean Water Act rules have authorized the Corps to issue permits to dredge and fill waterways for certain development projects. But until the Bush administration's new rule, the Corps' regulatory definition of "fill" has expressly prohibited the discharge of waste as "fill" material in waters. Therefore, the Corps was legally barred from issuing permits to industries wishing to discharge pollutants composed of waste as "fill." The Bush administration deleted this important waste exclusion from the Corps' regulatory definition of "fill" to allow industries to dump their wastes in waterways.
The environmental impacts of this rule change will not end with mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Removing the waste exclusion could also allow other polluters to dump hardrock mineral mining waste, construction and demolition debris and other forms of industrial waste in streams, rivers, wetlands and other waters across the nation.
In 2000, the Clinton administration proposed a similar rule change and met with intense opposition from the public, with over 17,000 public comments opposing the proposal to allow the dumping of waste in waters and only 10 industry comments in favor. As a result, the rule change was never finalized by the Clinton administration. In an attempt to avoid another public outcry, the Bush administration finalized its even more destructive version of this unpopular proposal to weaken clean water protections without further input from the public--despite the public's overwhelming opposition to this rule change in the past.
On May 8, Representatives Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) introduced a bill, H.R. 4683, which would reaffirm that the Clean Water Act forbids the Corps from allowing companies to use their waste materials to fill waters. Please ask your representative to cosponsor this important bill or thank them if they have already joined on as a sponsor. The current list of cosponsors is below.
Read a recent Washington Post article about this issue at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4389-2002Apr5.html
Read much more about mountaintop removal mining and the devastating effects of valley fill at: http://www.earthjustice.org/policy/rider/display.html?ID=14
Cosponsors of the Clean Water Protection Act, HR 4683, as of 8/2/02
(Introduced by Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) on May 8, 2002)
Anna Eshoo (D-CA)
Susan A. Davis (D-CA)
Michael Honda (D-CA)
Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT)
Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL)
Robert I. Wexler (D-FL)
Patsy Mink (D-HI)
Jim Leach (R-IA)
Thomas Allen (D-ME)
Connie Morella (R-MD)
Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD)
Dale E.Kildee (D-MI)
Lynn Rivers (D-MI)
Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Benjamin A.Gilman (R-NY)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
Nicholas Lampson (D-TX)
Bernard Sanders (I- VT)
James Moran (D-VA)
Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Thomas Barrett (D-WI)
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
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