America's Future Water Quality

Are you proud to be an American, or are you a grateful American? Personally, I want to be thought of as an American who is proud of the sacrifices thousands of Americans and other people around the world have made that provide for me and my family the quality of life we have today. But more importantly I want to be thought of as grateful for the individuals who chose to sacrifice their lives in battle for my country, as well as individual business owners who continue to invest their profits into protecting our environment, more specifically our water quality.

Most people know we cannot survive without clean drinking water beyond about 3 days. It's a rare occasion in our country that you hear of anyone dying or getting sick from a waterborne disease in the United States. That wasn't the case just a few decades ago, because we didn't have laws that were enforceable prior to 1972. It's because we made people accountable for polluting someone else's water quality in our country that we have cleaner water today. It hurts when you get fined for violating someone's water quality in America; the problem nowadays is that those fines are getting to the point of being laughable, unless you're a huge individual corporation with deep pockets.

If you're an American, did you know we all have the legal right to clean water? Many Americans have been lulled into a deep sleep about that fact and never question how it is they can turn on the tap and drink clean water without thinking twice about it, or flush their toilets and have it taken away to be treated before it goes back to the river, or catch a fish in a lake that has 5 wastewater treatment plants pumping clean toilet water back to the lake it came out of. Today, our politicians are not hearing from voters about the importance of keeping our water clean, but instead they hear the loud voice of lobbyists and industries that are fervently trying to avoid accountability for violating our water quality rights. In other words, they're doing the same thing Chinese corporations have successfully done, that we all know has resulted in their country's horrendous water quality. 

The fact is no one likes to be accountable for polluting someone downstream when it is an accident. We fight against the regulations that have worked so well to protect Americans from drinking, swimming and boating in the chemicals, human waste and oxygen demanding substances that used to kill America's river systems. It's human nature, isn't it? If something hurts (taking away profits for water quality violations) and you have the money to keep it from hurting, you'll do whatever you can to remove the pain. It's a short sighted solution to increase profits in favor of investing in our future environment and quality of life, but it's pervasive within human nature to seek short term solutions rather than long term benefits that may never be felt personally. 

The next time you go fishing, kayaking, water skiing or swimming in a river, lake or coastal area, take note of the water quality. Is it worse now than you remember it several years ago? Does the Chattahoochee River get so full of e coli after it rains that you can't allow your kids to have a birthday party and swim in it? Our system of protecting our water is disintegrating before our very eyes. Although we can still catch a lot of fish in many of our lakes, algae blooms are becoming much more prevalent and are causing massive fish kills around the country. Let's consider a country that has blown off environmental protection in favor of profits for a few people (China) and explore what happens to a country that disregards the health and quality of life of their citizens. Let's organize a recreational fishing tournament between the two countries and see who can catch the most fish in an urban river. That wouldn't be a fair contest! Reports say that China has lost over 150 species of fish and many of their rivers and coastal areas are so void of oxygen today that fish or the organisms they feed on cannot survive there. That doesn't mean that China isn't trying to do something about it now that they see the writing on the wall for their future economic growth.

Remember, we cannot survive without clean drinking water beyond about 3 days. Our quality of life depends on clean streams, rivers, lakes and coastal areas. Let's not disassemble the effectiveness of accountability delivered by the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. It was only a few decades ago, prior to 1972 when most states in our country were not making industries or population centers (cities) accountable for discharging pollution into our nation's rivers. It was so bad that fish were unable to survive, ducks couldn't effectively reproduce, and rivers were literally catching fire.

Today, many people believe that states like Georgia are already underfunding environmental protection and getting away with it by keeping inspector paychecks low, and not hiring to fill vacant positions as people retire and/or move on to a job where they can earn a more financially viable salary.

I hope through it all that Americans will see the light about our population explosion impacts to our environment and get behind and support America's system of providing incredible water quality (NPDES) in rivers surrounded my millions of people, thousands of industries and urban stormwater runoff that will always threaten fishing, swimming and boating in our American waterways. We need to encourage wisdom in our leaders to promote common sense accountability for water quality violators.

In closing, we are all in this together and whether or not you like to fish, you should know that it's the fish that indicate the health of our environmental protection laws. If you hear of a fish kill, or someone getting sick from swimming in a lake, or manatees dying in Florida, etc. you should investigate the issue that caused it and take a few minutes to investigate the reason so you can do something to ensure that it won't happen again. We are all environmentalists in one capacity or another but we are also living in a country that allows us to make enough money to pay for the equipment and materials that protect our water. Let's be grateful for that fact, and slow down the degradation of our environmental protection laws that have helped to make the United States of America the most desirable nation in the world to live.

HERE'S TO FUTURE TIGHT LINES AND GOOD TIMES IN CLEAN ABUNDANT WATER!