Legislative Wrap-up

The Missouri Legislative Session ended in May and as usual, there was plenty of action that impacted our rivers, streams, and drinking water. We tracked over 124 pieces of legislation – good and bad – that were related to drinking water, boating, renewable energy, hazardous waste, and of course, protections for Missouri’s rivers and streams. We intervened in favor of good bills, and helped strip the worst part out of some bad bills. In a legislative session mostly defined by gridlock, we’re happy to have had a positive impact on some bills that did become law, and hope to build on the bipartisan relationships we built during this session in 2024.

What Happened

This was also Waterkeeper’s first full Legislative Session with a presence in the Capitol. While our priority bills did not pass this year, many of them cleared important hurdles in committee and will likely return next year. Our resolution to create a Rivers of Missouri Day passed unanimously out of two House committees (Tourism and Legislative Oversight). Rep. Peter Meredith (D - St. Louis City) and Sen. Tracy McCreery (D - St. Louis County) sponsored this resolution. HB 1129, which would have strengthened Missouri’s control over its water resources, passed out of two committees as well. This bill sponsored by Rep. Jamie Burger (R - Benton) narrowly missed being taken up by the full House for a vote. For first-time bills, both made it a long way towards becoming law, which is a good sign they will have an opportunity to pass next year. 

Importantly, we also helped stop several bad bills from becoming law. Waterkeeper testified against a bill to create a so-called “regulatory sandbox,” in both the House and Senate. This bill would have given powerful corporate interests the opportunity to lobby a newly-created state office for exemptions from state law. It also threatened Missouri DNR’s authority to require water, air, and solid waste permits for companies engaged in “innovative business practices,” which the bill defined broadly and vaguely. 

At the urging of Waterkeeper and other environmental groups, amendments from Sen. Doug Beck (D- St. Louis County) stripped the permitting language from the final version of this legislation. Thankfully, the House and Senate could not come to agreements on other key parts of this ill-considered bill, and it did not become law.

Perhaps the worst idea of the session emerged in its final weeks. HB 631 should have been a routine bill to allow Missouri DNR to continue to collect routine permit fees. Instead, it threatened to cost Missouri $4 million and close our eyes to the biggest sources of water pollution in our state. An anonymous change to the bill in the Senate would have removed nonpoint sources from the definition of “water contaminant source,” and hindered DNR’s ability to regulate pollutants from construction sites, industrial agriculture, and other diffuse sources of water pollution, which DNR considers “the greatest threat to our state’s waters.” This also would have threatened millions in funding DNR receives from the federal government to address these sources of water pollution. Thankfully, a full court press in the Senate from Waterkeeper and Missouri Sierra Club killed this bill, allowing a “clean” permit fee bill to pass attached to SB 109.

What We’re Looking Forward To

Dozens of other positive bills did not progress as far as our Rivers of Missouri Day resolution or HB 1129. There was a great deal of bipartisan focus on hazardous waste, particularly from representatives in the St. Louis region. Numerous bills would have modified provisions related to excavations on sites with hazardous waste (HB 1140, Rep. Clemens, D- St. Ann), disclosure of hazardous materials for renters or homebuyers (HB 1231, Rep. Applebaum, D- St. Louis County), and an alert system for hazardous waste release (HB 1358, Rep. Byrnes, R- Wentzville). Rep. Byrnes also carried a resolution (HCR 21) that urged the federal government to take action to compensate Missourians exposed to radioactive contamination as a result of the Manhattan Project. Fellow Republican Richard West, also of Wentzville joined Rep. Byrnes in this resolution, which passed two House committees. The number of these bills shows that there is a bipartisan focus on hazardous waste, which is especially heartening after 2022 saw hazardous waste rules weakened by backroom deals on the final day of the legislative session.

Positive bills were also filed on plastic waste from Rep. Burnett (D- Kansas City); ensuring public participation on the Missouri Clean Water Commission from Rep. Sauls (D- Independence); groundwater monitoring from Rep. Paula Brown (D- Hazelwood); and sunshine fees from Reps. Jeff Coleman (R- Grain Valley) and Sander (R- Lone Jack). While none of these bills made it to the house floor, we are hopeful they will receive more attention in the next session, and Waterkeeper will continue to support these, and other bills that support swimmable, fishable, drinkable water for all Missourians.

