WVEC Action Alerts
December 31, 2004
Clean Water
Dear U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) supporter,
While over 40% of the waterways in the U.S. are too polluted for fishing or
swimming, the Bush administration is moving forward with a policy to allow more
sewage to be dumped into our rivers, lakes and beach waters. This policy weakens
clean water protections and poses a serious threat to public health.
Please take a moment to tell the EPA to withdraw the sewage dumping policy and
strengthen clean water protections. Then ask your family and friends to help by
forwarding this email to them.
To take action, click on this link or paste it into your web browser:
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=2&id4=ES
Background
In the U.S., 300,000 miles of rivers and shorelines and 5 million acres of lakes
do not meet minimum water quality standards. Rather than cleaning up the water,
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed allowing sewage treatment
plants to dump inadequately treated sewage into our waters during rain storms.
The policy, which the EPA refers to as "blending", would permit sewage treatment
plants to mix partially treated sewage with fully treated waste and dump that
mixture into waters, including drinking water sources and fish habitat.
This policy not only poses a serious threat to public health and the environment
but also violates the Clean Water Act. Exposure to untreated sewage makes people
sick, causes beach closings, contaminates shellfish and kills other fish. For
almost 30 years, the Clean Water Act has mandated the biological treatment of
sewage. Sewage dumping bypasses this biological treatment, allowing bacteria,
viruses and parasites to end up in our waterways. Children, the elderly and
people who are already weakened by cancer and other illness will be most harmed
by increases of these disease causing organisms.
The public has reacted strongly against allowing more sewage in our waters. In
2003, when the EPA first proposed sewage dumping, state environmental agencies,
public health officials and tens of thousands of citizens made comments against
the policy. Despite this opposition, the EPA is preparing to finalize the sewage
dumping policy.
Please take a moment to tell the EPA to protect public health and the
environment by withdrawing the sewage dumping policy. Then ask your family and
friends to help by forwarding this email to them.
To take action, click on this link or paste it into your web browser:
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=2&id4=ES
Sincerely,
Gene Karpinski
U.S. PIRG Executive Director
GeneK@uspirg.org
http://www.USPIRG.org
P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free to share this with your
family and friends.
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