How "green" should a bass fisherman be when it comes to supporting the Clean Water Act and its enforcement?

When I first came to Northern Virginia from the Midwest in 1963, having been raised bass fishing on the inland lakes of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, I gazed upon the Potomac River with excitement. This had to be the place to fish for bass. Then, I went on a tour boat ride to historic Mt. Vernon. As we passed the Blue Plains Sewage Plant, I noticed "things" floating in the river - human excrements and all kinds of indescribable "stuff." The Potomac was an open sewer! And, no folks were fishing.

I wandered over to a sailing marina the next week, looking forward to renting a small, open cabin sailboat for a day of sailing on the river. The place was rather quiet - not many folks on the river either. The owner asked whether my typhoid shots were current. Uh! Absent a typhoid shot, he was hesitant to rent the boat. According to the owner, if I fell into the river and ingested any water, I needed to go to the hospital for the shot, as the river was a sewer, ripe with diseases.

I was shocked, and eventually depressed, that this resource was so degraded. Only the folks in big power boats or offshore sailboats used the river with impunity. So, I turned to trout fishing in Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Then, in the early 1970's a new political debate took center stage - the Clean Water Act. Should Congress enact a federal law that would be enforceable against the states, counties, private landowners, and business community to clean up the navigable waters of the United States? The debate, generally speaking, sounded like this.

In opposition to the Act:

The states argued that it was wrong, if not an unconstitutional interference with states’ rights, for the Federal Government to set water quality standards for water bodies within state boundaries and also force the states to comply with those standards. In effect, this federal involvement in clean water was a violation of our federal form of government, in which powers are divided equally between the state and the national governments. The act would be just another federal effort to subjugate the several states to the dictates of a mindless bureaucracy in Washington.

Local governments also argued that it was wrong, if not unconstitutional, for the Federal Government to require locally operated sewage plants to meet specific discharge standards. Federal financial assistance, while accepted warmly by the states and counties, would be inadequate. The financial burden of compliance with the new standards would fall on the local governments and ultimately on the local taxpayer. In the end, the cost of compliance would become unmanageable.

Business argued that compliance would be too costly, federal enforcement would be draconian, and the real cost of compliance would be inflationary, as it would be passed on the consumer in the form of higher prices. And, the enforcement effort would drive some companies out of business, causing serious unemployment in various industries. In sum, the nationwide economic costs of compliance were just not worth the benefits.

The farmers argued that agricultural runoff should not be included in the coverage of this new law, which should be limited just to point sources, i.e., only stuff that comes out a pipe. The farmers also argued that their use of pesticides and herbicides was already regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Another level of federal control was unwarranted, and more importantly, the research on farm runoff was inconclusive as to its impact on water bodies.

The private landowners argued that our Government had no right or power to regulate the use of private property under the 5th Amendment, unless the land was purchased. They suggested that the proposed law was just another effort to devalue the importance to this country of private property rights. Any effort to tell a landowner what he could discharge from his property was unconstitutional, wrong headed , and bad government were their main arguments.

In Support of the Act:

The environmental community argued that Lake Erie was dead, that the Cuyahoga River outside of Cleveland would continue to burst into spontaneous fires, and the summer odor from the Potomac River was only matched by the smell of Washington politics.

Only through a national law would the playing field be level for all the states. Business could not then run from state to state seeking residence in the place of least environmental protection. The federal government’s promise to provide massive assistance to local governments for sewage plants would be honored. Further, water pollution was an interstate problem, as the Chesapeake Bay watershed encompassed the runoff from seven different states. The acid mine runoff in Pennsylvania could be just as detrimental to the Potomac River as the untreated waste from West Virginia pig and turkey farm operations. In effect, the practices in one state impact many other states.

Others argued that it was good business to clean up America’s waterways. The recreational benefits and associated industries would generate billions of dollars in consumer spending from fishing alone. (Bass fishing is approximately a $35 billion dollar industry according to the estimates of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.) The enrichment of the public’s use and enjoyment of clean water - fishing and swimming - is really the essence, if not the purpose, of good government. And, clean water is essential to the health of every community. Only by comprehensive legislation will the drinking water be free from serious contamination, and thereby eliminating the need for expensive water treatment facilities.

