Nutrient pollution: restoring New England's waters to health.

• Position: CLEAN WATER & HEALTHY FORESTS

CLF advocacy led to widespread change across the region in the fight to alleviate severe water pollution associated with nutrient pollution and restore New England's waters to health. From Cape Cod's coastal waters to Lake Champlain, the region's largest lake, CLF pushed again and again for stricter enforcement of the Clean Water-Act with the ultimate goal of beginning to reverse years, even decades, of steadily decreasing water quality that continues to threaten New Englanders' enjoyment of the region's lakes, bays and estuaries and their ability to prosper from them.

Nutrient pollution, one of the most pervasive pollution problems in the region, is characterized by excessive levels of nitrogen in saltwater bodies and excess phosphorus in freshwater. The nutrients flow into water bodies via stormwater runoff or discharge from wastewater treatment facilities, where they over-fertilize aquatic life, causing toxic algae blooms to grow and eelgrass beds to degenerate, robbing oxygen from the water and threatening the lives of plants and aquatic wildlife. Eventually those places become dead zones--uninhabitable by any life at all.

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The Clean Water Act provides the regulatory framework to curb nutrient pollution and actually begin to reverse its harmful effects on our region's waters. However, that reversal can't happen unless the EPA steps in to enforce those pollution requirements, which it has been slow to do. As a result, the problem has continued to escalate, and many of its culprits, such as wastewater treatment plants and large factory farms, have been allowed to continue to pollute with impunity.

By bringing the issue into focus in New England, CLF helped to also thrust the growing problem into the national spotlight, calling for widespread programmatic change to force the EPA to tighten controls for nutrient pollution and enforce the terms of the Clean Water Act. CLF's advocacy throughout New England, combined with national and international organizations' advocacy on behalf of other affected water bodies such as the Chesapeake Bay, resulted in the EPA's recognition of the severity of the problem. The Agency has responded with stricter controls on discharges from wastewater treatment facilities and a new permit program to manage stormwater runoff from commercial and industrial parking lots. CLF is continuing to work with the EPA to prioritize nutrient pollution and make New England's vulnerable waters fishable...