Yesterday both the Baltimore Sun and the Richmond Times-Dispatch offered opinions related to a House of Representatives vote last week that attempts to rewrite parts of the Clean Water Act, limiting the federal government’s ability to tackle water pollution.

In today’s hyper-political environment it’s often easy to broad-brush Congressmen, lumping them together along party lines, but these articles provide contrast as you look at the votes of two Republicans, both with districts that hug the Chesapeake Bay.

In its opinion piece, the Baltimore Sun raps Maryland Congressman Andy Harris’ vote:

“…while Mr. Harris, a staunchly conservative member of the GOP, did not run for office as a friend to the EPA, he did pledge to protect the Chesapeake Bay — a body of water that virtually defines the geography of his district. Tourism, real estate (particularly along the hundreds of miles of waterfront), the seafood industry, and many more local employers are dependent on the health of the bay for their livelihoods…Making his choice all the more head-scratching is the reality that if out-of-state polluters aren't held accountable, Maryland will have little choice but to tighten restrictions on sources of water pollution within the state. And the first to bear the brunt of this may well be the home builders, farmers, homeowners and others living and working in his district.” 

By contrast, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s piece explains why there’s trust in Virginia Congressman Rob Wittman’s vote:

"Republican Rob Wittman represents Virginia's 1st Congressional District. Many of the seat's counties abut the Chesapeake. Rivers run through it. Wittman was born in Montross and studied biology at Virginia Tech. He earned a B.A. in Blacksburg, as well as a master's in public health at the University of North Carolina and a Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University. Before his election to Congress, Wittman worked for the commonwealth in positions related to public health and environmental stewardship. He served as field director of the Virginia Health Department's Division of Shellfish Sanitation.

Wittman boasts impeccable credentials. He is considered a principled conservative, and he voted against the (un)clean-water bill. We trust his judgment."

Both Congressmen represent districts with economies that rely on access to clean water and both live in states with “downstream” impacts from other states that choose to pollute rivers and streams. You’d think their votes would match, too.

Today Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler announced the state intends to sue natural gas drilling company Chesapeake Energy for violating federal anti-pollution laws over a recent fracking fluid spill in Leroy Township, Pennsylvania.

Thousands of gallons of fracking fluids spilled on April 19 from a Chesapeake Energy well into Towanda Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River. The Susquehanna feeds the Chesapeake Bay with 45 percent of its freshwater supplies.

The federal violations Gansler asserts are two-fold:  1) There were unpermitted pollutants entering our waters due to the spillage of toxic chemicals being used in the fracking process; and 2) There was solid/hazardous waste contamination of soils and ground waters, as well as surface waters and sediments.

Beyond the impacts of the initial spill you should remember that if toxic chemicals have soaked into the soil, every time it rains there’s the potential for more polluted runoff to enter our waters.

So What’s the Wake Up Call We Need to See?

Look again at Gansler’s press release and you’ll uncover the secret most people don’t realize about their rivers and streams:  “The Susquehanna River supplies drinking water for approximately 6.2 million people.”

And it’s not just the Susquehanna River. Our freshwater rivers and streams flowing to the Chesapeake Bay – including the Shenandoah, Potomac, James and others – provide drinking water to millions in the region.

These waters of the Chesapeake Bay represent our lives – our water, our health, our economy. We have to act like it.

Whether it’s pollution from fracking, from fertilizers, from human and/or animal waste and various other sources – all of it puts our sources of drinking water at risk and should not be tolerated.

People have far too long looked at pollution only through the lens of the Chesapeake Bay, not the local rivers and streams flowing near them. All of it is connected to the Bay. WE need to be the stewards for our local part of it, not necessarily because it helps the Bay, but because it helps us and our community.

We need local people, organizations and businesses banding together to protect local waters, fixing those waters that are impaired and preserving those that are pristine. All governments – federal, state and local – have a part to play, too.

Ready to be part of the solution? Consider signing up for our updates, plus connect with a Choose Clean Water Coalition member organization near you. Have other ideas for how you can help? Write us at info@choosecleanwater.org.

 

Today EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced Jeff Corbin as the new Senior Advisor to the Administrator for the Chesapeake Bay. This position has been vacant since the New Year, following the departure of Chuck Fox.

Policy wonk appointments may not excite you, but if you live near the rivers and streams of the Chesapeake Bay this one should. This means we have a dedicated advocate within the Obama Administration, someone who understands the importance of protecting and restoring the Chesapeake Bay and all of the waters that flow into it.

And, Jeff Corbin definitely understands.

Most recently Corbin was a senior advisor within EPA Region 3, the region tasked with pulling together the Chesapeake Bay Pollution Diet. Prior to that, he was assistant secretary of natural resources in Virginia during the Kaine administration.

