ELPC and Coalition Push EPA to Control Nutrient Pollution, Clean Up Wisconsin Waters
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
ELPC and a coalition of Wisconsin environmental groups are taking legal action to push the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in Wisconsin’s waters.
The EPA pledged to begin regulating nitrogen and phosphorous pollution—coming from farms, lawns, and municipal water treatment plants—in Wisconsin’s waters back in 1999. Nitrogen and phosphorus contaminate drinking water by promoting the growth of cyanobacteria or blue-green algae and also contribute to algal blooms in the Great Lakes and ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico.
Wisconsin’s public health has been negatively affected, with the cyanobacteria causing death of pets, rashes, sore throats, and eye irritation, but that is not the only ill-effect the state has experienced. “Businesses located on waters tainted with toxic algae are really hurting,” said Denny Caneff, Executive Director of the River Alliance of Wisconsin. “They lose customers who flee the stench and the health hazards posed by toxic algae. EPA needs to act to limit the nutrients causing these algae blooms.”
According to ELPC Senior Attorney Albert Ettinger, EPA needs to take responsibility. “The current Administrator of EPA, Lisa Jackson, is obviously not the one to blame for the decade-long failure to establish standards for controls on phosphorus and nitrogen pollution, but under the Clean Water Act, she is now the one with the responsibility to fix the problem.”
Read coverage in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Daily Reporter and Greenwire (subscription required)
