Number: 1988-07
WHEREAS, the nation’s current and potential drinking water is a valuable natural resource that deserves a high level of protection; and
WHEREAS, if contaminated, drinking water should be cleaned up or treated adequately to protect public health and welfare; and
WHEREAS, drinking water in many areas of the nation is polluted by health threatening chemicals and pathogens, including toxic and potential cancer-causing organic chemicals, lead and other heavy metals, viruses, bacteria, and disinfection byproducts; and
WHEREAS, Congress adopted the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974, requiring the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish health and welfare-based standards for drinking water, and to oversee State drinking water protection programs; and
WHEREAS, EPA’s progress in establishing health standards and in implementing the Safe Drinking Water Act unjustifiably has been weak and slow, so that many dangerous contaminants in drinking water still are not regulated by health standards or prohibited; and
WHEREAS, thousands of violations of the health standards for drinking water occur each year, but enforcement actions often are never brought against the suppliers of polluted drinking water; and
WHEREAS, because of EPA’s failure to implement the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1986 Congress found it necessary to amend the Act to put EPA on a schedule to issue over 100 standards, and to make it mandatory that EPA enforce the law where states have failed to do so; and
WHEREAS, despite the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments requiring mandatory enforcement of the Act, EPA still has failed to monitor water suppliers that are violating the law, or to enforce against them adequately;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in annual meeting assembled March 17-20, 1988, in New Orleans, Louisiana calls upon the President of the United States, the EPA Administrator, and State authorities to make the protection and safety of the nation’s drinking water a top priority; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the President, the EPA, and the States should work quickly to improve the nation’s drinking water programs, to staff and fund those programs adequately, and to take enforcement actions against all water suppliers and others who are violating the law, as required by the amended Safe Drinking Water Act.