The passage of the Clean Water Act, 50 years ago, ended an era of burning rivers choked with industrial chemicals and raw sewage and marked the beginning of a new public awareness of environmental harms. Real progress was achieved in reducing pollution, cleaning rivers and lakes, and bringing back fish and wildlife to America’s waters. Unfortunately, a half century later, the Clean Water Act remains a promise half-fulfilled.
Passed in 1972, the law set a goal that all waters in the U.S. would be fishable and swimmable by 1983 and all pollution into America’s navigable waters would be eliminated by 1985. Yet almost 40 years beyond those target dates, our goals remain distressingly remote. Today, half of the rivers and streams that have been studied are so polluted that they are classified as “impaired” by the US EPA, and thus unsuitable for safe swimming, drinking, fishing, and other uses.
Here in Illinois, the numbers give evidence of the grim reality. According to the Illinois EPA, 89% of Illinois’ rivers and streams are impaired by pollution such that they cannot fully support “primary contact,” i.e. swimming. Forty-two percent of rivers are too polluted to fully support aquatic life, and 100% of rivers assessed are too polluted to fully support fish consumption. These figures should shock and alarm us and demand our attention.
The Clean Water Act succeeded by requiring polluting industries and sewage treatment plants to limit the release of pollutants into waters through a pipe or from an identifiable source. Yet, the law entirely avoided addressing the issue of polluted runoff such as fertilizers and pesticides from farmland and oil and toxic chemicals from city streets.
Agricultural runoff—manure and chemical fertilizers—is now the leading cause of water pollution in the United States. The gruesome embodiment of this is the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone.” Nitrogen and phosphorus from the vast agricultural lands of the Midwest find their way into streams and rivers and eventually spill into the Gulf, creating a biological wasteland where oxygen levels are too low to support aquatic life.
Because the farm lobby is powerful and boasts allies in both political parties, it has successfully fended off any attempt to regulate water pollution from farms. Federal and state agencies largely rely on “voluntary programs,” such as paying farmers to use practices like cover crops, which are intended to keep soil on the farm and reduce runoff. While these practices are laudable, this approach has not succeeded in reducing water pollution from farms. Despite millions of dollars spent on such efforts in Illinois, last year the state released a report that indicated that nitrogen and phosphorus pollution have increased in recent years.
In addition to this major shortcoming of the Clean Water Act the US Supreme Court may soon further limit the law’s reach. Many experts believe the current Court will hold that the Act does not have jurisdiction over many wetlands, as well as streams that are dry for part of the year. Such a ruling would accelerate the loss of wetlands and increase pollution in streams across the country.
In the face of this, Prairie Rivers Network continues its work to hold polluters accountable, to protect our waters from unregulated farm runoff, and to halt the loss of wetlands. The 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act is a moment to reflect on past successes and to plan ahead. We must dig in now and demand action from decision makers, particularly on farm runoff, if we expect to celebrate progress in another 50 years.
