Erin Brockovich: 'Shit Flows Downhill': What the Trump Clean Water Act Rollbacks Really Mean

[G_j]

https://www.environews.tv/012320-erin-brockovich-shit-flows-downhill-what-the-trump-clean-water-act-rollbacks-really-mean/

Emerson Urry: These rollbacks specifically exclude or weaken protections for streams and other smaller waterways like ephemeral and intermittent creeks, streams, and wetlands. According to some sources, the rollbacks would also exclude groundwater. What does it mean for the health of communities if these rollbacks really stick?

Erin Brockovich: There is no question whether the Trump Administration Clean Water Act rollbacks are going to stick or not; they are the law of the land. Let’s put the President’s pandering to corporate polluters in perspective: the regulations have barely been in effect for a year, they truly have just caused a great deal of confusion with the Army Corps of Engineers, which claimed it was unclear on how to implement them. And frankly, as a country we would have gone a long way simply enforcing the regulations on the books before the Obama Administration.

Urry: Specifically, what chemicals or pollutants do you think we will see increase in U.S. water supplies as a result of the rollback?

Brockovich: Predominantly agriculture-related discharges. So, nutrients like nitrates and phosphates, as well as pesticides like glyphosate (Roundup), which my State of California spays tons of every day into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. We aren’t talking about point source discharges [with this change] whatsoever.
Urry: What impacts could that have on human health?
Brockovich: In drinking water, nitrates have been a problem from the beginning. Probably the first Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) in the Safe Drinking Water Act was about nitrate contamination. By far the biggest heath impacts will be from the thousands of Hazardous Algae Blooms (HABs) this will cause. HABs are known to cause upper respiratory distress, neurological disease and death. This is where we need to focus.

..much more.:

[JimGinPA]

1. K&R

[crickets]

2. K&R for visibility