Water & North Carolina: What to Know, What to Do
We all know water — in many ways. We know it in how it sustains us in food and drink, how it cleans us, how it provides some of life's greatest views and activities. We may not always be thinking of it, but it shapes our lives in incredibly profound ways.
But we may not recognize all the ways it is protected and described by others. I know that many parts I have written in this article were new to me, as someone that always loved water and studying it.
So … what are these ways? Let’s start simple!
Waterways/navigable water? What are they? Turns out just a fancy name for the bodies of water we all know and love, the lakes we play in or the rivers we drive over and gaze wistfully at. They are also most every other water source to which those lakes and rivers are connected, though it depends on who is enforcing the laws how far it extends.
Technically speaking, they were first defined as bodies of water with a “significant nexus” to “navigable waters” in the Clean Water Act ( the first major environmental regulation based in 1972), which is language descended from the first legislation of waterways (back in ye olden days ~ early 1800’s) for commercial, not environmental purposes. Most recently, it has been described as including “ … only those relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water ‘forming geographic features’ that are described in ordinary parlance as ‘streams[,]… oceans, rivers, [and] lakes.
Major Legislative Actions
Speaking of the Clean Water Act, we should highlight it and the other major laws in the history of environmental water regulation and protection.
Federal Water Pollution Control Act (more commonly known as the Clean Water Act)
Though we commonly think of the Clean Water Act as only occurring in the 1970’s, what we commonly call the Clean Water Act was in fact a series of very large amendments to a bill originally passed in 1948.
Came first, set the parameters of how all following water legislation would make its arguments. Only really regulates point source pollution (pollution that comes from one concentrated source) — which omits much of agriculture, a polluter that has increased over time with the adoption of more mechanized forms of agriculture such as certain pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. However, it did establish the basic structure for regulating pollutants in US water bodies. The main outcomes as defined by the EPA are:
- Gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry.
- Maintained existing requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters.
- Made it unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters unless a permit was obtained under its provisions.
- Funded the construction of sewage treatment plants under the construction grants program.
- Recognized the need for planning to address the critical problems posed by nonpoint source pollution.
While all of this does provide for regulation of water bodies that people might draw from, it doesn’t specifically set guidelines or regulations for drinking water but is largely designed to protect waters for recreational or environmental reasons. It does this via several national offices, but also disburses grants and resources to state environmental agencies to do much of the enforcement. However, people also later saw a need to regulate water specifically intended for consumption.
Safe Drinking Water Act
A shown in the picture here, the Safe Water Drinking Act regulates local water supply systems, which is where many Americans (close to 90%) receive their water from. This law provides for the regulation of these water systems, setting maximum healthy limits of different chemicals allowed in these community water systems. However, the EPA tends to be cautious, to the point of delaying, on many chemicals — and is obviously susceptible to politics of the administrations that govern it. While it also enforces these regulations on various levels of government, it does not have the budget to help them in any meaningful way should they not have the revenue to update their systems. This creates large problems for historically underfunded or declining population (and hence tax base declining) communities, such as Flint, Michigan — which is currently experiencing its own well-known crisis.
The regulations within the SDWA also shortchange rural citizens, as those that live in areas too rural for community water systems and who depend on wells, both face some similar risks such as lead and different ones such as bio-contamination of their wells by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO’s). This is especially important for North Carolina, as it is one of the nation’s largest producers of poultry and hogs — most largely through CAFOs.
Resource Conservation & Recovery Act/Superfund (officially CERCLA)
As the first laws enacted, the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act tend to cover much more ground than later water regulation. The Resource Conservation & Recovery Act doesn’t govern water pollution, but the disposal of hazardous wastes that could potentially (and often do) become water pollution.
Hazardous waste is specifically a subset of pollution, which is known to contain substances harmful to human health and with short-term implications. These regulations govern specific ways of disposing of these chemicals, usually in some type of separate facility or clay lined container, depending on the mobility of the waste and difficulty of removal. Historically, many activists have critiqued the way this law treats the costs imposed on companies, and what it deems as hazardous wastes or levels of them. Because of North Carolina’s history with the Duke Energy monopoly, and its specific history with coal energy production this will have quite an impact on the rest of our story.
Later Amendments & Debates
A series of later amendments were made to these pieces of legislation, largely “apolitical” considering technical aspects such as the placement of offices or cases of international cooperation with Canada over the Great Lakes.
However, there has historically been a division over what waterways and water these laws can be applied to, and what materials are contained within the pollution. Because of the way that legislation conveys authority to the EPA, the EPA actually has a large degree of decision/rule making ability- essentially how to create mini-laws that descend from the overarching abstract law to interact with people. Sometimes it refuses to do so because of the politics of the production of wastes, as we have seen with the Trump Administration. This administration has also rolled back what waterways are governed by this legislation, leaving large swaths of our nature and water unprotected.
North Carolina
So, what does all of this mean for North Carolina? North Carolina has some of the highest concentrations of PFAS, and CAFOs in the US, both of which affect a variety of bodies of water — as with natural things, they are connected.
Gen X/PFAS
North Carolina has several counties within the top fifty of a national survey of PFAS contamination and ranks collectively as the state with the third highest PFAS burden.
While the exact degree of harm that PFAS causes to human health, we know it does have harmful health effects and is linked to a range of cancers.
CAFOs
CAFOs current disposal methods, and current form, both endanger human drinking water and local marine ecosystems. CAFOs waste management systems have been found to leach bio contaminants into ground water systems/aquifers, with a high likelihood of this happening in eastern NC’s porous sandy soils. While that happens every day, CAFOs can often cause massive damage during extreme (or sometimes normal) weather events as they flood. Because of the lack of regulation on the waste management systems CAFOs use, they semi-regularly flood communities around them with contaminated water. In North Carolina, CAFOs exist in some of the lower income areas of the state, which also are areas that disproportionately use wells due to their rural nature. This leaves them without environmental regulation or funds to help them secure clean drinking water and healthy ecosystems, and at a heightened risk of having neither of those.
Policy Solutions/Call to Action
So, considering all this sobering news, what can we do? We can call for tighter regulations on CAFOs, cleanup of PFAS, and updated water pollution regulations in general as we now have much more advanced testing and epidemiological/public health monitoring techniques. Also, with a newer understanding of justice and what works in public policy — an updated Safe Water Drinking Act that protects all citizens including those operating private wells, and contains funds for use when wells may become contaminated. We can support politicians that push for all the above and criticize those that do not. We can also non-electorally, stand in solidarity with those that experience the greatest impacts from all these types of pollution. In leu of solidarity, there may also be a need for charity in the short term such as donations to community groups in these areas. And we can all continue to become more well educated and engaged in our communities, and just more engaged in general!
If you would like to know more about how to get involved with further education and advocacy contact Connor Kippe at ckippelcv@gmail.com! You can also follow Climate Action NC at @ ClimateActionNC on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!
References (if you are interested)
Summary of the Safe Drinking Water Act | Laws & Regulations | US EPA. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-safe-drinking-water-act
A Look At Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in North Carolina. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.factoryfarmmap.org/data-and-methodology/
PFAS Health Effects. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects.html
Environmental Factor — March 2019: PFAS — a problem in North Carolina drinking water. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://factor.niehs.nih.gov/2019/3/feature/2-feature-pfas/index.htm
Summary of the Clean Water Act | Laws & Regulations | US EPA. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act
