Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters
October marked the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Even with
the Great Lakes dying and the Cuyahoga River on fire, it took a
Congressional override of a Nixon veto to make the Clean Water Act law
in 1972.
Progress has since been made to control “point-source” water pollution
in our country. However, significant problems remain - non-point source
pollution (urban and agricultural runoff), wetland destruction, and
discharge of persistent toxics, to name a few. Unfortunately, progress
has slowed dramatically under the Bush administration, and will
continue to do so as long as dischargers aren’t required to meet state
water quality standards (WQS) at the “end of the pipe.”
Since 1983, federal regulation has authorized states to apply mixing
zone dilution factors to wastewater pollution limits, moving the
polluter’s point of compliance with human health and aquatic life
standards downstream from the point of release. States, tribes, and
commonwealths routinely abuse this discretionary authority to
circumvent the most basic objectives of the CWA: to prohibit discharge
of toxic substances in toxic amounts, ensure that all waters be
swimmable and fishable, and ultimately end the discharge of pollutants
into national waters.
This year, coinciding with the Act’s 30th anniversary, Campaign to
Safeguard America’s Waters (C-SAW) filed a formal petition with EPA to
demand action on the mixing zone (dilution-solution) loophole in the
Clean Water Act. (See Winter ‘99/2000 EIJ for more on mixing zones.)
The petition was signed by 80 state and national organizations. The
Administrative Procedures Act provides C-SAW with the power to sue EPA
in federal court if they fail to respond to the petition or fail to
respond in a meaningful way.
A state-by-state survey of mixing zone use, published by C-SAW in
October 2002, clearly demonstrates that the application of mixing zones
across the US is out of control:
C-SAW has asked EPA to revise the federal mixing zone regulation to require states to set rules that would: prohibit allowing water quality in mixing zones to fall below the CWA “fishable/swimmable” standard in any portion of a waterbody; require public notice of ecological and human health risks prior to mixing zone approval and afterward, including information on individual and cumulative effects of mixing zone authorizations; prohibit mixing zones in impaired waters or waterbodies containing threatened or endangered species; prohibit mixing zones for pollutants that persist or accumulate in the food chain; require monitoring of mixing zone boundaries to ensure the zones perform as predicted, and; institute procedures for reducing the number and size of mixing zones and an ultimate phase-out of mixing zone use.
Take Action: C-SAW’s “The Mixing Zone Manual - How to Stop
the Dilution Solution,” is downloadable from the C-SAW and Clean Water
Network websites. The Manual describes how mixing zones are used to
circumvent water quality standards, and provides ideas and
recommendations for opposing or limiting their application. http://www.earthisland.org/c-saw
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