Way too little, way too late! Why?

Slightly more than a year from now, on October 18, 2022, we will observe the 50th anniversary of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, Public Law 92-500, which became effective after the Senate, and then the House, overrode then President Nixon's veto.

National goals were stated in Title I, Section 101, including these:

 " (1) it is the national Goal that the discharge of pollutants into
 the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985;
 " (2) it is the national goal that wherever attainable, an interim
 goal of water quality which provides for the protection and
 propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provides for recrea-
 tion in and on the water be achieved by July 1,1983;
 " (3) it is the national policy that the discharge of toxic pollut-
 ants in toxic amounts be prohibited;

Follow this link to view Minnesota's draft 2020 Impaired Waters List map. According to the Star Tribune, 56% of Minnesota's waters fail to attain water quality standards. It's unnecessary to emphasize that, decades later, Minnesota, and probably all states, are far from attaining any of the goals adopted in 1972.

Sunrise River flowing towards the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

If you wonder why this country, one of the richest in today's world, is failing miserably to meet its commitments on greenhouse gas reduction, adaptation measures to respond to the effects of climate breakdown, or other environmental responsibilities, you need look no further than our abysmal track record at protecting and restoring that with which we cannot live without, water
.

California is considering adopting its own version of the Clean Water Act, since an estimated 95% of that state's waters are in impaired status. Meanwhile, members of the Minnesota legislature continue to insist that our environmental requirements are "most stringent." If that's so, why haven't we attained the 1983 goal and how much longer do we expect it to take? How about a major effort to document, fifty years later, where, precisely we stand and what it will take to belatedly meet those goals. Or, Minnesota could continue to follow the lead of those bastions of progressiveness like Iowa or the Dakotas.

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on

or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   

old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin   

and thin until a ripple in October might mean carp.

Huge mills bang and smoke. Day hangs thick with commerce

and my favorite home, always overgrown with roses,   

collapsed like moral advice. Tugs still pound against   

the outtide pour but real, running on some definite fuel.   

I can’t dream anything, not some lovely woman   

murdered in a shack, not saw mills going broke,

not even wild wine and a landslide though I knew both well.   

The blood still begs direction home. This river points   

the way north to the blood, the blue stars certain   

in their swing, their fix. I pass the backwash where   

the cattails still lean north, familiar grebes pop up,   

the windchill is the same. And it comes back with the odor   

of the river, some way I know the lonely sources   

of despair break down from too much love. No matter   

how this water fragments in the reeds, it rejoins   

the river and the bright bay north receives it all,   

new salmon on their way to open ocean,   

the easy tub returned.

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