EPA going strong on Clean Water Act after 40 years

[Geee]

The Hill:

A generation ago, the American people faced almost unimaginable health and environmental threats in their waters. Layers of industrial pollution on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire and Lake Erie was declared dead. An oil spill fouled hundreds of square miles of water off the coast of California, while in Washington, D.C., the Potomac was coated with so much sewage the pollution could be smelled in the city on hot days.

These circumstances prompted Congress to come together and find bipartisan solutions like the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Ocean Dumping Act. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created to set and enforce commonsense standards to protect human health and the environment under these laws. That same year, people all across America came together for the very first Earth Day, and the 1970s initiated several extraordinary advances in the protection of the water that millions of Americans use for drinking, swimming, fishing and more.

Over the last 40 years the American people have expected bipartisan solutions that focus on their health, and not on political outcomes. They are holding us accountable to do the same thing in light of today’s clean water and drinking water challenges.
We have a responsibility to meet the clean water expectations of the American people. A recent Gallup poll on environmental issues showed that at least 75 percent of Americans “worry a great deal or a fair amount” about pollution in rivers, lakes, reservoirs and drinking water and the maintenance of our nation’s fresh water supply for households.

Behind those numbers are the human stories that demonstrate the value Americans place on clean water. Whether it is the parents who want assurance that the water they give their children is safe, or a cherished family fishing spot that should be preserved, or long-awaited dreams of retiring to a home on a beautiful stretch of clean water, the American dream in no small part includes safe and healthy waters. That is why the EPA is taking reasonable steps, every day, to protect our waters and safeguard the health of people who use them. It is why we need to look beyond politics and see the people behind our work.