EPA Chief Seeks Water Industry Support For Controversial Proposal

The nation's top environmental regulator stepped out recently to lobby wastewater professionals to support her agency's controversial clean water proposal.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy spoke at the Water Environment Federation Technology Conference (WEFTEC) in September "to ask 18,000 water and wastewater professionals for help in supporting the agency's controversial 'Waters of the U.S.' rule," the Times-Picayune reported.

McCarthy appealed to the water professionals to employ their expertise in persuading the public that her proposal is necessary.

"As water managers, as regulators, as technicians, help us explain what this rule is and isn't," she said, per the report. She cited August's algae crisis in Toledo as a "wake up call" for the need to protect U.S. waters.

"It's 2014, folks, 2014, in the most prosperous nation on earth. Yet for two full days, thousands of families couldn't access life's most basic necessity...Now this is what one would call a wake-up call," she said, per the Times-Picayune.

McCarthy has repeatedly drawn attention to lake pollution as a rallying point for her proposal. In October, McCarthy "used Lake Champlain as a backdrop to call for continued efforts to clean up the lake and other waterways across the U.S. that she said are critical to the future of the country," the Associated Press reported.

She cited algae blooms on lakes such as Champlain show a continued threat to clean water, according to the report.

“We’re trying to get people’s attention back to the water issues, make people understand that we have continued challenges cropping up across the nation that are threats to drinking water supplies as well as the beautiful waters like this that are used for recreational purposes,” McCarthy said, per the report.

The EPA proposed in April to clarify the definition of "waters of the U.S." in the Clean Water Act. The EPA argues that the rule is necessary because Supreme Court decisions make it unclear what the agency may regulate under the Clean Water Act. The comment period in this proceeding is open until October 20. Republicans and the agriculture lobby have expressed major concerns with the proposal.

"A diverse group of business interests, including mining companies and developers, even golf courses, oppose the rule the administration issued this spring, but the farm lobby, led by the American Farm Bureau Federation, has taken the most public role in trying to persuade Congress to stop the regulation from taking effect," Roll Call reported.

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