Clean Water

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency will propose this week that states regulate water pollution by focusing on the quality of bodies of water, instead of the levels of discharges from individual plants.Once a state determines the extent to which pollution must be reduced in a body of water, polluters would receive a quota and could clean up their emissions or buy the right to discharge pollutants into the water from someone whose cleanup had exceeded a quota.The change, announced yesterday by President Clinton in his weekly radio address, is based on a mostly unused provision of the 1972 Clean Water Act that requires regulators to assess water conditions and issue discharge restrictions accordingly.

WASHINGTON -- In a daylong visit to Baltimore today, President Clinton will unveil an ambitious and detailed blueprint for improving the quality of America's rivers, lakes and coastal waters, including the Chesapeake Bay.The administration's $10.5 billion Clean Water Action Plan, obtained last night by The Sun, lists 110 "key action steps" intended to restore the estimated 40 percent of the nation's waterways that are too polluted for safe fishing or...

MARYLAND IS about to receive $200 million in federal funds to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay by converting farmlands to wetlands and forests. This is encouraging for more than monetary reasons. It signals a shift in public consciousness -- a growing understanding of the relationship between agriculture and clean water, a realization that forests are more than trees and that marshes are more than soggy grasses.Even now, many Americans think of pollution in terms of filth from factory and sewage pipes.

IT TURNS 25 this month, a most impressive offspring of the modern environmental age, yet nowhere near fulfilling its promise.Congress in 1972 passed the federal Clean Water Act over howls and threats from the industrial establishment, amid warnings from New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller that it was a "$3 trillion mistake."Congress passed it again, handily, over President Richard Nixon's veto, and waited for the Supreme Court to strike down his impoundment of $18 billion in the act to help states treat sewage.

WE USED TO treat our nation's waterways with what can be best described as disdain. We viewed rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, estuaries and oceans alike as the nation's waste receptacles.Only 25 years ago, one of the world's great freshwater lakes, Lake Erie, was pronounced dead. Ohio's Cuyahoga River near Cleveland spontaneously burst into flames.Chesapeake cesspoolGrand waters in the nation's history, like Boston Harbor, the Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson, Delaware and Potomac rivers, were cesspools.

Around the house* Recycle clean, empty plastic spray bottles that once contained liquid cleansers. Filled with clean water, they can be used to mist plants, dampen laundered clothes for ironing and to delight children as a toy squirt gun.* Clean a streaked toilet bowl quickly. Dump in a denture-cleaning tablet.* Preserve wood furniture. Keep chairs and tables out of direct sunlight. If possible, move pieces such as buffets and hutches away from cooling and heating ducts, which may dry out the wood.

WASHINGTON -- A national panel of scientists urged Congress yesterday to uphold federal protections for wetlands, noting that marshes, bogs and even drier lands help clean up Chesapeake Bay and other waterways.In a report released as the House prepares to vote on amending the federal Clean Water Act, a 17-member panel assembled by the National Research Council said the federal system for identifying and protecting wetlands is basically sound. The research council is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, which Congress commissioned two years ago to study controversial government restrictions on farming and developing wetlands.

"Sound economic policy does not need to be at odds with sound environmental policy." We hope Rep. Robert Ehrlich of Maryland's 2nd District heeds those words -- his very own -- and joins responsible legislators in voting against gutting the Clean Water Act in the House of Representatives this week.The 1972 law has been the crucial underpinning of environmental protection and revival of the Chesapeake Bay and other endangered waterways across the country. The federal act cracks down on water pollution by industry and sewage plants and on non-point runoff pollution in coastal zones.

WASHINGTON -- In one of his most focused attacks on the new Republican agenda, President Clinton denounced yesterday a House bill altering the Clean Water Act as the "Dirty Water Act" -- and spelled out his threat to veto it."This House bill would put the cleanliness and safety of our water at risk," Mr. Clinton told a group gathered on the picturesque banks of Rock Creek, a place where Theodore Roosevelt loved to hike."Industries in our country use roughly 70,000 pollutants, chemicals and other material that can poison water if they're not controlled properly.

WHEN MEMBERS of Congress head home for the November elections, there may be more than health care reform left unfinished. Lack of attention to water pollution may leave public health begging as well.This is the year when Congress is supposed to revise both the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. There is ample reason to toughen both laws. The federal Environmental Protection Agency says that more than a third of our nation's waterways are unsafe for fishing, swimming or other uses.

