The following commentary is by Brian Shupe, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council.
This month, the federal Clean Water Act turned 50. (Click here for a timeline of 50 years in Vermont history under the Clean Water Act.)
As we continue working to address water pollution in Vermont and across the country, this is an important moment to take stock of both the progress we have made and to identify what more we need to do to ensure that everyone has access to clean, safe water as a human right.
Before the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972, it was legal to dump all kinds of pollution in our lakes, ponds, rivers and streams. In Vermont, this translated into raw sewage being regularly discharged into our waters.
This description in the Valley News sums up the state of our waters before the Clean Water Act:
“As with most municipal systems, raw sewage was flushed into nearby waterways. In the 1950s, the Connecticut River was being described as the ‘world’s best landscaped sewer.’
“In 1903, the Vermont Board of Health report contained the following description of the situation in Ryegate: ‘several sewers running, one down Main Street and the others which empty into the bed of the river as it formerly ran … a most filthy and unwholesome place.”
Across the country, the water pollution crisis was punctuated by the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, catching fire in 1969 because of the massive amount of industrial pollution in the river. In response to this crisis, and the resulting public demand for action, Congress passed the Clean Water Act in October 1972 on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote.
The goal of the law was nothing less than “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.” To achieve this goal, Congress gave the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to protect waters and prohibit unpermitted discharges.
For the first 20 years, the Clean Water Act was very successful in addressing the raw sewage and industrial pollution destroying our waterways. The statistics tell the story: The Clean Water Act has prevented 700 billion pounds of pollutants from entering our waters annually. Approximately 200,000 polluters — including sewage treatment facilities, industrial facilities, and certain farms and construction sites — are currently regulated under the law.
In Vermont, we have built hundreds of wastewater facilities as a result of funding from the Clean Water Act and the mandate to stop all untreated sewage and industrial wastewater from discharging directly to our waters. As a result, the conditions previously described from the Valley News no longer exist in Vermont.
In addition, the Clean Water Act has required dozens of hydroelectric facilities to meet modern water quality standards. This has resulted in a significant improvement in water quality and fisheries habitat throughout Vermont.
While these successes should be celebrated, the law has not reached its goal of restoring the water quality of all waters, and much of its implementation has fallen short. The best example of this in Vermont is the unrelenting phosphorus pollution in Lake Champlain.
In a way, Lake Champlain perfectly exemplifies the success and failure of the Clean Water Act. While the law focused on discharges of raw sewage, water pollution from stormwater and agriculture continue to pollute the Lake.
Unfortunately, the Clean Water Act underestimated the impact from stormwater and farm pollution on water quality, and the EPA and the states were lax in implementing the law’s provisions addressing these sources of pollution. The combined effect has been devastating for water quality.
The pollution in Lake Champlain put a spotlight on these problems, but it was not until litigation on behalf of environmental groups in the 1990s forced the state to address these issues that they were taken seriously. Lake Champlain is now on its second version of a Clean Water Act-required cleanup plan. Cleanup plans have also been put in place for stormwater-polluted waters, and steps have been taken to better address farm pollution.
The Vermont Clean Water Act, passed in 2015, took significant steps forward to address these sources of pollution.
However, we are still grappling with addressing farm pollution under the Clean Water Act. Just this year, the Conservation Law Foundation, Vermont Natural Resources Council and the Lake Champlain Committee filed a petition demanding that EPA step in to address these issues.
Just this year, the Vermont Natural Resources Council challenged the combined sewer overflow conditions in a discharge permit for failing to comply with the Clean Water Act. The goal is to eliminate these combined sewer overflow discharges.
In addition, another significant threat to our water system is when several Vermont communities are allowed to discharge partially treated sewage into rivers and streams. These communities have combined their sewer systems and their stormwater drainage, and everything runs through the municipal sewer plant. When major rainstorms overwhelm these sewer systems, partially treated sewage is washed downstream.
Other problems — such as the discharge of toxic substances, including PFAS chemicals — have emerged since the Clean Water Act was passed. The EPA has been slow to assess the true risk to human health and the environment posed by these chemicals, and states have been flummoxed as to how to address these chemicals. Leaving these risks unaddressed is simply unacceptable and counter to the goals and purposes of the Clean Water Act.
In a particularly cruel bit of timing, on the eve of the Clean Water Act’s 50th anniversary, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case Sackett v. EPA that could significantly limit the waters protected under the federal law. Thankfully, Vermont’s definition of waters is broader than the federal Clean Water Act, and regardless of the decision in Sackett, Vermont state protections will remain intact.
However, this is not the case throughout the country, and even Vermont would lose the benefit of some federal protections if the Supreme Court weakens the Clean Water Act.
So, 50 years after the Clean Water Act became law, we should appreciate the progress we have made, while at the same time remain wide-eyed about the threats and challenges before us, and those we cannot yet see.
In the end, I believe our leaders got it mostly right 50 years ago. They took aggressive action to clean up our polluted waters and protect our healthy waters, so in the future all people would have access to safe, clean water.
It’s up to us to continue to fight to implement the vision of the Clean Water Act. After all, Americans cannot exercise their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without clean water.
