An Overview
 The overall goal of the Safe and Healthy Communities conservation initiative is to foster vibrant, healthy communities with clean water and clean air, and that are free from toxic chemical threats. The initial focus will be to work at the state and local level to protect sources of drinking water from pollution, defend federal and state clean water protections from attack, and to address the largest sources of water pollution: sewage and storm water runoff.
For over 35 years we've made progress in cleaning up our rivers and lakes and reducing the loss of wetlands. But confusing court decisions and Bush administration policies are threatening protections for 20 million acres of wetlands and a majority of the nation's streams. To ensure that all of our nation's waters are protected, Congress must pass the Clean Water Restoration Act, which writes into law the original scope of the Clean Water Act. Here is how you can help.
We have five action objectives:
 Protect Drinking Water Sources
There is strong support among the public for having access to good quality drinking water, and in general, our drinking water quality is good. At the same time, there is very little public appreciation of the sources of our drinking water and the need to protect them from existing and new pollution threats. Building understanding of the connection between the source waters and the tap, and the public health risks and added treatment burdens imposed by increased pollution, will generate greater public support for controlling and eliminating pollution. The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative Drinking Water Source Protection component will focus on two priority water pollution threats: the Bush administration's policy of denying Clean Water Act protection to headwater streams and wetlands that are critical to drinking water quality; and the need for more effective controls on nutrient pollution.
According to the EPA, over 90% of surface water protection areas contain headwater streams. The policy of denying Clean Water Act protection to headwater streams and wetlands is exposing these waters to unregulated pollution and filling, an especially great concern where no state-level protections exist. With the help of water activists in documenting examples of federal agencies unjustifiably denying Clean Water Act protection to streams, wetlands and other waters, we will promote improved protection of these waters through reversal of the administration's policy. Pollution of source waters by nutrient loadings poses risks to drinking water quality, as well as damage to aquatic systems. Reducing nutrient pollution in sources of drinking water is of especially great importance for public health, in order to minimize exposure to high nitrate levels among infants and small children, and to minimize the formation of cancer-causing by-products from disinfection of water. We will work with water activists in several states to promote adoption of effective water quality standards for nutrients.
 Stop Sewage Pollution
Sewage and stormwater runoff are among the nation's largest sources of water pollution. Lack of investment in maintaining municipal sewerage systems and insufficient political will to curb new sewage hook-ups results in more sewage than many sewerage systems can treat, especially when stormwater enters the system. To compound the problem, sprawling forms of development, with ever-increasing acres of impermeable surfaces, generates more stormwater than treatment systems can handle. And when investments in infrastructure do occur, more often than not, the money goes toward these new developments rather than upgrading and maintaining current infrastructure. As a result, untreated or poorly treated sewage often flows into waterways and overflows into backyard streams, yards or even basements.
The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative Sewage component will focus on: ensuring the effectiveness of communities' long term control plans that are critical keeping sewage out of our waters; identifying a model sewage overflow notification system to advocate and engage activists to promote this system; and fighting efforts by municipalities to weaken water quality standards so that more wastewater can enter our waters.
 Stop Mountaintop Removal
Blowing off the tops of mountains and dumping the
waste in the streams below to extract coal is widespread and ongoing in
Appalachia. We work with the Club's Energy and Environmental Justice programs,
with a focus on the harm done to water resources and communities.
In 2002, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA finalized a rule that changed the long-standing definition of "fill material" used by both agencies to allow, waste to be used to fill streams, lakes, wetlands, and other waters. The rule change was pushed into effect primarily by the coal mining industry, which wanted to continue to fill and bury Appalachian streams with wastes from mountaintop removal coal mining.
Soon after, a federal court in West Virginia found that the rule change violated the Clean Water Act and is therefore illegal. But a year later, a U.S. appeals court in Richmond reversed the lower-court ruling that would have ended the practice of filling rivers and streams with waste rock and dirt from mountaintop removal coal mining operations.
The dumping of countless tons of mountaintop removal coal mining waste has already buried and destroyed over 1200 miles of Appalachian streams. Our goal is to pass the Clean Water Protection Act, which would prohibit the filling of streams with waste produced by removing mountaintops.
 Promote Safe and Healthy Rural Communities
Industrial agriculture is threatening the health of the nation by pouring huge quantities of pathogens and other pollutants into the nation's lakes and streams, including drinking waters sources. The prolific use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics in industrialized livestock operations to speed growth and prevent disease has created a witches brew of super-bugs that are increasingly entering our surface and groundwater, posing a threat to recreational users and the drinking water of communities downstream.
Weak or non-existent state and federal programs fail to address siting and design problems, virtually guaranteeing pollution from industrial livestock operations will contaminate surface and groundwater, while the lack of clear policies on preventing disease-causing pathogens from entering the environment leaves our citizens at risk. Monocultural crops to feed livestock discharge additional nutrients into waters as well, contributing to dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other water bodies.
The recent rise in promotion of CAFOs (Confined Animal Feed Operation) as part of an integrated program to promote bio-fuels has compounded the problems posed by building even greater pressure to build CAFOs with fewer and fewer restrictions.
The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative Rural Communities component will focus on:
- Promoting the development and implementation of strong and effective regulations to limit pathogens releases from industrial livestock operations
- Engaging and supporting activists in challenging particularly egregious concentrated animal feeding operations
- Enacting state-level legislation to eliminate the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics in livestock operations
- Promoting state-level policies and legislation in support of producing bio-fuels from healthy sources
- Excluding environmentally destructive concentrated livestock operations
- Promoting consumption of locally grown and responsibly raised food among our members and the public
- Engaging our members and partners (including family farmers, hunters and anglers) in these endeavors.
 Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources
Global warming is contributing to
more frequent and severe water problems: droughts, flooding, and pollution
caused by runoff from more intense storms. To address the increased
vulnerability of communities to these challenges, we will promote water
efficiency and conservation alternatives and assist them in selecting
sustainable, water resource-protecting solutions. Our goal is protection and
restoration of ecosystems, wetlands, and floodplains. Protecting nature
protects people.
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