REMOVAL OF SMALL STREAM PROTECTIONS THREATENS WATER SUPPLIES IN SAN DIEGO
By Miriam Raftery
Image: Interactive Map Shows if Your Drinking Water Is at Risk from Trump's Executive Order
Source: Environmental Working Group, from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Geographic Information Systems Analysis of the Surface Drinking Water Provided by Intermittent, Ephemeral and Headwater Streams in the U.S.
March 5, 2017 (San Diego) — President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to rescind Clean Water Rule protections for small streams and replace it with a new rule allowing more pollution. That action threatens drinking water supplies for millions of Americans – including 679,769 residents in San Diego County, according to data obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
An interactive map of the U.S. created by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows you to click on any county and learn if drinking water is at risk from the rule change. In San Diego County, waterways affected include 106 miles of headwater streams, 169 miles of intermittent streams and 22 miles of perennial streams.
Statewide, 3 million Californians could have their drinking water threatened after Environmental Protection Agency chair Scott Pruitt complies with the order. Pruitt, as former Attorney General for Oklahoma, repeatedly joined with the coal and gas industries to sue the EPA in efforts to weaken clean air and water protections, the opposition of the agency’s mission of protecting public health and wildlife.
The Clean Water Act has long protected America’s drinking water supplies, but industrial and factory farm lobbyists have long pushed for rollbacks on clean water regulations that cut into their profits.
Read more: http://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-rule-ewg-2293046066.htm