The water-quality protections that Washingtonians fought hard to win are now under attack by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Washington’s water-quality standards include what’s called human-health criteria — specified limits on the amounts of toxic chemicals and other compounds in our waterways — to ensure that seafood caught here is safe for everyone to eat, and surface water is safe to drink. These standards were finalized in 2016 and are among the most protective in the nation.
Under the Clean Water Act, tribes and states — not the federal government — are responsible for setting water-quality standards. However, the EPA has decided to step in to support the agenda of a small group of industrial polluters to roll back those protections and weaken our human-health criteria.