Category: Clean Water

50 years ago today, the Clean Water Act became law, protecting lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands across Wisconsin and the country.

When you think of Wisconsin, you think of agriculture. Thirty percent of Wisconsin’s land is used for agriculture– that is 64,400 farms on 14.3 million acres. Wisconsin agriculture contributes 16.4% to our state’s economy, $104.8 billion annually. We also export $3.

Every family in Wisconsin deserves safe water, but tens of thousands of rural Wisconsinites can’t drink the water flowing from their taps because their wells are contaminated with harmful nitrates or PFAS.

Prehn cast the deciding vote to block groundwater standards for harmful PFAS chemicals and voted to weaken new PFAS drinking water standards. Today the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Natural Resources Board member Fred Prehn could stay in his seat indefinitely.

Clean Wisconsin among a coalition of environmental groups that sued to stop the rule

To date, the Mississippi River, one of America’s iconic waterways, has received no such investment, but hopefully that will soon change.

While Wisconsin’s water quality challenges have received more attention from lawmakers the last couple of years, we haven’t seen the bold, transformative policies necessary to put Wisconsin on a firm path to cleaner water come to fruition.

This truth is why in 1972, Congress enacted the bipartisan Clean Water Act to protect our nation’s streams and wetlands and keep our water safe.

The Dirty Water Rule will have major impacts to water quality due to the importance of ephemeral streams and non-adjacent wetlands.