Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Across the United States, Waters in Crisis
WASHINGTON - Over the last years, up to 60 percent of lakes, rivers, streams, and drinking water sources across the United States have lost crucial environmental protections at the hands of polluters, developers, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
A gerry can is filled with tap water at a distribution site in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. (AFP/File/Roberto Schmidt) "Without immediate action in Congress,
a generation of progress in cleaning up our nation's waters may be
lost," says a new report by seven U.S.-based environmental advocacy
groups.
"When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, our [U.S.] waters were in dire shape," states the report, "Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court Has Broken the Clean Water Act and Why Congress Must Fix It" [pdf]. "The Cuyahoga River had caught fire several times, Lake Erie was all but devoid of life, oil spills commonly occurred on our coasts, and industrial polluters treated rivers and lakes as open sewers." For almost 30 years, however, broad application of the Clean Water Act led to a significant clean up of U.S. waters and a notable slowing of wetland loss. But beginning in 2001, a series of Supreme Court and government agency rulings derided critical regulations, inciting environmental groups to now demand immediate action from lawmakers.
"Clean water depends on the health of all water bodies, from small streams, to woodland vernal pools, to our greatest rivers, lakes, and coastal waters," write Earthjustice, Environment America, Clean Water Action, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and Southern Environmental Law Center in "Courting Disaster." To read more about the intersection of water, sanitation, rights, and development worldwide, visit OneWorld.net's water and sanitation guide.
- Posted in
10 Comments so far
Show AllWater, water everywhere, not a drop to drink (unless you have a death wish)
Filter your water. Inexpensive UV penlike devices are available for glass by glass applications (think restaurant).
Plastic Bottled water uses more water to produce than is in the bottle,plus oil use and transportation carbon footprint.
Google "uranium tailings moab colorado river photos."
In the town of Moab, Utah, the western bank of the Colorado River is formed by a huge uranium tailings dump ( 80 percent of uranium is left in the tailings after mining.) This tailing wall is in the 100 year flood plain, and leaks toxic heavy metals into the water on a daily basis. The good news is that the Colorado River is facing near record low flow levels because of a drought. The bad news is that the Colorado River supplies water to one out of every ten Americans, that's 30 million people, including the populations centers of Los Angeles, San Diego County, Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas. If and when the long overdue flood happens, just try to imagine FEMA's response to a disaster 60 times as large as Hurricane Katrina.
This information was brought to my attention by a park ranger at Canyonlands National Park giving an authorized presentation to tourists. He is a politically conservative Mormon, and was even more concerned about the health effects that the excessive levels of arsenic in the tailings is having right now.
*shudder* I never want to move out West.
The Mormons are omminously tied in many ways to uranium. The biggest reason that any group is despoiling the planet (think Lehman Brothers, the Queen), is pure evil greed. These special interests groups have already devastated the Navajos and their lands.
Utah is accepting Nuclear waste because they have a lobbyist working for the Nuclear Industry. Where are the good Mormoms? Where is that presidential candidate from Utah? Utah needs Sen Cris Dodd..
too bad the Fed cannot magically increase the potable water supply like they did with the money supply...
In my neck of the woods, organizations like PennEnvironment and the NJ Sierra Club lobby the state capitals. The Garden State preservation trust that will preserve the watershed for almost half of NJ is almost a done deal. It isn't all bad news. NYC has some of the cleanest water in the world from reservoirs in pristine areas of upstate NY and PA. The northeast is fortunate to have ample rain and forests to dilute and filter pollution.
One can only imagine what will happen in the southwest and Mexico as aquifers are drained and the Colorado becomes increasingly oversubscribed and toxic. Big Oil will be going after the oil shale in a few years, too. I guess residents of the Great Lakes states and northeast will have lots of new neighbors.
If sea level rises, ecologically necessary coastal swamp land will be submerged, and many species will have no place to go. Fresh water supplies will have to move further inland as salt infiltrates aquifers and moves up rivers.
Check out the Green Party's position on water at http://gp.org/
Why do we always have to learn the hard way? Why is it so hard to understand that this planet is the ONLY home we have? Earth belongs to all, not just to those who can afford it. Water is life...it belongs to all.