Clean Water

Earthjustice is defending our right to clean water by ensuring that our laws remain robust enough to safeguard all communities' access to clean water and to adequately protect our critical water resources from toxic pollution.

Joel Sartore / National Geographic Creative

After Earthjustice helped generate more than 150,000 comments demanding clean water, in 2013 the EPA proposed a series of options for cleaning up the billions of pounds of arsenic, lead, mercury, and other toxic pollutants that power plants dump into our waters.

OUR WATERWAYS ARE POLLUTED.

Water pollution is a nationwide problem that threatens our drinking water supplies, food sources and beloved forms of recreation. Treasured waters are at risk from pollution and industry water grabs and can no longer support the needs of people or wildlife.

WE ARE PROTECTING THE NATION’S WATERS.

DEFENDING OUR RIGHT TO CLEAN WATER by restoring the full protective scope of the Clean Water Act to cover all important water resources, obtaining limits on water pollution from polluting activities, and forcing the clean up of polluted waters.
SAFEGUARDING OUR NATION’S WATERS in areas like the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, Lake Tahoe, the Everglades and other Florida waters from rampant pollution and degradation.

WE’RE PROTECTING OUR WATER RESOURCES.

350,000 – Number of people who no longer have to worry about a new industrial wastewater plan discharging fracking waste into drinking water from the Monongahela River thanks to Earthjustice litigation forcing compliance with existing high standards for wastewater treatment in Pennsylvania.

"There's no reason to be pessimistic, but the fight never ends. We have to stay in the fight, and we have to expect to win." – Managing Attorney David Guest,
who has spent decades fighting to protect Florida’s water

Setting Limits on Water Pollution

As part of a settlement to an Earthjustice lawsuit, EPA must impose what Florida's waterways have long lacked: "speed limit signs" of quantifiable pollution limits to make the law clear and enforceable. The limits will have national implications. Earthjustice continues to work to ensure the limits are meaningful and effective.

Spotlight Features

The California Drought

Who gets the water and who's hung out to dry? The historic drought has dredged up old feuds over who can lay claim to water in a thirsty state. As the powerful lobby for the agricultural industry—which currently consumes 80% of California's water supply—cries for more water to be pumped to their farms in the arid regions of the Central Valley, just who would be left high and dry?

Everyone Has the Right to a Healthy Environment

In a teleconference, Vice President of Litigation for Healthy Communities Lisa Garcia discusses how Earthjustice is fighting to protect families and communities from issues they confront on a daily basis.

Water Warrior

Managing Attorney David Guest talks about the threat to the health and wealth of Florida's citizens posed by toxic algae outbreaks. The outbreaks are caused by pollutants from sewage, fertilizer and manure that big business pumps into Florida's waterways.