The Environmental Integrity Project released a report this week: Half of all U.S. lakes and rivers are too polluted to swim in or fish. More specifically, 50 percent of our waters are “impaired,” meaning any fish that can survive in them are inedible, the water is undrinkable, it is unsafe for humans to put their bodies into, and it is inhospitable to aquatic life. The report said that under the current pace of EPA remediation, it will take 700 years to achieve full restoration of U.S waters.
The Clean Water Act turned 50 this year, almost like a slap in the face.
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On Sunday, I take my paddleboard down to Lake Whatcom, the far side of the lake, past the busy public put in, through the neighborhoods of multimillion-dollar homes, and signs letting me and the other non-millionaires know that there is “no public water access.” I go all the way to the park, 15 minutes from my house, where a gravel trail lays three miles along the shore, hugging the glassy blue water that laps against the cedars dangling over the steep bank.
Somewhere in the sky the sun burns behind a thin layer of overcast and offers just enough warmth to make me confident I will not die if I fall into the freezing lake—an outcome entirely possible on just my second day out on the paddleboard. I inflate the board in the sodden parking lot, splattering my bare legs with mud as I flip it around, attaching plastic fins and velcro straps.
Despite the overfilled parking lot, I am the only person on the lake’s edge and the only person on the water. Standing on wobbly legs, I paddle near the shore, looking down into the clear water, wishing it was warm enough (or I was brave enough) to plunge in.
Lake Whatcom is where we get our town’s drinking water. Twenty-two watersheds drain into this lake, filling the cups, showers, toilets, baths, of more than 100,000 people. It has been on Washington state’s list of polluted water bodies since 1998.
You’d think we’d take better care of this important body of water. But logging, development, dog shit, human shit, toxic algal blooms, polluted stormwater runoff, and other human impacts consistently put Lake Whatcom at risk.
Our drinking water is an impaired water body.
The wind picks up and the surface of the lake develops rippling waves. I drop to my knees for better balance and bounce over the little one-foot crests. After a mile or two, my knees grow tired and I sit all the way down, dangling my feet into the freezing water—our drinking water.
Mojave poet Natalie Diaz says, “The water we drink, like the air we breathe, is not a part of our body but is our body. What we do to one—to the body, to the water—we do to the other.”
Another 700 years is a long time to do harm to our bodies. Our water. Can we wait that long for full restoration?
I sit on top of the lake watching small fish jump into the evening air, watching the light ripple on top of the water’s surface, watching the mountains on the horizon do nothing at all. I can see the raw flesh of deforestation running in strips down the mountainsides like open wounds. I can see dozens of gargantuan homes built right up to the edge of the water. And I know somewhere along the edge of the lake, there are at least 11 tributaries pouring in that fail to meet the standards for fecal coliform bacteria (i.e. literal shit).
Back in the parking lot, I do it all in reverse. Remove the fins, the velcro, suck the air back out of the board so it can be folded and put away. I put a towel down on the front seat and take long gulps from my water bottle, a small vessel of the lake poured from the tap at home, carried around with me like a hyper-chlorinated liquid prayer.
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A recent review of the largest waste water treatment plant in Maryland was so alarming in terms of the amount of raw waste getting dumped into the Chesapeake, that the MD Dept. of Environment siezed control of the city run facility this week to avoid "catastrophic damage." https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-back-river-mde-20220327-4tz2nkvn55fcvhvhibadexqafq-story.html