We drink water, these days, mostly after it spits out of a fridge dispenser or swishes from a disposable plastic bottle. It is hard, very hard, to remember that same water — every molecule of it — comes from the creeks, swamps and other assorted waterways outside our sealed windows.
These waters are by no means as clean and isolated as our plastic bottles. In fact, 50 years ago, many were descending into an industrial stew, fueled by the post-World War II economic boom. Suburban development was also taking its toll. In just two decades after the war, 7.6 million acres of wetlands — an area roughly the size of Maryland — were destroyed in the lower 48 states. Toxic waste and sewage were dumped, untreated, into the nearest stream. A series of high-profile river fires — yes, rivers on fire — helped push Congress to act.
Passed with sweeping bipartisan support exactly 50 years ago this week, few laws have been as transformative to the nation’s quality of life as the Clean Water Act. The goal of the act was nothing less than “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” To achieve this goal, Congress created a cooperative federal structure that gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broad authority to protect important waters throughout the watershed.
While its implementation has certainly been met with roadblocks, it is hard to overstate the ongoing protective importance of the Clean Water Act. The law, according to a new report from my organization the National Wildlife Federation, has helped policymakers limit pollution, prosecute polluters and fund restoration efforts. Today, its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program alone prevents 700 billion pounds of pollutants from entering our waters annually. Approximately 200,000 “point source” polluters — including sewage treatment facilities, paper mills, petroleum refineries, indoor hog farms and certain construction sites — are currently regulated under the law.
Now, in a particularly cruel bit of timing, precisely on the law’s 50th anniversary, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that could cripple it. In Sackett v. EPA — an already historic occasion as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first case — a radical opponent of clean water is seeking to withdraw the law’s longstanding protections for roughly half the nation’s streams and wetlands.
What’s at stake is the integrity — and in many cases very existence — of streams and wetlands that provide flood control, recharge waters during drought, filter pollution and provide habitat. These waterways are the kidneys and sponges of larger rivers and lakes, safeguarding the health and safety of those communities that depend on such waters.
With climate change fueling more intense storms, longer and deeper droughts, as well as temperatures that catalyze harmful algal growth and exacerbate pollution, the functions performed by healthy natural water systems are all the more critical.
If the plaintiffs succeed, it will be open season for the federally unregulated pollution and destruction of many of our most vulnerable waters. The results would be catastrophic. The drinking water supply for millions of Americans could be rendered unsafe. At least half of the nation’s flood-absorbent wetlands would be at risk of being filled in and paved over. Upstream waterways that store and filter water could be erased from the landscape, worsening droughts and water quality.
These impacts will hit frontline communities hardest. Decades of under-investment in drinking water and proper treatment of waste means communities that have already historically faced a disproportionate share of flooding and water pollution will have to bear the brunt of this ruling.
Clearly, the Supreme Court needs to honor the intent of Congress to protect the drinking water supplies for hundreds of millions of Americans. But states also need to prepare for the worst. If federal protections are withdrawn from streams and wetlands, state agencies will need to step in and protect what’s left of our waters.
If we don’t, the degradation of the landscape outside our window will not only destroy already weakened habitats — it will foul the drinking water and flood the homes of the most vulnerable Americans. After 50 years of revitalization and an unfolding era of climate crises, we can’t go back to a century where effluent and asphalt killed our most vital waters.
Jim Murphy is the director of legal advocacy for the National Wildlife Federation where he coordinates legal advocacy across the federation’s national programs with a focus on clean water and renewable energy. He has worked on Clean Water Act implementation for more than two decades and has represented environmental organizations in several precedent-setting cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Circuit Courts.