Who Cares About Clean Water?

By Susan Eastwood - follow Susan on Twitter - @SCEastwood I live in Ashford, a town of around 4500 people that is 80% forested. We are truly rural. The Mount Hope River runs through our backwoods and the head waters are just a mile or two to the North. As I sit on my deck this morning, I notice the mountain laurel has burst into bloom overnight. If you listen, you can hear the river running over the rocks in the hollow below – the headwaters are just to the North of our property. Who cares about clean water? I do! Water testing has shown that pollution-point source pollution has contaminated the Mt. Hope – a source of drinking water for the towns of Mansfield and Willimantic, before flowing into the Thames and joining the sea in New London. It is part of the third largest watershed to flow into the Long Island Sound. Who cares about clean water? The 2.2 million Connecticut residents who depend on clean drinking water do! Since water flows downhill, it stands to reason that any pollutants flow along with it. If a stream is contaminated near its headwaters, that pollution will flow downstream and contaminate drinking water along the way. It is only common sense to protect waters on the entire course of their journey. And yet, current regulations to protect our waters under the Clean Water Act have been weakened in the last decade by court challenges and administrative decisions, leaving many streams and headwaters vulnerable to pollution. This regulatory confusion has exposed nearly 60 percent of our nation’s stream miles and 20 million acres of wetlands to greater risk of pollution or destruction, and has put drinking water resources for over 117 million people at risk. That is one in three Americans! Who cares about clean water? I’ll bet they do!! The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Army Corps of Engineer have proposed a new rule that will help to ensure the streams and wetlands that feed into our nation’s rivers and bays are better protected from pollution and destruction. The public benefits of the rule – in the form of flood protection, filtering pollution, providing wildlife habitat, supporting outdoor recreation and recharging groundwater – far outweigh the costs. When finalized, this rule will provide the regulatory assurance that has been absent for over a decade, eliminate permit confusion and delay, and better protect the critical water resources on which our communities and businesses depend. Americans want and expect water that is safe for them to drink, clean for them to swim in, and healthy enough to support abundant fish and wildlife. Please send a message to the EPA and let them know that you support the proposed rule to protect clean water and that you hope they will continue to work to protect clean water! Because we ALL care about clean water.