Lifelong Cleveland resident Steve Gove recalls when the Cuyahoga River symbolized shame — fetid, lifeless, notorious for catching fire when sparks from overhead rail cars ignited the oil-slicked surface.
“I have folks come into my office routinely from other states and around the world, wanting to see the Cuyahoga River,” said Kurt Princic, a district chief for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. “They want to know how we got from where it was in the ’60s to where it is today. It starts with the Clean Water Act, partnerships and hard work.”; it’s plagued by erosion, historic contamination, storm water runoff and sewage overflows.
that blamed the outdated ones for “more pollution from oil refineries, chemical plants, slaughterhouses and other industries pouring into waterways.” Pollution control plans for large watersheds and regulatory enforcement are weak, it said, while EPA and state environmental agencies have endured repeated budget cuts.One result, Schaeffer said, is that more than 50% of lake, river and stream miles periodically assessed are still classified as impaired.
Environmental groups who have long argued the law allows regulation of large livestock farm pollution sued EPA this month, demanding a tougher approach. But federal and state agencies rely mostly on voluntary programs that provide financial assistance to farms for using practices such as planting cover crops that hold soil during off-seasons and buffer strips between croplands and streams. Farm groups resist making such practices mandatory.
A more practical approach, he said, is convincing farmers that anti-runoff practices are in their economic interest.involved one of the longest-running debates about the Clean Water Act: Which waters does it legally protect? “What’s at stake here is at least half the waterways in this country,” said Jon Devine of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
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