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Charles Miller, Policy Manager

Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper Denounces Supreme Court's Scientifically and Legally Baseless Decision in Sackett v. EPA

Contact: Charles Miller, Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper (314) 399 8454 charles@mowaterkeeper.org

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On Thursday, May 25, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion in Sackett v. EPA that will remove protections for millions of acres of wetlands across the country, and gut the Clean Water Act. Enacted in 1972, the Clean Water Act is one of our nation's bedrock environmental laws. In writing the Act, Congress was attempting to restore our nation's waterways at a time they were being abused by polluting industry. More than 50 years ago, Congress clearly laid out the jurisdiction of the Act, and no Congress since has departed from that jurisdiction by amending or repealing the law.

The Court's opinion goes far beyond any previous interpretation of the Clean Water Act, including the recently invalidated “Dirty Water Rule” issued by Andrew Wheeler's EPA in 2019. In doing so, it removes protections for wetlands that are important habitat for migratory waterfowl, help reduce the impacts of floods, and help to naturally remove pollutants from our larger rivers and streams. Now real estate developers, mining companies, and other polluters can dredge and fill wetlands that have been protected by the Clean Water Act for the past 50 years. All thanks to the lawless opinion handed down by Justice Samuel Alito and four of his colleagues.

While it will take years to understand the full force of this limitation of the Clean Water Act's jurisdiction, other members of the Court have pointed out that this new jurisdictional test for wetlands imperils wetlands cut off from “traditionally navigable waters” by levees or roads. In Missouri, we have thousands of acres of wetlands with these characteristics. Now, polluters can have a free-for-all-- dredging, filling, or dumping into these wetlands where Missourians hunt, fish, and paddle.

The majority's opinion is obviously the product of beginning a case with a decision already in mind. It ignores decades of well-established precedent and clear instructions from Congress. Justice Alito and the rest of the majority decided they wanted to provide a giveaway for big polluters, and that they did not care about the economic costs of flooding and increased pollution that the rest of us, innocent taxpayers, will inevitably shoulder from developing these wetland barriers. Their opinion in Sackett reflects this shortsighted view of the role that wetlands play in protecting water quality, rather than anything resembling legal or scientific reasoning.

The opinion in Sackett shows that a slim majority of the court are unwilling to honestly take stock of laws Congress has passed and fairly determine their scope. Far from being a “conservative” court that respects precedent and laws passed by Congress, this is a Supreme Court which has shown it will ignore any precedent that does not conform to its ideological standards.

This decision continues a troubling trend at our highest court that elevates private property interests at the expense of longstanding laws protecting public health and the environment. It is even more troubling when the case involves the most critical resource we have: water. We need Congress to step up to provide clarity and restore common-sense protections for our nation's water and wetlands. Unfortunately, we will also have to hope that if Congress passes such a law, that this Court does not invent more reasons to overrule Congress' clearly announced intent, as they did on Thursday.

Despite this catastrophic decision, Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper will continue to advocate for policies that protect wetlands. Big polluters and their cronies may have won this round, but MCW will continue to fight to protect Missourians’ rights to swimmable, fishable, drinkable water, through advocacy at the local, state, and federal levels.

Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper statement on EPA’s proposed limits on PFAS chemicals in drinking water

Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper applauds the EPA’s proposed rule on PFAS in drinking water. The regulation of PFOA and PFOS, two of the most-studied chemicals in the PFAS class, is welcome news to communities throughout Missouri, the Midwest, and the United States who have had their health and their livelihoods damaged by these persistent and toxic “forever chemicals.” Likewise, the addition of a hazard index to limit PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenX chemicals in drinking water is a welcome addition that acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding how these toxic chemicals interact with each other in the human body. We are particularly encouraged by the fact that EPA chose to set the maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for PFOA and PFOS at 4 parts per trillion, the lowest level at which these chemicals can be reliably detected with current testing methods.

