What should the new President do?

#1 Restore Protection

"It's estimated that 60 percent of U.S. creeks, rivers, streams and tens of millions of acres of wetlands and other sensitive waterbodies have lost federal protection in the last few years." Since SWANCC v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2001) and Rapanos were decided, vital federal protection for U.S. waterways has deteriorated and been called into question. Recent rollbacks include: evisceration of the "no net loss" wetlands policy; reversal of a longstanding EPA and USACE prohibition against using solid waste as fill material in U.S. waters; funding cuts and policy initiatives leading to loss of habitat critical to the survival of endangered and threatened species.

#2 Protection
"[A]ccording to EPA's own data, more than one in four of the largest polluting facilities in America are in regular violation of the Clean Water Act. And, while state and federal Clean Water Act permit programs are falling short in their performance, available resources for enforcement programs are growing scarcer."

#3 Stormwater Runoff
"In urban areas, stormwater runoff from highways, roads, sidewalks, parking lots and related infrastructure is the primary source of water pollution." Fortunately there are a variety of tools available to prevent or reduce polluted runoff. These include, but are certainly not limited to: hay bals used to block sediment from leaving a construction site, filters to remove petroleum from water, picking up after your dog on a walk, and community street-sweeping programs. Perhaps the best tool though, is to incorporate stormwater management into the design of our urban and suburban environments, "essentially stopping or reducing the problem before it starts."

#4 Sewage
"EPA estimates that every year, more than 850 billion gallons of sewage are released into American rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Combined sewage overflows account for the vast majority of untreated sewage that winds up in our waterways each year." The potential solution is to retrofit our antiquated (in some cases the sewage infrastructure is over 100 years old) sewage systems. As of now, many systems are still combined sewer systems (a single system which collects both sewage and stormwater) which become overwhelmed during rain events, causing sewage to oftertimes overflow into waterways.

#5 Mercury
"Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of airborne mercury in the county, spewing nearly 50 tons of this deadly poison into the air and into our local watersheds each year. Several studies have shown that as much as 70 percent of these toxic emissions are ending up in local waterways and fish. Only 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury is needed to contaminate a 25-acre lake to the point where fish are unsafe to eat." This is particulary frightening for anyone who lives in the Jacksonville area, considering that we have two large coal-fired power plants operated by JEA.

#6 Diversions
"When addressing the problem of strained water resources, people usually consider water quality first. Unfortunately, water quantity is often overlooked." Not only is instream flow of concern, but also the timing and flow rate of our waterways, as these all combine to affect the water quality. As our water and waterways are being asked to do more and more things, including serving as sources of drinking water, navigation, wastewater treatment, agricultural irrigation, recreation, hydropower, etc., a balanced approach is necessary to ensure that enough water remains.

#7 Coal Mining
"More than 400,000 acres of the world's most productive and diverse temperate hardwood forests have already disappeared [due to the practice of mountaintop coal mining, where mountains are blown apart to allow access to seams of coal within] and it is predicted that that figure could increase to 1.4 million acres-2,000 square miles-by the end of the decade if nothing is done to limit this practice." In West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia alone, mountaintop coal mining, which pushes the rubble into valleys, has buried or damaged more than 1,200 miles of irreplaceable headwater streams. Prehaps most strikingly, the EPA and the USACE issued a new rule making it legal to dump "fill material" directly into waterways.

#8 Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution
"According to EPA, agricultural pollution is the No. 1 source of declining water quality in rivers and lakes, the second largest source of impairments to wetlands, and a major contributor to the contamination of estuaries and groundwater." Books like the Omnivore's Dilemma and even family farmers themselves have shown that high-quality food is possible without damaging the environment, yet their practices are not widely followed.

#9 Ocean Protection
"Some of the world's most essential fisheries are in steep decline due to the effects of climate change, poor water quality, overharvesting and destructive fishing practices. Our coastal oceans are particularly hard hit, as are the fishing families and communities that depend on these waters." Many of the solutions are commonsense, yet few have been acted on by the national government over the past few years. One bright spot however, was Bush's establishment of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Northwest Hawaii.

#10 Environmental Justice
"Inevitably, society's wastes flow toward communities debilitated by high illiteracy, unemployment and low voter registration. These communities have become toxic dumping grounds while receiving few of the safeguards that prudence and decency demand, but which only political power can obtain." EPA itself has recognized that low-income and minority populations shoulder the greatest environmental risks and that enforcement of environmental controls follows racial lines.

Quotations and Top Ten List have been taken from:

Waterkeeper, Fall 2008.