The Clean Water Act was passed 35 years ago in the United States. That doesn't seem to have helped much in Texas though. According to the Austin-based advocacy group Environment Texas, over half of Texas waterways are still too polluted to fish or swim in.
The group used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain pollution figures from the Environmental Protection Agency. These figures don't paint a pretty picture in Texas. They list Texas as the fourth worst violator of the Clean Water Act (behind Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York).
The group said 318 facilities in Texas had combined to exceed pollution discharge limits for a total of 1,348 violations. This should not be happening, especially in a state with growing water problems. Texas has enough water problems without industry making things worse.
Why is Texas not in compliance with the Clean Water Act? It is because our state leadership in Austin has not demanded and enforced compliance. This is just another side-effect of our state Republican leaders' close ties with corporate interests.
Given a choice of protecting Texans or helping to fill corporate financial coffers, our Republican leaders will choose the corporations every time. That's how they get the campaign donations to continue being re-elected.
The Republicans have shown us they have no interest in cleaning up our water (or our air). As a voter, how much longer will you put up with their greed and incompetence?
No comments:
Post a Comment
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. And neither will racist,homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I do not mind if you disagree, but make your case in a decent manner.