Clean Water Act

Just downstream from an industrial recycling operation and a stone's throw from a sewage treatment plant, a fisherman casts his line toward the passing barge traffic and watches it drop into the Delaware River. A couple eating lunch watch curiously. "No way would I ever eat anything from there," the woman says. The fishers who frequent the pier in Camden's Waterfront South neighborhood have heard it all before. That they're crazy, that they're going to grow an extra head or get sick from eating what they catch.

The 1986 federal Clean Water Act reauthorization is a popular piece of legislation. How popular? Nobody in Congress voted against it. Even in an election year, that's an almost unheard of endorsement. The bill stands as a landmark piece of environmental legislation that will continue the 14-year-old effort to make America's lakes and streams cleaner. Over the next eight years, it will provide $18 billion for sewage treatment plant construction and programs to halt pollution from urban and agricultural runoff.

THIS JUST IN: Rivers often cross state boundaries. In fact, some rivers actually are state boundaries. So if hazardous waste were dumped into the Delaware River in, say, Trenton, some of it would almost certainly find its way to Philadelphia. And we likely would have a problem with that. When it comes to water quality, we're all in this together. That's why the Clean Water Act - which sets and mandates the enforcement of national standards for water quality - has been essential to protecting the environment for nearly four decades.

MANY Americans are too young to remember the days when an American river really did catch on fire, when many waterways were like open sewers and lakes nearly died from pollution. They are too young to remember the dirty days before the 1972 Clean Water Act, signed by that radical environmentalist Richard M. Nixon, led the government to begin the massive task of protecting all "waters of the United States. " The Clean Water Act is a prime example of how prudent government regulation can make a huge difference in the health of the nation's environment and its people.

A coalition of environmental groups from Pennsylvania and New Jersey yesterday filed suits in two U.S. district courts charging that the federal Environmental Protection Agency had failed to implement key provisions of the nation's Clean Water Act. At issue is the alleged failure of both state governments to identify portions of streams and rivers that are being damaged or at risk of being damaged by pollution. "These are very big lawsuits, because they touch so many parts of the two states," said Curtis Fisher, program director of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, which is one of the plaintiffs.

The settlement of a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will result in the implementation of a series of wide-ranging programs to identify and restore Pennsylvania's polluted streams and rivers. The more-than-200-page settlement approved Wednesday by a federal judge includes dozens of requirements that must be completed over the next 12 years. "I consider this to be the most important environmental settlement in Pennsylvania history," said James R. May, director of the Widener University School of Law Environmental Law Clinic, which filed the suit on behalf of a coalition of environmental organizations.

South Jersey's cranberry farmers are a good bet to be winners no matter how the chips fall this summer in the debate on Capitol Hill over environmental regulations. The farmers are rooting for a revision in the Clean Water Act, passed Monday by the House, that would allow them to expand their operations more easily. Cranberries are cultivated in wetlands, using levees to flood low-lying bogs in the winter. Over the last decade, strict wetlands restrictions have limited farm expansion to virtually nothing.

This is to request that The Inquirer correct a factual error contained in the Oct. 30 editorial "Clean Water Act deserves the President's signature. " Your editorial correctly points out the urgent need for the President to sign the Clean Water Act. As a legislator who has spent a great deal of time and effort on water issues, I welcome The Inquirer's attempt to focus public attention on this area. However, you are factually incorrect in charging me - along with my colleagues Congressmen Bob Roe and Jim Howard - with "silence" in regard to the need to urge President Reagan to sign the Clean Water Act. Less than two weeks ago, I joined Congressmen Roe and Howard in sending a bipartisan letter to the White House, urging the President to sign this important legislation into law. We pointed out that the act is critically important to preserving and improving the quality of our nation's waters, and to achieving an orderly phase-out of the Clean Water Act's Construction Grants Program - one of the largest public works programs in our history.

As the long hot summer begins, most of us think about spending a few days at a nearby beach or lake fishing, swimming, boating or surfing. For the less energetic among us, summer signals some time in a lounge chair with feet soaking in a cool stream. Exposure to toxic chemicals or raw sewage is not on most of our minds. Unfortunately, however, the health risks from water pollution are real. Far too many of our waterways are contaminated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

DISTRACTED BY the Ira Einhorn trial and the Beltway sniper drama around Washington, most Philadelphians were unaware that Oct. 18 marked the 30th anniversary of the federal Clean Water Act. This landmark piece of environmental and public-health legislation is arguably the cornerstone of our nation's environmental policy. Although we have made important strides in water quality since the advent of the Clean Water Act in 1972, we have fallen far short of its goals. Approximately 39 percent of our rivers and 46 percent of our lakes are still too polluted for safe fishing or swimming.

