Clean Water Reports
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| 8/3/2006 | |
| In 2005 there were more beach closings and advisories than at any other time in the 16 years the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has been tracking them. The number of closing and advisory days at ocean, bay, and Great Lakes beaches topped 20,000, confirming that our nation’s beaches continue to suffer from serious water pollution. | |
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| 3/29/2006 | |
| Historically, Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations ranged throughout the New England states, south to Long Island Sound, and Atlantic Canada. In the United States, salmon runs were divided into three Distinct Population Segments (DPSs), or populations that would interbreed when mature (USFWS/ NMFS, 2000). These DPS regions were delineated to include the Long Island Sound, Central New England, and Gulf of Maine Distinct Population Segments. The first two populations have been extirpated and no longer exist. The final existing population, the Gulf of Maine DPS, originally extended down to the Androscoggin River. The Androscoggin no longer supports Atlantic salmon runs, but the remaining rivers in the Gulf of Maine DPS still have “functioning wild salmon populations, although at substantially reduced abundance levels” (USFWS/NMFS, 2000). | |
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| 3/29/2006 | |
| Ocean fish are the last wild creatures that humans hunt for food on a large scale. The oceans once supplied a seemingly unending bounty of seafood, with codfish so plentiful off the coast of New England, fishermen merely needed to dip baskets into the water to catch them. Today, many of our nation’s commercially important fish populations (or what fishery managers call “stocks”) are fished at unsustainably high rates, with some, like New England cod stocks, fished down to historic lows, endangering the future of not only the fish stocks, but our nation’s fishermen. | |
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| 3/23/2006 | |
| When drafting the Clean Water Act in 1972, legislators set the goals of making all U.S. waterways fishable and swimmable by 1983 and eliminating the discharge of pollutants into the nation’s waterways by 1985. More than 30 years later, we are far from realizing the Clean Water Act’s original vision. | |
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| 10/11/2007 | |
| October 18, 2007 marks the 35th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, a landmark law sponsored by Senator Ed Muskie intended to restore and maintain the physical, chemical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. In passing the Clean Water Act, Congress set the goals of eliminating the discharge of pollutants into the nation’s waterways by 1985 and making all U.S. waterways fishable and swimmable by 1983. Although we have made significant progress in improving water quality since the passage of the Clean Water Act, we are far from realizing the Act’s original vision. | |
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