Waterkeeper also views the regulation of PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenX as a move toward comprehensive regulation of all PFAS chemicals as a class. Combined with the inclusion of 29 PFAS in EPA’s drinking water monitoring, we believe this indicates a good first step towards regulating these toxic pollutants as a class. Regulation as a class is critical because there is no safe level of PFAS. There are over 9,000 of these toxic chemicals, including over 1,000 in EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act inventory. 

Waterkeeper sincerely hopes that the proposed rule will encourage state agencies and polluters to take PFAS contamination seriously, and act proactively, rather than reactively to EPA regulations. We’ve seen in Missouri and elsewhere that regulated entities are slow to act on regulations to protect their communities from the dangers of PFAS pollution, and that some industries and public utilities would prefer to drag their feet than act in the interest of the public and consumers. 

Many industrial users and manufactures of PFAS, as well as other regulated entities have already begun their pushback against these proposed rules, claiming that these limits designed to protect human health are “misguided,” and raise “serious concerns.” While we recognize that it will take enormous resources for drinking water systems to meet these standards once these requirements go into effect in 2027 or 2029, Waterkeeper believes that polluters, industry, and drinking water systems are pointing their fingers at the wrong culprit.

For decades, 3M, DuPont, and other manufacturers and users of PFAS have known that these chemicals were toxic to humans and animals. It should be these polluters’ responsibility to shoulder the costs of removing PFAS from our drinking water and environment. As early as the 1950s, studies by DuPont showed PFAS molecules were present in human blood. Throughout the rest of the 20th Century, these companies tried to conceal the negative health impacts of these toxic chemicals from their employees, consumers, and the federal government. Without this cover-up, action would have been taken much sooner to slow or limit the production of these chemicals, and costs for treatment and removal would be lower. If industrial users and other regulated entities want someone to blame for the cost of providing Americans with safe, clean drinking water, they should look at 3M and DuPont, who ignored the threat these chemicals posed for decades, rather than federal agencies tasked with protecting the health and well-being of Americans.

The forever chemicals crisis is an indictment of our current regulatory processes regarding new chemicals. New chemical substances imported or manufactured in the United States are considered safe until proven otherwise. Companies seeking to manufacture new chemicals are the ones responsible for assessing their potential impacts on human or environmental health. These same chemical companies aggressively lobby EPA’s overworked and understaffed chemicals office, securing approval for many chemicals we now know pose a threat to human health. Once new chemicals are approved, it is virtually impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. This is a fundamentally different approach than other countries use, and it places Americans’ health at risk. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and its implementation need serious, wholesale reforms to enable EPA’s Chemical Office to carry out its mandate to assess and regulate new chemicals before they are marketed in the United States.

Lastly, we encourage EPA to continue to fund research that improves methods for identifying these chemicals. EPA’s analysis acknowledges that PFAS are a threat to human health at levels far below what current science allows us to detect. In order to protect communities from this threat, we need testing that can reliably identify these chemicals at concentrations in the fractions of parts per trillion. As always, Waterkeeper is focused on what it takes to ensure all Missourians know that it's safe to drink the water that comes out of their tap. We look forward to continuing to work with EPA and Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources on PFAS, and to further rules that will protect Missourians from PFAS contamination. 

Waterkeeper has tested surface waters in north St. Louis County, where we found some of the highest levels of PFAS contamination in a nation-wide survey by Waterkeeper Alliance members. Finally, if you would like to test your tap water, or the creek in your backyard for these chemicals, you can order a test kit from our website.

Charles Miller, Policy Manager

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Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper is a member of Waterkeeper Alliance, an international network of over 340 nonprofits on six continents dedicated to defending the human right to fishable, swimmable, drinkable water. Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper works throughout the state of Missouri to protect water through advocacy, organizing, and water quality monitoring. We are particularly focused on contaminants of emerging concern, like PFAS and microplastics. Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper is currently in the midst of a 3-year grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health to sample drinking water in the St. Louis area for these and other contaminants.

