On March 15th, 2010 many longtime Clean Water Network groups participated in a national call in day to help stop the dumping of mining waste in our water. CWN members called the White House on March 15th to ask President Obama to restore the Clean Water Act's prohibition on filling waters with waste. This issue is one of the CWN's top administrative priorities.

The Problem: Taking advantage of a loophole that the Bush Administration created in the Clean Water Act rules, mining companies are using America's streams and lakes as dumping grounds for unlimited amounts of solid mining wastes. Companies are burying streams with mountaintop removal coal mining waste in Appalachia and planning to fill in a lake in Alaska with waste from gold mining. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to close the waste loophole in the Clean Water Act, and President Obama should instruct the agency to do so immediately.

Time is running out for the EPA to fix the Clean Water Act before the end of the Obama Administration's first term, given the time required to change regulations. The EPA needs a green light now from the White House to begin.

Please help end mountaintop removal mining and the dumping of other mining waste in streams and lakes across the nation. Please continue to tell the Administration and Congress to stop this environmentally destructive practice!