More than 60 environmental groups from the six states whose rivers drain into the Chesapeake Bay have formed a coalition to press for stronger federal government efforts to clean up their local waterways, it was announced yesterday. "Clean, healthy water is vital to the health of every one of the nearly 17 million people that live in this region," Jan Jarrett, executive director of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, said in a statement announcing the formation of the Choose Clean Water Campaign.

Pollution and overharvesting in the Chesapeake Bay have devastated the blue crab population by killing crab feed and eroding key habitats, a leading environmental group said in report released yesterday. And, the group said, the federal government has failed to enforce environmental laws that would help remedy the problem.To prevent the dead zones that kill clams and worms that crabs eat and the algae blooms that kill crab habitats, the Environmental Protection Agency must impose a regulatory cap on the amount of pollution entering the bay and enforce the Clean Water Act, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's report.

This two-part commentary from Bay Journal News Service presents the views of the Republican and Democratic candidates for president on their policies regarding the Chesapeake Bay region. For those of us in the Mid-Atlantic region who value clean rivers and streams and want to preserve our quality of life, the decision to vote for Sen. Barack Obama is an easy one. Mr. Obama's platform recognizes the unique nature of the Chesapeake watershed, and he is dedicated to providing the resources to clean up the water flowing into the bay. The Obama Democratic platform states, "We support a comprehensive solution for restoring our national treasures - such as the Great Lakes, Everglades and Chesapeake Bay - including expanded scientific research and protections for species and habitats there."

Washington -- Setting up a confrontation with President Bush over spending, the Democratic-controlled House approved a bill yesterday that would increase funding for clean-water projects, such as those aimed at preventing beach pollution. The bill, which would authorize $14 billion over four years, was approved on a 303-108 vote, despite a White House veto threat. It now goes to the Senate. The debate offered a preview of coming budget fights between the White House and the Democratic majority in Congress.

NATIONAL Court to review Clean Water Act After its first private conference led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court said it would hear three cases that ask the justices to cut back on the reach of the Clean Water Act of 1972, the anti-pollution measure that led to the cleanup of streams, rivers and bays across the United States. pg 3a WORLD Weather slows rescue efforts Rain and hail slowed rescue efforts in some the areas hardest hit by Saturday's earthquake in south Asia.

UPPER MARLBORO - Near the headquarters of its first official "keeper," the Patuxent River cuts an olive-drab swath through a tumble of branches living and dead. Fred Tutman stood there one recent afternoon on a forlorn truss bridge built during the Patuxent's better days, chatting with a fisherman who told about perch running well as the sun sets. Tutman handed over a card with his name and number. "I'm the Patuxent riverkeeper," he said, urging the fisherman to get in touch if something seemed amiss along the water.

SAN FRANCISCO - A judge has ordered repeal of a federal regulation that has allowed ships to discharge ballast water freely into U.S. harbors and coastal waters. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said last week that the 1972 Clean Water Act prohibits the practice. Government and other reports have identified ballast water as the main source for the spread of invasive foreign species - more than 500 of them - that have been ruining U.S. wetlands and driving out native marine plant and animal life.

The Ehrlich administration is proposing new water-quality standards that would allow the state to classify some Maryland waterways as too polluted to justify the expense of cleaning them up. Officials at the Maryland Department of the Environment say their proposed revision of regulations required by the Clean Water Act is an attempt to strike a balance between environmental goals and the needs of business. "We're not giving up on our waters; we are just trying to be practical," said Richard Eskin, who is the head of regulatory services for the department.

The town of Hampstead will be surveying the 40 to 50 homeowners in a neighborhood just east of town, where the gasoline additive MTBE has shown up in some wells, to determine the level of interest in being annexed and connected to the town water supply. Hampstead Town Manager Ken Decker said letters to the property owners would be going out this week. About 40 people, many of them residents of the Hillcrest Avenue neighborhood, came to an informational meeting Wednesday night at the town hall with representatives of the Maryland Department of the Environment.

The town of Hampstead will be surveying the 40 to 50 homeowners in a neighborhood just east of town, where the gasoline additive MTBE has shown up in some wells, to determine the level of interest in being annexed and connected to the town water supply. Hampstead Town Manager Ken Decker said letters to the property owners would be going out this week. About 40 people, many of them residents of the Hillcrest Avenue neighborhood, came to an informational meeting Wednesday night at the town hall with representatives of the Maryland Department of the Environment.