Our Water, Our Future News

More than 44 percent of industrial and municipal facilities across Arizona discharged more pollution into our waterways than their Clean Water Act permits allow between July 2003 and December 2004, according to "Troubled Waters: An Analysis of Clean Water Act Compliance", a new report released today by the Arizona PIRG Education Fund.

“In Arizona, we cannot afford to pollute our limited water supplies. We need better enforcement of the Clean Water Act to ensure that Arizona has an adequate supply of local and clean water,” said Lela Prashad, Public Interest Advocate for the Arizona PIRG Education Fund.

While the 1972 Clean Water Act has made significant strides in cleaning up U.S. waterways, the law’s goals of eliminating the discharge of pollutants into waterways by 1985 and making all U.S. waters safe for fishing, swimming and other uses by 1983 have not been reached. Today, more than 40 percent of U.S. waterways are unsafe for swimming and fishing. In Arizona, more than 22 percent of rivers and 10 percent of lakes are impaired.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Arizona PIRG Education Fund obtained data on facilities’ compliance with the Clean Water Act between July 1, 2003 and December 31, 2004. The Arizona PIRG Education Fund researchers found that polluters repeatedly exceeded their permit limits, often by egregious amounts.

Additional findings include:

• More than 44% of Arizona’s industrial and municipal facilities exceeded their Clean Water Act permits at least once between July 1, 2003 and December 31, 2004.

• On average, Arizona facilities exceeding their Clean Water Act permits did so by 136%, or by over twice the legal limit.

• 24 facilities in Arizona reported more than 210 total exceedances of their Clean Water Act permits during the 18-month period

• Polluters in Arizona reported 12 instances in which they exceeded their Clean Water Act permit by at least 500 percent over the legal limit.

“All Arizonans deserve clean water to drink and safe places to swim and fish. To clean up our waterways, we must stop this pollution,” said Prashad.

Prashad noted that the findings are likely conservative, since the data that the Arizona PIRG Education Fund analyzed includes only “major” facilities and does not include pollution discharged into waters by the hundreds of thousands of minor facilities across the country.

In order to achieve the goals of the Clean Water Act, the Arizona PIRG Education Fund recommended federal and state officials do the following:

• Increase EPA Funding to put more environmental cops on the beat to identify and punish polluters violating their Clean Water Act permits, and to fully fund the Clean Water State Revolving Fund to help communities upgrade their sewer systems.
• Protect all U.S. waters by withdrawing the Bush administration’s 2003 “No Protection” policy that eliminates Clean Water Act protections for many small streams and wetlands that feed and clean great waters, and supporting passage of the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act.
• Strengthen the Clean Water Act by preventing polluters from profiting from pollution, tightening permitted pollution limits, revoking the permits of repeat violators, and ensuring citizens full access to the courts.

“To protect public health and the environment, the Bush administration and state officials must hold polluters accountable for their contamination of America’s waterways,” concluded Prashad.