The EPA has asked citizens from around the nation to tell them how they can better deal with the most significant problems facing our waters today.  As the agency responsible for implementing and enforcing the Clean Water Act, it is critical that EPA heard from citizens on the importance of protecting our waters.

The EPA asked people to go their web forum website and comment on three discussion topics - the watershed approach, managing pollution from nutrients, and stormwater pollution.

A number of CWN members took a moment to share their thoughts on these topics It was critical for EPA to hear their struggles and successes in dealing with your local waterbodies.  Below are some suggestions for how EPA could take federal-level action that would help solve local pollution problems.  You can use these suggestions to supplement your comments, but please do not copy them verbatim, because the EPA wants to hear your own original opinion and thoughts.

Comments were due to the EPA by April 2nd. 

The Watershed Approach

The best way to protect our nation's watersheds is to have a clear and strong Clean Water Act that provides board protection to our waters.  The Clean Water Act, long considered one of the country's most successful environmental laws, is broken because Supreme Court rulings have limited the scope of the law to exclude protection for many streams and wetlands.  While only Congress can overturn the Supreme Court decisions that have led to much of the current disastrous situation for the nation's waters, the EPA can help by releasing information on water pollution and enforcement problems in our communities and supporting legislative action to restore the Clean Water Act's original broad protections.

The EPA has admitted that it dropped enforcement of hundreds of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, lowered others in priority, and has had to fight frequent attempts by defendants to escape legal responsibility.  The EPA should release the information on these cases so that communities can be aware of the dangers in their backyard.  Having open and transparent information available to the public would allow communities to have the best information about what is happening to their waters.

Managing Pollution from Nutrients

Nitrogen and phosphorus runoff is a serious problem that is polluting water quality in rivers, creeks, and streams across the nation.  Nutrient pollution can cause dangerous algae blooms and fish kills and endanger communities' water supplies. 

The EPA must work quickly with states to set strong numeric standards for nutrient pollution. By setting strong standards for nutrient pollution, the EPA can help clean up polluted rivers, lakes, and estuaries across the United States.  If states fail to set these standards, the EPA must take action itself.

According to EPA:

• There are 101,361 miles of rivers and streams impaired by nutrients.
• There are 2,454,436 acres of assessed lakes, reservoirs, and ponds impaired by nutrients.
• There are 819 square miles of bays and estuaries impaired by nutrients.
• Theres are 69,361 acres of assessed wetlands impaired by nutrients.

Stormwater Pollution

The EPA should propose effluent limitation guideline requiring controls for both construction and post-construction stormwater dischargers from development.  Stormwater pollution is one of the largest and fastest growing sources of water pollution in the country.  Nationwide, stormwater is the single biggest cause of beach closures, and a top source of degradation of drinking water supplies and coastal shellfishing waters.

The EPA should encourage the use of better technology in dealing with stormwater pollution.  There are a number of currently available technologies to reduce and prevent this pollution that are already used in forward-thinking states and communities, but have not been known as low-impact development of green infrastructure, in a series of documents issued over the past decade.  In addition to improving environmental protection, these technologies also save money for developers, as EPA demonstrated in its December 2007 report, Saving Stormwater Costs Through the Use of Low Impact Development.

The EPA should formally recognize municipal stormwater runoff as a significant problem necessitating compliance with water quality standards and numeric water quality based effluent limits.