Report | Environment Ohio Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group

Wasting Our Waterways 2012

Industrial facilities continue to dump millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s rivers, streams, lakes and ocean waters each year – threatening both the environment and human health. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pollution from industrial facilities is responsible for threatening or fouling water quality in more than 14,000 miles of rivers and more than 220,000 acres of lakes, ponds and estuaries nationwide.

The continued release of large volumes of toxic chemicals into the nation’s waterways shows that the nation needs to do more to reduce the threat posed by toxic chemicals to our environment and our health and to ensure that our waterways are fully protected against harmful pollution.

News Release | Environment Ohio Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group

Nine Million Pounds of Toxic Chemicals Dumped into Ohio’s Waterways

CLEVELAND, OH—Industrial facilities dumped nine million pounds of toxic chemicals into Ohio’s waterways, making Ohio the 9th worst in the nation, according to a new report released today by Environment Ohio. Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act also reports that 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals were discharged into 1,400 waterways across the country.

Report | Environment Ohio Research and Policy Center

Corporate Agribusiness and America’s Waterways

Pollution from agribusiness is responsible for some of America’s most intractable water quality problems – including the “dead zones” in the Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie, and the pollution of countless streams and lakes with nutrients, bacteria, sediment and pesticides. 
Farming is not an inherently polluting activity. But today’s agribusiness practices – from the concentration of thousands of animals and their waste in small feedlots to the massive planting of chemical-intensive crops such as corn – make water pollution from agribusiness both much more likely and much more dangerous.

News Release | Environment Ohio Research and Policy Center

New Report examines link between Vreba-Hoff Dairy and Lake Erie

As the statehouse finalizes new rules for reducing the pollution that helped cause toxic algal blooms across the state last summer , Environment Ohio released a report, Corporate Agribusiness and America's Waterways, examining the role of corporate agribusinesses across the country – including dairy mega-farms in the Lake Erie watershed – in polluting America’s waterways.

Headline

Cleaning up the lakes

OF ALL America's bounties, none is of greater importance than its abundance of fresh water. When Congress reconvenes next week, one of its first orders of business should be passing legislation to protect and restore the Great Lakes.

Securing the health of the lakes should not be a partisan issue. As global populations increase, fresh water will become an increasingly valuable resource. The Great Lakes contain some 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water. That's a six followed by 15 zeroes, about 20 percent of all the surface fresh water in the world.

Result

EPA announces plan to restore Clean Water Act

After thousands of members of Environment Ohio and our sister organizations urged the EPA to act, Administrator Jackson announced a plan to restore Clean Water Act protections. We’ve since delivered more than 100,000 public comments in support of clean water protections. We need your help to make sure the public’s voice is heard above the din of corporate lobbyists and special interests.