Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.

[babylonsister]

Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.

David Walter Banks for The New York Times

The mouth of Avondale Creek in Alabama, into which a pipe maker dumped oil, lead and zinc. A court ruled the waterway was exempt from the Clean Water Act.

By CHARLES DUHIGG and JANET ROBERTS
Published: February 28, 2010


Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.

As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.

Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.

The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials.

“We are, in essence, shutting down our Clean Water programs in some states,” said Douglas F. Mundrick, an E.P.A. lawyer in Atlanta. “This is a huge step backward. When companies figure out the cops can’t operate, they start remembering how much cheaper it is to just dump stuff in a nearby creek.”

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/us/01water.html?hp

[tom_paine]

1. Silly. Clean water is for them rich enough to buy it in bottles.

Not for Plebs and Proles and Peasants.

Reality TV and the RW Lie Machine/Corporate M$M Fusion for us, and our waterways are toilets for the Corporate Persons.