Unprecedented Analysis Reveals Shocking Levels of PFAS Contamination in Nations’s Waterways, Including Missouri

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: Charles Miller, Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper, charles@mowaterkeeper.org, 314-884-1473

Unprecedented Analysis Reveals Shocking Levels of PFAS Contamination in Nation’s Waterways, Including Missouri

First-of-its kind study by Waterkeeper Alliance found 83% of the waters tested across the country were contaminated by dangerous PFAS chemicals 

READ THE REPORT HERE 

St. Louis, Missouri / October 18, 2022 — Today, Waterkeeper Alliance released a groundbreaking new analysis of American waterways that sounds the alarm on a PFAS pollution emergency. In a test of 114 waterways from across the country, 83% were found to contain at least one type of PFAS—dangerous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that are widely linked to serious public health and environmental impacts. In the sampling we took in the Coldwater Creek watershed located in St. Louis, Missouri, we found more than 20 individual PFAS-class chemicals. These included PFOA and PFOS, the two most prevalent PFAS, which EPA has recently proposed listing as hazardous substances. Our samples included the highest concentration of total PFAS among all Waterkeeper organizations in the Midwest. 

“We knew that PFAS are found nearly everywhere, but the results from our samples underscore how certain communities bear disproportionate burdens from all types of pollution,” said Charles Miller, Policy Manager at Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper. “It really underscores the fact that there needs to be accountability for the corporations that have used North County as a dumping ground for radioactive and toxic waste for decades.”

A total of 113 local Waterkeepers, including Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper, collected samples from 114 waterways across 34 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). Independent analysis indicates a shocking level of contamination, with 94 participating Waterkeeper groups confirming the presence of PFAS in their waterways. Waterways in 29 states and D.C. were found to be contaminated by at least one, but most frequently, many revealed the presence of up to 35 different PFAS compounds. 

“When we began testing waterways for PFAS earlier this year, we knew that our country had a significant PFAS problem, but these findings confirm that was an understatement. This is a widespread public health and environmental crisis that must be addressed immediately by Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To begin tackling this urgent problem, Congress should start by passing the Clean Water Standards for PFAS Act of 2022, and EPA must prioritize using the funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to coordinate national monitoring and adopt regulatory standards for PFAS contamination. This report provides the information necessary for federal and state governments to take action and protect the health and safety of our communities,” said Marc Yaggi, CEO of Waterkeeper Alliance. 

In some places, like creeks connected to the Potomac River in Maryland, the Lower Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, and the Niagara River in New York, the level of contamination is thousands to hundreds of thousands times higher than what experts say is safe for drinking water. This is of particular concern as an estimated 65% of Americans source their drinking water from surface waters similar to those sampled. 

These findings are an important step toward filling in a major data gap and validate the Alliance’s call to EPA for increased and widespread monitoring to gain a complete picture of PFAS contamination in all watersheds across the country. Key findings include: 

• In the Midwest region, the highest total PFAS concentration for all detections in a sample was 417.8 ppt, found in the downstream sample collected by Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper from Coldwater Creek, a tributary of the Missouri River. 

• Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper is currently testing surface and drinking water for PFAS and other contaminants of emerging concern as part of a multi-year project. 

• Noting that Governor Parson has declared October 2022 as Clean Water Month in the state of Missouri, Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper is urging Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to take decisive action to protect Missourians from this pollution crisis through its upcoming PFAS Workgroup.

Since at least the 1950s, PFAS have been widely used in manufacturing and are found in many consumer, commercial, and industrial products. Often referred to as “forever chemicals,” PFAS do not break down over time. Instead, these dangerous chemicals accumulate in people, wildlife, and the environment. As a result, PFAS have been found in surface water, air, soil, food, and many commercial materials. Scientific studies increasingly link these toxic chemicals to serious health conditions such as cancer, liver and kidney disease, reproductive issues, immunodeficiencies, and hormonal disruptions. 

Despite serious health risks, there are currently no universal, science-based limits on the various PFAS chemicals in the United States. For many PFAS chemicals, the EPA has not even set a health advisory limit that would give the public a baseline to determine what amount of PFAS is unhealthy in drinking water. In most cases, the EPA is not doing adequate monitoring for these chemicals, which is why these findings are so unique and important. 

This data plainly demonstrates that Congress and EPA must act with urgency to control persistent PFAS contamination across the country. The current lack of oversight puts the health and safety of communities and ecosystems across the nation at risk and results in costly cleanup and treatment activities to remove PFAS contamination after it has occurred. To learn more, visit mowaterkeeper.org/pfas. 

