Androscoggin River Still Polluted
Maine River One of Many in Need of Clean Water Restoration Act
Thirty-seven years after the passage of the CWA, many rivers remain severely polluted. A new bill brings Clean Water issues back into the public eye.
In the late 1960s many waterways in the US were heavily polluted. Discharge from food processing plants caused the death of 26 million fish in Lake Thonatosassa, Florida. And there was the infamous Cuyahoga River fire. But another river, the Androscoggin, was also a major catalyst for the Clean Water Act (CWA). Today the Androscoggin, while greatly improved from its condition in the late 1960s, is still polluted. And the CWA is once again in the limelight.
The Androscoggin and the Clean Water Act
In 1969 in Sen. Edmund Muskie’s home state of Maine, the Androscoggin River, heavily polluted by the textile and paper industries, had bacteria levels so high that a fall into the river often required medical treatment. The few fish that remained were unfit for eating, having swum in a soup of toxic chemicals.
And the smell of mill waste permeated areas immediately downstream of the facilities. Paper and textile mills discharge oxygen-depleting chemicals into rivers. Senator Muskie, aware of the problems of the Androscoggin and other mill rivers throughout New England, became one of the key authors and proponents of the Clean Water Act.
The Clean Water Restoration Act
One word has been used to undermine the Clean Water Act-Navigable. By its inclusion in the wording of the CWA many smaller waterways, wetlands and streams do not fall under the Act’s protection. A recently introduced Clean Water Restoration Act is written to change that wording so all waters are protected. And any business or persons discharging into those waters will be required to ensure that they are not polluting them.
A secondary benefit comes from this effort. US water pollution issues are once again being brought to the fore, a reminder that there is still a lot of work to be done to correct damage done to river habitats.
The Androscoggin Today
The Androscoggin has never met Clean Water Act standards. Even now, near some mills on the river, oxygen has to be pumped in during the warm summer months so that algal blooms do not kill fish. And it is just one of nearly half the nation’s rivers failing to meet CWA standards. So while the Supreme Court has been using a technicality to reduce the types of waterways which are required to be cleaned up under that Act, a huge number of rivers that should have been cleaned up years ago are still not meeting the goals set in 1972.
Monitors with the Androscoggin River Watershed Council are looking at water quality along river. They will help to locate point source pollution problems and track trends in water conditions over time. And when the new Clean Water Restoration Act passes they will get additional help in caring for their river.
