For Immediate
Release More Information:
January 29, 2004
Cyndi Roper 517-203-0758
Clean Water Action's Statement On
Today's Great Lakes Proposal
Clean Water Action, with more than 295,000 members living in
the Great Lakes Basin, is pleased that the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency today is
promising funding for the Great Lakes Legacy Act. We have learned the
hard way,
however, that the Bush administration’s actions do not match its
rhetoric when it
comes to protecting our environment and public health.
Moreover,
should the president follow through on
this election-year promise of funding, the administration’s aggressive
agenda
to weaken environmental protections continues to undermine Michigan’s
environment and the health of its residents.
Over
the past three years, those of us who live among the
Great Lakes have been overwhelmed by the Bush Administration’s
proposals to
weaken water and health protections. From his first month in office,
the President has systematically sought to dismantle public health and
water
quality protections by
- campaigning to allow more arsenic in
our drinking water;
- failing to fund the nation’s toxic
site cleanup program;
- proposing that more untreated sewage
and toxic chemicals be allowed into the Great Lakes and other waterways;
- allowing vast increases in the amount
toxic chemicals like mercury released into the air and eventually into
the Great Lakes and other waters;
- removing more than 40-percent of
Michigan’s lakes and rivers from protection under the Clean Water Act.
It
is unfair that taxpayers alone must bare the burden of
cleaning up toxic contamination while the Bush administration protects
industries and other special interests that pollute our waterways.
While the
administration showcases an election-year proposal to provide taxpayer
dollars
to clean up the Great Lakes, the president gives polluters who are
discharging
and dumping wastes into our waters a free ride.
Yes,
we need the money to protect and cleanup our precious
Great Lakes. But we also need we need a President who is committed to
preventing toxic chemicals from entering our water and our bodies in
the first
place. We need a President who will fight each and every year to
protect our
lakes, rivers and streams.
Cyndi Roper
Michigan Director
--
David Holtz
Clean Water Action
517-203-0758
313-300-4454 cell
dholtz@cleanwater.org