What a Week - Clean Water Action in Motion

By Lynn Thorp, National Campaigns Director - Follow Lynn on Twitter (@LTCWA) It’s been quite a week for our Clean Water, especially for our National Program Team. Here are some of the highlights: Congressional Testimony on Cyanotoxins in Drinking Water: I testified before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy today. You can find my testimony and our press release here. Celebrating: At our annual event in Washington DC last Friday, we celebrated our work on the Clean Water Rule campaign and the 40^th anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Our Keynote Speaker, Dr. Peter Grevatt, directs EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water – the office that implements the Act. We learned from Peter about the importance of protecting drinking water sources and investing in our infrastructure to help prevent the kinds of water disruptions we saw in West Virginia and Ohio this year. We also presented an award to Verna Harrison of the Campbell Foundation in honor of her groundbreaking work to support campaigns in the Chesapeake Region. Protecting All Water: Also last Friday, the comment period on the Clean Water Rule closed. National Water Campaigns Coordinator Jennifer Peters submitted our technical comments and oversaw the wrap-up of a campaign that included over 130,000 grassroots comments, resolutions in 16 local jurisdictions and over 400 organizations and over 200 local and state elected officials signed on to comment letters spearheaded by our state offices. This organization-wide multi-strategy campaign might be the biggest in our history. Weighing in on EPA Clean Water Act Plans: National Oil & Gas Campaigns Coordinator John Noel submitted comments authored by Clean Water Action and joined by seven other national organizations on EPA plans to take action on several aspects of oil and gas wastewater discharges to surface water.