March 14, 2018: Jim Walsh

March 14, 2018: Jim Walsh

Policy Analyst for Food & Water Watch

A tidal wave of deregulation is sweeping across our nation’s waterways. After over 40 years of effective Clean Water Act control of many of our biggest sources of pollution, industries have finally found a way to evade meaningful and enforceable limits on their discharges. Water pollution trading — or water quality trading, as proponents call it — is allowing polluters to opt out of installing pollution reduction technologies and, instead, to purchase pollution “credits” from other sources that may or may not be controlling their own discharges. This pay-to-pollute scheme is not only endangering our rivers, streams and lakes, but also threatening the very underpinnings of our successful water quality laws.