Go back even further and that’s when things get interesting. Corbin spent nearly 10 years with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a Choose Clean Water Coalition member, ultimately serving as its Virginia deputy director and senior scientist.

You read that right – senior scientist.

When a lot of hay is made of the science EPA uses for our rivers and streams, we know there’s a scientist near the top who has been out on our waters studying them carefully for years. This is not your typical policy wonk sitting behind a desk.

Having worked at the federal, state and local grassroots level on issues related to our waters, Corbin knows better than most that our rivers and streams – the source of drinking water for millions – are an investment we must protect.

We applaud Administrator Jackson for the appointment. We asked that she take swift action in naming a replacement for Chuck Fox, and she did it. She found someone equally capable of leading the charge.

While some members of Congress (including members from our own districts) attack our waters through measures like the Goodlatte Amendment, we are glad the Administration knows the importance of environmental protections – the importance for our health and the importance for our economy.

We look forward to Corbin’s voice being heard.

Over the weekend the House of Representatives finalized its Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded through the end of this fiscal year.

As we previously noted, there was a particularly egregious amendment put forward by Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte not because it cut funding but because it added language restricting the work of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), particularly how its work can be handled for the rivers and streams of the Chesapeake Bay through its Pollution Diet.

The bad news is that Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s amendment passed by a vote of 230-195.

Now the good news…

There were many House champions who fought this amendment, through quotes in the media or passionate opposition on the House floor, including Virginia Rep. Jim Moran, Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer.

These congressmen -- along with Rep. Gerry Connolly, Rep. Bobby Scott, Rep. Elijah Cummings, Rep. Donna Edwards, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, Rep. John Sarbanes, Rep. John Carney, Rep. Nick Rahall, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, Rep. Bill Owens and Rep. Paul Tonko – are all due thanks for voting no on this amendment, defending the health of their rivers and streams in the process.

One vote, in particular, is worth highlighting. Virginia Rep. Rob Wittman, a Republican, broke ranks with his party to vote against this amendment. Since his district hugs a vast majority of where Virginia’s waterways meet the Chesapeake Bay, this was a crucial vote and a signal to the importance of continuing the path we’re on to clean and restore our rivers and streams.

Rep. Goodlatte’s statement following the amendment vote said “…the cost of complying with these requirements (EPA’s Pollution Diet) will be devastating during our current economic downturn, result in many billions of dollars in economic losses to states, cities and towns, farms and other businesses large and small.”

We know this is the same big business talking point that has been used for decades to delay cleaning our rivers and streams, even when our country’s economic fortunes were high. We know the waters of the Chesapeake Bay have been estimated to be a regional economic engine valued at more than $1 trillion dollars. We know our waters are the source of drinking water for millions in the region and that value is priceless.

We know we must protect our investment. We know the cost of inaction on preserving our rivers and streams far exceed the cost of a thought-out approach to limiting pollution in our waters. We know that pollution is a jobs killer, and we shouldn’t be duped by arguments to the contrary.

Rep. Wittman’s vote signifies that he knows the value of investing in our waters, too, and what it means for the local economy of his constituents.

As the Continuing Resolution moves on to the Senate for action, we believe the Senate will understand what we have outlined here and make sure the Goodlatte amendment has no place in a serious discussion on how we control spending while stimulating economic growth.

Choosing clean water creates jobs AND saves money.

Do you know where your drinking water comes from? (OK smarty pants, we mean before it gets to the tap.)

Millions of folks don’t realize their drinking water is pulled directly from the rivers that flow to the Chesapeake Bay -- from Richmond and Lynchburg, Virginia all the way up to Elmira and Binghamton, New York, and many places in between like Washington, DC.

As the House of Representatives considers massive spending cuts through a process called a Continuing Resolution, there’s a sneak attack going on that people may miss that puts the future of our drinking water sources at risk.

There’s an amendment proposed by Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte likely to be voted on at any time now that says:

*None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to develop, promulgate, evaluate, implement, provide oversight to, or backstop total maximum daily loads or watershed implementation for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

This has a lot of technical talk in it, but the bottom line is that if this amendment passes it really doesn’t matter what funding cuts there are to environmental protections, like EPA programs, because their hands will be tied to not spend anything on “total maximum daily loads” or “watershed implementation.”

What does this mean? Let’s take a look at the definition of total maximum daily load on Wikipedia. The first sentence says, “A Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act (CWA), describing a value of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quality standards.”

Simply put, the TMDL is your line of defense to ensure your source of drinking water isn’t polluted. And, the Goodlatte Amendment wants to take away that defense. It takes away solid work to develop, evaluate and implement it and, most disturbingly, to provide oversight to the TMDL.

