This year's ELPC Benefit will be Nov. 14th in downtown Chicago. Read details here!
Based on ELPC’s Charity Navigator score on financial strength and management, ELPC is being recognized in the media as among “The 10 Highest-Rated Charities in America: 2011.” ELPC is the only environmental group and the only advocacy group on this list. Moreover, ELPC is the only listed group, which is located between the coasts. Read more on MSN Money and Main Street.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
July 30, 2008 – ELPC and conservation groups from nine states bordering the Mississippi River petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking the agency to take concrete steps to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River basin. Read the press release or petition.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Senior Staff Attorney Albert Ettinger testified before the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission about the need to revise Iowa’s antidegradation rules. Stronger rules would ensure that new pollution allowed into Iowa’s rivers, lakes and streams would not harm existing water bodies, in keeping with the social and economic goals of Iowans. Learn more here [pdf file].
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Evaluating Non-Point Source Pollution Programs
Advancing Anti-Degradation Standards
Developing Strong Water Quality Standards for Nutrients
Evaluating Non-Point Source Pollution Programs
Although the Clean Water Act does an adequate job regulating individual “point-sources” of pollution (e.g. discharges from sewage treatment plants and industry), it does not cover agricultural runoff and other “non-point” discharges. While every state in the Midwest has at least some non-point pollution control programs, the details and effectiveness of such participation varies by state. ELPC worked with The Mississippi River Collaborative to evaluate each state’s efforts to reduce non-point source pollution, our report Cultivating Clean Water, collects these evaluations and recommends effective strategies that all states can adopt.
Advancing Anti-Degradation Standards
ELPC has worked extensively to implement and enforce the Clean Water Act’s important antidegradation requirements. These rules, intended to “keep clean water clean,” have been seriously underutilized by states in the Midwest. In 2002, ELPC persuaded Illinois to adopt antidegradation rules that are among the strongest in the nation, and persuaded Iowa to adopt similar rules in 2010. We are advocating for Indiana, Kentucky, and several other states to adopt similar rules. In September 2008, ELPC attorneys prevailed in a federal lawsuit challenging U.S. EPA for its approval of weak antidegradation standards in Kentucky. This case will provide important precedent for our efforts to promote strong antidegradation standards throughout the region.
Developing Strong Water Quality Standards for Nutrients
Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are causing major water quality problems in the Midwest and a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. These pollutants come primarily fertilizer and other agricultural runoff as well as wastewater treatment plants that discharge into our rivers. ELPC has worked at the federal, regional and state level to develop protective numeric nutrient standards for the Mississippi River basin. ELPC’s advocacy persuaded Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Board to approve phosphorus standards in June 2010. Working with the Clean Water Network and NRDC, we have written and met with U.S. EPA headquarters regarding phosphorus controls that could be established immediately and urged U.S. EPA to work more aggressively to cause adoption of nitrogen standards to protect the Gulf of Mexico.
Protect the Future of Public Transit!