Just downstream from an industrial recycling operation and a stone's throw from a sewage treatment plant, a fisherman casts his line toward the passing barge traffic and watches it drop into the Delaware River. A couple eating lunch watch curiously. "No way would I ever eat anything from there," the woman says. The fishers who frequent the pier in Camden's Waterfront South neighborhood have heard it all before. That they're crazy, that they're going to grow an extra head or get sick from eating what they catch.

While the public's attention has been focused on the irresponsible showdown over raising the nation's debt limit, the Republican House has been conducting a full-scale assault on the nation's environmental laws. It spent last week trying to push through an agency-funding bill that's chock full of changes making it easier for polluters to continue business as usual. The Interior appropriations bill carries more than 40 additional directives, or "riders," that would roll back protections for public health and the environment.

ARECENT Daily News editorial left out this about hydraulic fracturing: no environmental regulator has linked fracturing to groundwater contamination. At a recent congressional hearing, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson confirmed while testifying that she was "not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water. " Former state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said late last year that Pennsylvania had not had one case in which the fluids used to break off the gas from 5,000 to 8,000 feet underground had returned to contaminate groundwater.

WASHINGTON - Here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress voted on major issues last week: House National flood insurance. Voting 406-22, the House passed a bill (HR 1309) to renew the taxpayer-subsidized National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) through 2016 and start key reforms. The bill authorizes the program to add $3 billion in new debt to the $17.8 billion it already owes the Treasury. The program insures about 5.6 million residential and commercial properties located in flood plains in 22,000 communities.

WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled House passed a bill yesterday that would sharply curtail the federal government's role in protecting waters from pollution by barring the Environmental Protection Agency from overruling state decisions on water quality. The bill passed on a 239-184 vote. Sixteen Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in supporting it. The White House threatened to veto the bill, saying that it "would roll back the key provisions . . . that have been the underpinning of 40 years of progress in making the nation's waters fishable, swimmable and drinkable.

THIS JUST IN: Rivers often cross state boundaries. In fact, some rivers actually are state boundaries. So if hazardous waste were dumped into the Delaware River in, say, Trenton, some of it would almost certainly find its way to Philadelphia. And we likely would have a problem with that. When it comes to water quality, we're all in this together. That's why the Clean Water Act - which sets and mandates the enforcement of national standards for water quality - has been essential to protecting the environment for nearly four decades.

The Associated Press review of drilling water ("Can Corbett cut cash cord?" Wednesday) tries to convince readers that Pennsylvania streams and rivers are under attack by the natural-gas industry - stating that surface waters have become the "primary disposal place" for water produced in the process of developing the Marcellus Shale. In fact, the "primary disposal place" for this water is no disposal place at all - Pennsylvania's natural-gas producers on average recycle more than 90 percent of the water that returns to the surface.

After months of trying to impose tough new rules for how towns should manage their storm water, Pennsylvania regulators on Tuesday backed off and granted municipalities a nine-month extension for measures some had termed "draconian. " Towns were to have submitted plans by Sept. 10 detailing how they would comply with new rules to handle the gushers of rain that often flow through culverts directly into streams, carrying with them road oil, fertilizer, trash, and other pollutants.

MANY Americans are too young to remember the days when an American river really did catch on fire, when many waterways were like open sewers and lakes nearly died from pollution. They are too young to remember the dirty days before the 1972 Clean Water Act, signed by that radical environmentalist Richard M. Nixon, led the government to begin the massive task of protecting all "waters of the United States. " The Clean Water Act is a prime example of how prudent government regulation can make a huge difference in the health of the nation's environment and its people.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling yesterday that industry praised but that environmental advocates said may lead to the continued "slaughter" of fish in the Delaware River, who die when sucked into cooling water intakes. The court ruled that the government may factor in cost - not solely benefit - when deciding whether power plants should install new technologies to protect fish. Widener University environmental law professor Jim May said the ruling could apply to all industrial facilities.