Fighting for clean water protections
Clean water is a way of life in the South
We are leading the charge to preserve clean water protections against attacks. Clean water is fundamental to the South’s way of life. Every day, our families count on clean water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Our farmers depend on clean water. Our local businesses rely on clean water—from our local breweries and restaurants to tourism, fishing, hunting, and outdoor outfitters. The health of our waters, families, and communities are tied together throughout the South.
Attacks on Clean Water Act protections
Despite the fundamental necessity of clean water, industrial polluters and other opponents of strong clean water protections have worked to restrict the reach of the Clean Water Act, which, when enforced, has kept harmful pollution from being dumped into our nation’s waters for more than 50 years. This federal law is a central tool used by state and local governments to protect clean water. Pollution into upstream waters spells trouble for everyone downstream.
Communities need clean water protections that reliably safeguard our streams, rivers, and drinking water sources, as well as fisheries, wildlife, and people from pollution.
Kelly Moser, senior attorney and leader of SELC’s Clean Water Program
Fight to protect clean water
The best way to protect clean water is to stop harmful pollution at its source, before it reaches our streams, rivers, and drinking water sources. We and our partners, along with communities across the South, are fighting to strengthen Clean Water Act protections that make dumping toxic pollution into our waterways illegal.
We are also working to ensure the federal, state, and local authorities use all of the tools available to keep our waterways clean and safe for our families and communities who rely on them.
Threats to clean water
The number of chemicals created and in use by industry—even if not proven to be safe—that wind up polluting our water and communities has grown dramatically in recent decades. Contamination of our drinking water sources by industrial chemicals like PFAS and 1,4-dioxane pollution is a problem. We are working to stop industrial chemical pollution at its source so polluters pay, not people downstream.
At the same time, many communities in the Southeast rely on aging, underfunded water systems that are breaking down. The result is sewage spills, unsafe drinking water, and unaffordable water bills —problems that hit rural communities and communities of color the hardest.
SELC will continue to fight for clean water protections that have allowed economic prosperity and environmental protection to go hand in hand over the last 50 years. Together, those of us who love this region we call home will defend the streams, rivers, and our drinking water sources we hold dear.