Clean water is under threat

Riding along on an annual count of juvenile fish in the Delaware River, a state biologist compared for me the river of yore to the river of the 1990s. Once so low in dissolved oxygen and high in pollution, the Delaware was dying. By the 1970s, important fish populations had nearly collapsed. By the day of our count, many had rebounded.

The transformation had been spurred largely by protections provided under the federal Clean Water Act. By setting standards for wastewater treatment, requiring permits for discharges and providing funding for infrastructure improvements, CWA has become the single-largest reason Americans across the country have had safe waterways to enjoy and healthy water to consume for the past five-plus decades.

The CWA was enacted because Americans were fed up with a lack of legal protection that allowed rivers, streams and lakes across the country to be critically polluted by agricultural runoff, sewage and industrial waste. Businesses and communities large and small rose to the challenge of protecting our waters, and they succeeded. It is time to speak up again.

The CWA is under threat. In mid-November, the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a new definition of waters of the United States. WOTUS specifies the types of waterbodies and waterways that are subject to regulation of pollution, filling and dredging under the CWA.

The proposed change comes on the heels of a significant weakening of the law by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Sackett v. EPA in 2023, which eliminated more than half of the nation’s wetlands and thousands of miles of streams from protection while demanding clear criteria for federal regulation. 

That’s a big deal in Delaware. Almost a quarter of our nearly 2,000 square miles is covered by water. Surface waters, including rivers, streams and wetlands, sustain important plant and animal communities, and supply drinking water to about two-thirds of Delaware households.

In the Sackett decision, the court ignored previous interpretations of the CWA, as well as some basic science. Stressing that only navigable waters and wetlands with continuous surface connection should be protected, the decision overlooked groundwater, nontidal wetlands and other connections that are critical to the quality of water and habitat. 

The EPA and USACE believe the proposed rule will save money, but it does not take into consideration the cost of increased pollution that will result from deregulation. When we lose wetlands, we also lose all the invaluable ecosystem services they provide, including filtering out pollution, shielding property from floodwaters, and nourishing plants and animals, many of them rare and endangered. Removing protections will ultimately drive up the cost of water treatment, stormwater management, and home and flood insurance – costs we will feel in our utility bills, taxes, premiums and in our health. 

When the CWA was enacted in 1972, the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay were among the most degraded waterways in the country. Efforts over the years since have vastly improved the watersheds even as the population has grown. In changing the definition of WOTUS, we risk turning back the clock to a time when rivers were so polluted, they caught fire. Will we allow progress to slow or reverse? 

Everyone has a right to clean, healthy water. It is far faster and easier to pollute than to restore, and, as we have seen in the Chesapeake and Delaware, reversing the consequences of bad public policy can take decades. At a time when pressure on our water resources is increasing, EPA should be strengthening regulations, not weakening them.

EPA and USACE are soliciting comments on the proposed rule until Monday, Jan. 5. Speak up for clean water by sending your comments to OW-Docket@epa.gov. Learn more about the CWA at epa.gov.