“Global warming is threatening our water reserves through increased evaporation, more droughts and decreased snowpack. We cannot afford to ruin our remaining water supplies with reckless pollution.”
Stephanie Thomas
Clean Water Advocate
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Colorado’s rivers and streams continue to be degraded by increasing pollution, both from runoff and industrial discharge. With increasing population pressure, our water supplies are dwindling and existing supplies are increasingly unsafe.
Environment Colorado is advocating strong new rules and increased enforcement to protect our drinking water from being lost to pollution. “Global warming is threatening our water reserves through increased evaporation, more droughts and decreased snowpack,” said Environment Colorado Clean Water Advocate Stephanie Thomas. “We cannot afford to ruin our remaining water supplies with reckless pollution.”
Two of the biggest threats to our drinking water are:
• Industrial discharge—Colorado grants permits to industries allowing them to emit a limited amount of pollution, either through pipes or as stormwater runoff. The problem is that the enforcement agency, the Water Quality Control Division (WQCD) is woefully underfunded and is not able to inspect these facilities often enough to ensure that they are not violating their permits and dumping illegal amounts of pollutants into our waterways.
• Toxic runoff—Water running across land during storms or just as part of the water cycle picks up toxic pollutants from activities like agricultural irrigation, home building, residential lawn care, and oil and gas development, and deposits it in our waterways. Additionally, Colorado has around 23,000 abandoned mines, which pollute waterways with leaking acid and heavy metals.
While the Clean Water Act has been effective at identifying and reducing certain sources of water pollution, the Clean Water Act is under attack both in the White House and in the newly reconfigured Supreme Court.
Growing concern over water quality
The Clean Water Act sets standards to ensure that all of our waterways are safe for recreation as well as safe to drink. Colorado’s water quality, however, is increasingly failing these standards.
From 2001 to 2002, 9 percent of our rivers and streams were found to be unsafe for the basic activities of fishing and swimming. From 2003 to 2004, this figure increased to 12.4 percent, and from 2005 to 2006 it increased to 14 percent.
Even though Colorado’s rivers continue to be impacted by increasing pollution, our leaders have been cutting funding to protect this critical resource. In recent years, the WQCD has suffered huge cutbacks in funding. In 2003, the Legislature cut $2 million from the WQCD annual budget. This cut has left the agency about 40 percent understaffed compared to similar state programs, and ill-equipped to detect permit violations.
Even when polluters are discovered to be exceeding their limits, they are not often penalized. From 1994 to 2004, only one third of the 60 most frequent violators faced penalties for their actions.
Gov. Owens has been too lenient on these polluters, opting to help violators comply with regulations instead of levying fines. In many cases, violators are granted temporary modifications to their permits, allowing them to put more pollution into waterways. In one instance, such a modification lasted 18 years.
Environment Colorado, along with other clean water advocates, is pushing for tougher enforcement of clean water laws. “We can’t let polluters get away with fouling our water,” said Thomas. “If they don’t clean up their mess, then taxpayers will end up footing the bill.”
Cleaning up toxic runoff
In addition to enforcing clean water laws, an important measure in improving water quality is preventing industrial sites from causing dangerous runoff.
Cleaning up abandoned mines in Colorado is expensive—at least $314 million—and the biggest obstacle is lack of funding. Additionally, because the companies that owned these mines are long gone or bankrupt, there is no responsible party to pay for cleanup.
Oil and gas development is also contributing to toxic runoff. During the drilling, production, and maintenance of a well, chemicals kept in pits leak into waterways, waste is injected into underground wells that can leak into groundwater, and hazardous materials are spilled or run off a site during a storm.
Unfortunately, oil and gas development often occurs without much oversight, as oil and gas companies aren’t required to provide information to the public about chemicals they use, and the Bush administration has exempted the oil and gas industry from the law that protects drinking water, the Safe Drinking Water Act.
As most Coloradans are aware, drilling is expanding rapidly across the state—the number of permits granted in 2005 represents a 50 percent increase over 2004 and a 94 percent increase over 2003. In order to protect water from this runoff, Environment Colorado is recommending increased inspection of oil and gas sites and that communities pass ordinances allowing them to limit development if it threatens their water supplies.
In order to stop Colorado’s rivers and streams from being increasingly unfit for fishing and swimming, Environment Colorado advocates strictly enforcing clean water laws, funding the clean-up of toxic runoff sites, and preventing oil and gas drilling from endangering drinking water.
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Colorado’s rivers and streams have become more polluted over the last few years, with an increasing percentage found impaired for swimming and fishing—now 14 percent up from 9 percent just 5 years ago. Impaired waters include the Green River and Arkansas basin. |
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