Make the Clean Water Act Work

Clean Water Act Promises

I have a niece who is finishing college soon and while she is special for a whole host of reasons, she also represents our collective failure to keep promises made under the Clean Water Act some 30 years ago.  She is a member of the generation that was supposed to have “swimmable and fishable” waters throughout their lifetimes, wherever they roamed in our great nation.  She and her friends were meant to think of point source pollution as a solved sin of her parents’ and grandparents’ times. 

Unfortunately, neither of these commitments was kept nationally or in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  Swimming is still discouraged in a great number of our urban waterways and fish advisories regularly caution pregnant women and children against consumption of one of nature’s healthiest foods. 

Many talk often of the failures of the Clean Water Act.  Although a tempting target to some, it is a dishonest approach.  We cannot in good conscience point the finger at anything but those that were alive when the Act was signed.  In short, the Act has not failed us, we have failed the Act and in doing so failed to keep a promise made to those who have been forced to live during a time when the Chesapeake Bay was at its all-time worst. 

But the story does get worse.  At a time when we are greatly focused on federal and state deficits as well as the deficits in our own 401(k)s, few in power seem to understand that we are simultaneously building a huge Bay deficit.  The longer we waffle and stall Bay clean up, the bigger the problem becomes.  And the bigger and more serious the problem becomes, the more it costs to fix the problem. 

This is a bleak outlook and prognosis, but there is some hope.  And what this all comes down to is responsibility and commitment.  Chad Holliday, president of the DuPont Chemical Company, understands this and has therefore set a public goal of zero point discharges from his company’s facilities.  The Osram Sylvania plant in northern Pennsylvania has cut their nitrogen output by a million pounds annually and farmers all over the watershed are enrolling in federal and state programs to increase Bay filters and decrease nitrogen pollution. 

Some sewage treatment plants such as Blue Plains, Salisbury and [need more] are stepping forward and doing their part as well.  The problem is that in all cases it is some companies, some farmers and some wastewater facilities.  Part of our broken commitment to this emerging generation is that we have often and repeatedly let the promises of the Clean Water Act run aground on the reefs of bureaucracy.   The gap between some and all or most rests partially in the delays we are observing in setting exact standards.  The lack of clear guidance driven by leadership committed to get the job done has allowed the reluctant and recalcitrant to bob and weave around what all know needs to be done.

The second element of this is financial commitment.  The Bay and other waters are monumentally valuable assets that require stewardship just as any other asset does.  We put oil in cars and repair dry rot in our homes.  Why shouldn’t the same principles apply to the Chesapeake? 

My niece is bright and might eventually go on to graduate school.  Wouldn’t it be nice if by the time she gets her advanced degree that the Chesapeake Bay and other great waters leave the US EPA’s list of impaired waters?  Wouldn’t it also be nice if she and other of her generation were able to say that they worked with their parents and grandparents keep the promises of the Clean Water Act?