Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman and colleagues, nonpoint source pollution is the next frontier of our clean water program. The Nation has done very well in cleaning up pollution from point sources. Over the past 20-plus years since the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972, industry and municipalities both have spent on the order of $230 billion cleaning up point sources. Yet, although a measure of progress has been made in our lakes and streams, we still have unacceptably high levels of pollution, principally coming from runoff from open land sources: agricultural lands, lands under development for housing or other purposes, forestry lands that have not been properly protected. The most egregious effect of such runoff from nonpoint source was the already-referred-to attack of Cryptosporidium in the city of Milwaukee a couple of years ago, where runoff from agricultural land carried with it a deadly disease; it got into the drinking water of the city of Milwaukee, and affected some 400,000 citizens, of whom 120-plus died. Those illnesses and those deaths could have been prevented with effective nonpoint source protection programs.”