10. CDC Report reverses a 2004 CDC report (not a typo) on lead contamination from Washington DC water pipes. According to the CDC report released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 15,000 homes in Washington, DC that received repairs during the District's massive effort to remove lead pipes earlier this decade may still be contaminated by dangerous levels of lead. Removing lead pipes from the sewer system was supposed to make drinking water in the District safer, but the CDC actually concluded that homeowners who had pipes only partially replaced may have made the problem worse. The 2004 CDC report claimed that replacing the pipes would fix the problem.

9.Companies using horizontal hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is a method used to extract natural gas (or oil) by drilling vertical and horizontal cracks and injecting fracturing fluids (a mixture of water and various chemicals) under high pressure underground. Each well pad requires millions of gallons of water and the fluids recovered from a well pad contain not only the fracturing chemicals but also heavy metals, hydrocarbons and radioactive materials naturally present underground. Numerous cases of chemical spills and contamination of ground and surface waters have been reported in communities where hydraulic fracturing is occurring. While drilling technology and use of sophisticated hydraulic fracturing processes to extract natural gas from sources such as coalbed methane and shale gas formations have advanced greatly over the past decade, the knowledge of how these processes might affect water resources have not kept pace. For more information, read ProPublica's ongoing investigation, Buried Secrets: Gas Drilling's Environmental Threat.

8. The Public Lands, Water and Wildlife Omnibus bill the U.S. Senate is considering, would provide critical funding for Great Waters across the country (includes the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound among others). It will be difficult for this resources bill to make it through the 111th lame duck Congress, which is why this bill made it to the yellow snowman list! One top priority of Clean Water Network, the Sewage Right to Know Act (RTK), was removed from the omnibus legislation at the request of anti-environmentalist Senator James Inhofe (OK). This important bill would have protected public health by requiring sewage treatment plants to alert the public when there's a sewage overflow that could affect public health. The legislation also would have filled a critical gap by providing people information they need to stay safe when they swim, paddle and play in local streams, rivers and lakes, while also drawing attention to the great need to reduce sewage pollution. Instead of a yellow snowman, taking the Sewage RTK bill out of the omnibus, warrants awarding this a "brown" snow citation.

7. Agribusiness continues assault on Clean Water: Consolidation within farming has been so extreme that the four largest firms in each sector now produce 72 percent of the nation's beef, 63 percent of the pork and 57 percent of the chickens. Compounding the power of these companies, especially in pork and chicken production, is their move towards a vertically integrated design that gives the giant corporations nearly complete control over the production process from an animal's birth to its eventual death and processing. Giant corporate agribusiness firms are the source of some of the nation's most severe water pollution problems, contributing heavily to algae blooms and low dissolved oxygen levels in the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and other important water bodies.

6. Failure to Pass Comprehensive Federal Oil Spill Legislation. Despite dozens of hearings and numerous attempts by both houses of Congress, no comprehensive oil spill bill was signed into law in the wake of the BP oil spill disaster. The oil spill disaster provided Congress with a watershed moment that should have ushered in a new era of how oil and gas exploration and drilling are performed and regulated. Instead Congressional debate on the subject devolved into partisan bickering that eventually killed any chance of passing much needed comprehensive oil spill legislation. For its part, the House did manage to pass H.R. 3534, the Consolidated Land, Energy and Aquatic Resources Act of 2010, which mandated stronger safety standards for offshore drilling, and increased liability and financial responsibility for offshore facilities. H.R. 3534 also incorporated Chairman Oberstar's comprehensive oil spill response legislation, the Oil Spill Accountability and Environmental Protection Act of 2010. The Senate has repeatedly failed to pass similar legislation, and is unlikely to do so before the end of the Congressional year.

5. 2010 Midterm Election Results: This was a bad year for incumbents and for Clean Water Supporters in Congress. The midterms brought about a sweeping change in Congress and resulted in throwing out some of the most committed and respected clean water champs in Congress including Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and House T & I Committee Chair James Oberstar (D-MN). The midterm elections also brought new conservative members to Congress who vowed to make cutting funding for environmental programs a priority. For more information click HERE.

4. Spills at Home and Abroad- Michigan Oil Spill and Toxic Sludge Spill in Hungary: A state of emergency was declared in southwest Michigan's Kalamazoo County as more than 800,000 gallons of oil were released into a creek making its way downstream in the Kalamazoo River. This oil spill was one of the worst in Midwest history. In Hungary, a toxic sludge spill from an aluminum plant polluted the Danube River, turning it red. Government officials and residents struggled to dilute the spill to protect the river from what the prime minister called an "unprecedented ecological catastrophe."

3. Congress' Failure to Pass Climate Change Legislation: The 111th Congress failed to pass comprehensive climate change legislation this past year. Climate Change legislation passed the House of Representatives in June 2009 but died in the Senate this year. This is bad not only because of the profound impacts climate change is projected to have on our water resources, but because the bill would have funded measures to help adapt to those impacts. See the Kerry-Lieberman Community Adaptation support letter.

2. The failure of the 111th Congress to act on America's Commitment to Clean Water Act / Clean Water Restoration Act, one of the Clean Water Network's top priorities, is a huge disappointment considering the optimism after the 2008 Presidential elections. This legislation would have reaffirmed that all Waters of the U.S. are protected under the federal Clean Water Act. It would have provided a statutory fix to the SWANCC and Rapanos Supreme Court misguided decisions that created massive confusion about what waters are IN and what waters are OUT in regards to CWA protections. Our position is that ALL Waters of the US should be protected. The 111th Congress gets a failing grade for not taking action.

1. BP Oil Spill Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: Worst Environmental Disaster the Untied States has ever seen. British Petroleum (BP) with assistance from a number of accomplices, including the federal Minerals Management Service, Transocean and Haliburton, was responsible for causing an unprecedented oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which became the largest environmental disaster the United States has ever seen. The spill resulted in an estimated 206 million gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf, killing thousands of birds and marine animals. As part of the effort to keep attention focused on this disaster and keep our community as up to date as possible, CWN sent out over twenty-five Gulf oil spill specific updates in addition to oil spill mentions in numerous general CWN updates and alerts. General financial support from the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Park Foundation helped make these important alerts and updates possible.

Honorable Mention:
Dirty Water Riders. 2010 saw the start of a number of attempts to defund progressive environmental efforts through amendments to federal appropriations bills. One rider that surfaced would have defunded EPA's efforts to promulgate and enforce numeric nutrient standards in Florida. CWN and other groups called on Congress to avoid returning to a system where riders were added without a vote, and inserted into appropriations bills with no public debate, in an effort to overturn environmental regulations.