The Act passed. But only after legal skirmishes in federal court upholding the law and local political debates on how to implement the new legislation, did the state and local governments "get with the program." In Northern Virginia the environmental community fought day in and day out - and successfully - to get the Blue Plains Sewage Plant modernized, discharges controlled and the law enforced. The local citizens and various environmental groups discovered that the local and regional sewer plants frequently overflowed, dumping raw sewage into the Potomac River watershed. The local citizens also viewed uncontrolled development - with its associated runoff and impact of existing sewage plant capacity - as wrong. As a result of these many efforts, developers and the counties were required to certify that adequate sewage capacity existed before a development could happen.

Most importantly, the local citizens approved bond referendums to finance increased sewage plant capacity and the construction of new plants. The local environmental community strongly supported these efforts. While the dominant focus in Northern Virginia was reigning in rampant growth and development, the eventual result was the restoration of the watershed and the return of largemouth bass to the Potomac River.

The Commonwealth administers approximately 50,000 miles of rivers and streams - no small job. Recent studies by Virginia DEP suggest that around 40% of these waterways are "impaired," and the leading cause of impairment is fecal coliform bacteria. While Smithfield Ham can no longer get a free ride on the James River, nor the polluting AvTeck corporation (made hoses for the Space Shuttle) a "passing" grade on the Shenandoah River, much still remains to be done to clean up largemouth bass habitat. Does the Federation plan on participating?

Me? I am green. The Clean Water Act is a "good" law. It facilitated the cleaned up of my backyard and made the Potomac River a world class largemouth bass fishery. Now I fish there every week, without a typhoid shot. Some of the very best regional and national bass tournaments are now held on the Potomac. The Clean Water Act of 1972 works! Its mission is still to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity" of America’s waters.

While initial success has been remarkable, considering the opposition to the act and the cost of implementation, maintaining clean water is, even today, a never-ending task. The same arguments that failed to defeat the legislation are still being used to impede the enforcement and application of the act. For example, members of Congress have introduced legislation to amend the act in a way that might allow the Potomac to deteriorate. EPA is proposing to amend its regulations to weaken the discharge standards, which could adversely impact the Potomac. And, the federal courts are being asked to cut back the reach of the act, as the Supreme Court did last year in denying protection to wetlands.

The only interest that escaped the reach of the act was the agricultural community. Because of the drought this year, the Chesapeake Bay is, not surprisingly, as clean as it has ever been in decades. The reason - no farm runoff of silt, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. This fact alone speaks volumes and shows how the Clean Water Act should be expanded to Save the Bay. These gains may have been offset by the chicken and pig farming practices in West Virginia that have adversely impacted the water quality and possibly the health of the fishery resource.

But more to the point, where does the Virginia Bass Federation stand on the Clean Water Act? For me it is one of the most significant laws passed in the last Century to enhance largemouth bass fishing. I want the law enforced. I also want Government to be proactive to assure that the Potomac, James, and the other 50,000 miles of rivers and streams of the Commonwealth are clean and fishable.

In my view it is fair to say that the bass fishermen of Northern Virginia benefited substantially from the hard work of others. This world class fishery exists because local jurisdictions pushed for bond referendums and the local taxpayers stepped up to the plate to clean up the Potomac. We need to give a big "thank you!" to those folks.

In the future, we also need to step up to the plate to make sure that unregulated farming practices do not destroy the recent gains in water quality. We need to make sure that Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay Act is enforced and that the regional compact to protect the Bay honored. How about making sure that the recently passed $40 million bond referendum for land acquisition is spent to protect threatened watersheds? Where is the Federation of the "tipping fee" for out of state garbage that is buried in Virginia? The last version of that act was defeated because the funds could be used for environmentally related restoration, such as fisheries, rather than just for the narrow goal of ground water seepage control.

There is an axiom in the politics of "green" issues. If you refuse to play, you don’t get a seat at the table when the real decisions are made. Absent a hint of green, bass fishermen will be viewed only as consumers of wildlife resources, fishing off the hard work of others, without any real commitment to the ambient environment that is so essential to the survival of the largemouth bass resource. If you want to sit at the table with the Big Boys, follow a few simple rules:

Yes, I am as green as a largemouth bass. I do, however, have a black stripe down my side. I drive a big SUV. I will not yield to the green folks on this issue, until Detroit comes up with a truck that can pull my trailer with some degree of safety and comfort, regardless of the present poor gas mileage.