Clinton Announces Another Push for Cleaner Waters

Aug. 16, 1999

President Clinton wants more than 20,000 rivers, lakes and estuaries, now considered polluted, to be cleaned up through a federal-state partnership that could mean more stringent regulations for farmers. He also blasted congressional Republicans for "laying plans to roll back more than a quarter century" of progress in environmental protection.

The Environmental Protection Agency will coordinate clean water standards through comprehensive cleanup plans with responsibilities shared among "all sources." EPA will work with states to assess waterways to identify the most polluted and develop "strong, enforceable plans to restore them to health," Clinton said in his Saturday radio address.

"Recognizing that no two pollution challenges are identical, EPA is proposing to require site-specific cleanup plans for all remaining polluted water bodies," says EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner. Forty percent of U.S. surveyed waterways remain too polluted for fishing and swimming.

States will prepare comprehensive assessments of waterways, identifying those exceeding clean water standards and pinpointing those facing the greatest pollution threats. Limits will be set on pollution entering a body of water and on how much of pollution can come from such sources as factories, sewage treatment plants, farms and urban runoff.

Cleanup plans will be developed and timetables set for implementation. The plans may mean tighter pollution limits for individual "point" sources and limits on agricultural and urban runoff or other "non-point" sources. For high priority waters, including those where pollution threatens drinking water sources or endangered species, states will be encouraged to adopt plans within five years.

"Without explanation or excuse," said Clinton, "the Republican spending bills slash important environmental initiatives...to preserve natural treasures, farms, urban parks, wetlands and other green spaces. They short-change vital research and development programs that address the threat of global warming, that help us develop alternative fuels in vehicles that pollute less and make the maximum use of available energy conservation technologies."

Republican appropriations bills "are also loaded with unrelated provisions that would sacrifice crucial environmental protections for the sake of special interests. I vetoed bills before because they contain such anti-environmental riders and, if necessary, I';m prepared to do it again."