Clean Water Act Updates

CRWA joined 86 other organizations in signing onto comments, led by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), urging the EPA to take critical steps to regulate PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in our waterways. The actions we support would address the sources of PFAS pollution, helping to prevent these toxic chemicals from entering our environment in the first place, thereby protecting drinking water sources, as well as rivers and streams used for fishing and recreation.

CRWA also joined 73 other organizations in signing onto SELC comments urging the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers not to weaken federal clean water protections. The Clean Water Act covers “waters of the United States”—or “WOTUS”—and the Trump administration is considering narrowing the definition of WOTUS to remove protections for some key water resources. The weakening of federal clean water protections that resulted from the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA has already opened the door for pollution to enter the nation’s rivers, lakes, wetlands, and drinking water sources—waters that are only as clean as the upstream waters that feed them. According to EPA estimates, the decision stripped Clean Water Act coverage from as much as 63% of the nation’s wetlands by acreage and up to 4.9 million miles of streams. Further restricting the scope of the Clean Water Act would be disastrous for rivers across the country.