Wouldn’t we all agree that pollution of our drinking water source is not something we want deregulated, providing no oversight or penalty for using our rivers and streams, OUR SOURCE OF DRINKING WATER, as a public sewer for all who wish to pollute?

If you agree, please take action here. Or, call your representative through the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

*Rep. Goodlatte revised his initial amendment to add the word "plans" after "watershed implementation."

Clean drinking water trumps oil as our most precious resource. We have to act like it.

It's simple, yet true. And we need to make sure the House of Representatives gets that message because today there was a sneak attack on the future of clean water.

Today the House took to the floor a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year. We believe in tough times all spending has to be put under the microscope and tough decisions have to be made.

Our concern is that the CR appears to target critical environmental protections yet preserves polluter funding, like billions in oil and gas subsidies.

There are policy issues protecting polluters wrapped into this resolution that may be missed as the country takes a hard look at its budget.

As worded, the CR does more than just recommend funding cuts.  An amendment offered by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) goes one step further and aims to prohibit any funding to implement EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Pollution Diet:

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to develop, promulgate, evaluate, implement, provide oversight to, or backstop total maximum daily loads or watershed implementation for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.” 

Every day more than 22 million pounds of pollutants are entering the rivers and streams of the Chesapeake Bay, providing well over a pound of pollution daily for every person in this region to consume from the waters that are meant to sustain them.  Last year EPA finally made a move to enforce provisions of the Clean Water Act established more than 40 years ago by developing the Chesapeake Bay Pollution Diet. Many believed this to be the first chance to have enforceable pollution standards for Chesapeake waters.

The CR also opens new polluter loopholes in the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, endangering millions of residents who draw their drinking water from the rivers of the Chesapeake Bay, from Richmond, VA to Washington, DC to Harrisburg, PA to Binghamton, NY, and places in between.

The agency created to be the people’s first line of defense against polluters – the Environmental Protection Agency – takes a cut of nearly a third of its budget, the largest agency cut within the CR.

 We’re concerned polluter lobbyists may be wielding too much power in the House process.

A group of Senators, including the Chesapeake Bay watershed’s own Sen. Cardin and Sen. Gillibrand, wrote a letter to Speaker Boehner outlining that closing tax loopholes and incentives for the oil and gas industries could offer billions in savings.

We believe oil and gas companies have profited enough at tax payer expense. Those subsidies would more than offset cuts that put clean water at risk.

Let's look for real solutions in this budget crunch. Don't sneak a polluter-backed policy agenda past the American people so that by the time they realize what has happened their drinking water is at risk.

 Want to act now? Write to your local representative.

This week the Baltimore Sun’s B’More Green blog offered a headline that caught our attention:  “Dueling Polls:  ‘Stick to Jobs,’ or ‘Save the Bay.’”

We’ve been hearing this a lot lately, where jobs and caring for our environment are an either or proposition. Some folks have come to believe that caring for our environment is a warm and fuzzy idea reserved for prosperous times, and if we’re serious about jobs we need to turn our back on our responsibility to preserve our land and waters. There’s a lot of heated rhetoric out there suggesting that regulation is a jobs killer.

To us it’s just the opposite. Pollution is the jobs killer, not environmental protections.

We only need look to the businesses struggling along the Gulf Coast to see this. Those fishing- and tourism-based businesses aren’t fighting to survive due to the oil drilling industry being over regulated. Last year the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated that more than 132,000 jobs were at risk from the Gulf oil spill.

We’re not saying that if you look hard enough you can’t find an example of an idiotic regulation that should be removed or revised. But, you shouldn’t ask corporations to be the only judge as to what is a jobs killer. You’re then leaving out the vast number of jobs that would be lost if we killed certain regulations or effectively killed them by starving the funds for enforcement.

 Or, to flip it to a positive, we must remember that jobs are preserved through wise environmental protections.

And, we can take it one step further by recognizing that the work needed to clean the rivers and streams flowing to the Chesapeake creates those meat-and-potatoes, boots-on-the-ground jobs that are crucial right now. 

The idea of choosing jobs over “Saving the Bay” is a false choice, and we can’t allow this message to persist.  Jobs are created by updating our cities’ crumbling water and wastewater infrastructure. Jobs are created by taking steps to curb stormwater pollution. Jobs are created through a number of agricultural innovations that prevent polluted runoff.

Jobs are CREATED, and the end result is healthier drinking water, reduced chance of flooding AND the numerous economic benefits of cleaner rivers and streams.

We know that times are tight and cuts must be made. We need to be smart about those things in which we do invest. We believe an investment in clean water pays dividends through jobs, health, tourism, quality of life and long-term hard-cost savings.

In the coming days we’ll provide more details on how those jobs are created and the benefits the 17 million residents of the Chesapeake Bay could realize when the work is done.