Defending the Clean Water Act from EarthDesk’s continuing critique of the law’s performance, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy echoed President Barak Obama when she called upon the memory of the 45-year old Cuyahoga River fire as evidence of current progress toward clean water (See EarthDesk commentary on the president’s remarks).
Sreenivasan: John Cronin from the EarthDesk blog recently had a post about the 31st anniversary of the Clean Water Act’s failure to achieve its goal in 1983.
McCarthy: (Laughs) That’s not much to celebrate.
Sreenivasan: No, it’s not. So he was pointing out a fact sheet from the EPA that says approximately 40 percent of our surveyed rivers lakes and estuaries are not clean enough to meet basic uses such as fishing or swimming. Why is this?
McCarthy: Clean water continues to be a significant challenge. I mean I can certainly counter that by how much we have improved. If you remember, when the Clean Water Act came into place, it came into place because the Cuyahoga River was burning.