Southern waters at risk
SELC analysis shows South's wetlands, headwaters most at risk
When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, it intended that all waters of the U.S. would be protected. For more than 35 years, the law has cleaned up some of the worst pollution in our rivers and lakes, and protected much of our wetland resources.
But Supreme Court rulings and the Bush Administration in recent years have muddied the scope of the Clean Water Act, putting at risk much of the streams and wetlands that are most critical in safeguarding the health and abundance of the nation's waters.
In particular, headwaters and other intermittent streams, and so-called isolated wetlands can be considered "first responders" to multiple environmental threats - they filter pollutants, trap sediment, absorb flood water, provide habitat of innumerable species, and much more.
In the South, at least 260,000 miles of headwater streams (more than half of all the South's stream miles), and at least 2 million acres of wetlands are at risk from pollution and development under current federal policy.
A bi-partisan bill pending Congress, the Clean Water Restoration Act (HR 2421), would affirm the protections Congress intended in 1972, and still needed today to protect the nation's water resources.
SELC is working with a national coalition of conservation and sportsmen groups to advocate passage of the bill.
