Protecting Our Drinking Water - Is It Too Much to Ask?

By Lynn Thorp, National Campaigns Director - Follow Lynn on Twitter (@LTCWA) The U.S. Senate will vote on amendments to the Keystone pipeline bill and two of them are directly related to drinking water protection. Clean Water Action is urging Senators to vote “Yes” on the Gillibrand and Cardin amendments.       Senator Gillibrand’s (D-NY) amendment #48 would remove special treatment for the oil and gas industry and repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing from Safe Drinking Water Act oversight. Underground sources of drinking water need to be protected from ALL activities which endanger them.  Senator Cardin (D-MD) amendment #75 would require the federal government to notify any municipality or county that relies on a source that might be impacted by the pipeline and to provide an analysis of that risk. It would allow the Governors of affected states to petition the President to have the KXL pipeline moved to avoid subjecting an aquifer to contamination. The amendment would also allow private property owners to sue the pipeline company if a spill contaminates their water supply. Over 150 amendments have been offered on the Keystone pipeline bill. We have chosen to emphasize these because of their direct relationship to drinking water. We are also reminding Senators to vote against the underlying Keystone Pipeline bill. In the last few weeks, it seems like the news is full of pipeline leaks, train and truck spills, fires and explosions. What these have in common is fossil fuels. We have to get out of the fossil fuel business to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. While we work on that, is it too much to ask that we hold ALL industries and activities to the standards of our federal water protections laws and that we do everything we can to limit impacts on our drinking water? We don’t think it’s too much to ask.