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Cheers to 50 Years of the Clean Water Act

October 18th is a big day in the water world. It’s the date that what we now call the Clean Water Act became law in 1972, 50 years ago. The Clean Water Act represented a major overhaul of water policy in this country – a country where rivers caught on fire, where junk cars were buried in riverbanks, and where most states had no dedicated environmental agencies. Less than half of the country was served by sewage treatment plants and Americans couldn’t assume that their local stream or creek was safe to swim in. The Clean Water Act transformed this by encouraging states to establish agencies to work with the Federal government to achieve the Act’s goals: fishable, swimmable water in every lake, river and stream by 1985 (more on that later).

Given the state of America’s rivers in the 1960s and 70s, an extraordinary effort was required to clean them up. The Clean Water Act was an extraordinary law. It established comprehensive programs to control pollution from industrial sources; it created a comprehensive program that protects wetlands; and it gave citizens and grassroots organizations like Waterkeepers a powerful tool to make sure states followed the law and polluters were held accountable: the citizen suit provision. The Act also included funding to execute these programs at state and local levels.

Confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers in 1971 (left) and 2001 (right). Click for more info…

Still more work to do…

But the Act alone hasn’t solved all our water pollution problems. We didn’t meet the deadline of 1985 to achieve fishable, swimmable water in every lake, river, and stream. Part of this is because the Act focused primarily on point sources of pollution, discrete sources that can be identified, like a sewer pipe or a factory. Other non-point sources, like runoff from city streets or abandoned mine lands, are also major contributors to water quality problems. 

Additionally, some states have dragged their feet when it comes to implementing certain sections of the act. Changes to the Act have made it harder for municipalities to get funding from the Federal government to upgrade their water treatment systems. Big money developers, mining companies, and agribusiness giants have continually mounted attacks on the Act in court. Putting a stop to these attacks and reinvigorating the Clean Water Act for the next 50 years is vital.

Steps we can take

Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper , Waterkeeper Alliance, and the Waterkeeper movement as a whole are dedicated to the same goal as the Clean Water Act: swimmable, fishable, drinkable water for all. Waterkeeper has identified four key priorities that can help achieve this as part of the Act 50 Initiative.

Click image to learn more about #ACT50 at Waterkeeper Alliance.

First, Waterkeepers across the country are calling on the EPA to restore a broad regulatory definition of “Waters of the United States” that will protect critical rivers, streams, and wetlands across the country. 

Second, we’re calling on the agency to reexamine its rules on concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These enormous industrial facilities, often located in rural communities, can create more waste than large cities. CAFOs are regulated under the Clean Water Act, but polluters often get a free pass, resulting in more than 7.3 million gallons of hog waste spills from a single company in Missouri alone.  

We’re also calling on the agency to step up when it comes to addressing non-point sources. While the portions of the Clean Water Act focused on point sources are stronger than those addressing non-point sources, EPA still has tools it can use to fix serious non-point pollution problems. EPA Region 1 recently used its “residual designation authority” to better control urban non-point pollution in Boston, Massachusetts. By continuing to find innovative ways to use existing law to address non-point pollution, EPA can make a real difference in water quality.

Finally, we’re calling on both the EPA and Congress to take steps to address PFAS pollution in our waterways. PFAS are a widely-used class of toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer, high blood pressure, and increased cholesterol levels, among other negative health impacts. They are highly persistent, and nearly impossible to break down, giving them the nickname ”forever chemicals.” As a result, they’ve found their way into virtually every corner of our environment, including drinking water sources. 

Because the public has only recently become aware of the dangers of these chemicals, adequate drinking and surface water regulations aren’t yet in place. We’re advocating for EPA to update their regulations and encouraging Congress to pass legislation directing EPA to do so. 

As your Waterkeeper, we’ve been in touch with federal elected officials, and engaged with state and local governments on all of these issues, but you can step up and make a difference too. More information about the actions you can take are available on Waterkeeper Alliance’s website.

On this 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, as you are drinking the doctor recommended eight glasses of water, or your morning mug of coffee (98.75% water), or celebrating with your favorite pint of beer (90% water), we invite you to reflect on the multitude of ways our lives are touched by water and ask you to join the fight to protect it for future generations.