A recent series of articles in the New York Times has revealed extensive violations of the Clean Water Act—as many as half a million violations of water pollution laws in the past five years alone.
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As a result, an estimated one in 10 people in the country has been exposed to dangerous drinking water. This includes water with dangerous chemicals and pesticides as well as water contaminated with animal feces and untreated sewage. Over 19 million people in the United States get sick each year from water contaminated by parasites, bacteria or viruses.
The Times’ research indicates that 40 percent of community water systems across the country had violated the Safe Drinking Water Act and more that 23 million people got water from a system that was in violation of at least one of the standards. Contaminants in water include inorganic toxins, heavy metals and other toxins, several of which have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological diseases.
In fact, the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 500,000 times by about 23,000 companies since 2004, according to the polluters’ own reports. It is reasonable to assume that many—if not most—violations go unreported and that these are conservative figures.
According to environmental groups, these violations are on the rise. Between 2004 and 2007, the number of sites with violations grew by 16 percent—with about 60 percent of these including “significant noncompliance,” such as dumping carcinogens.
With all these violations, one might think that the Environmental Protection Agency and other state regulatory bodies would be extra busy punishing the polluters. However, the Times’ research shows that the EPA has “declined to prosecute polluters or force states to strengthen enforcement.” Only 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations led to fines from state agencies.
One possible explanation for the lack of enforcement is lack of resources for the regulatory agencies. For 46 states, state agencies are primarily responsible for many parts of the Clean Water Act. While budgets for enforcement have remained the same, the number of facilities needing inspection and enforcement has more than doubled in the past 10 years.
Another reason for the deadly lack of enforcement is that the polluters have lobbied to prevent effective enforcement. As the New York Times reports, in the state of West Virginia, Matthew Crum, an employee of the state Environmental Enforcement agency, took a strong stance in shutting down the polluting facilities. The companies complained to their “friends” in the state legislature, eventually leading to Crum’s being fired by a new agency head, after she was told that her confirmation was contingent on firing Crum.
However, lack of resources and corporate lobbying are not the root causes of the problem; they are only the instruments for the powerful interests that see clean water legislation as harmful to their profits.
The EPA and state environmental enforcement agencies are all arms of a capitalist government, under the protection of a capitalist state. The state is a body of armed people and other repressive institutions such as courts and jails that work together to protect the interests of the ruling class. That means that in a capitalist society like the United States, the state acts to protect the interests of the capitalist class.
The existence of an “Environmental Protection Agency” charged with enforcing the 1972 Clean Water Act, came about as a result of the massive grassroots environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s as a reform measure. The environmental gains of the period have been severely eroded thanks to the relentless efforts of big capital.
While the EPA has taken some action to actually protect the environment, as an integral part of the capitalist government it cannot be relied upon to protect the environment at the expense of corporate profits. This is why EPA staffers wrote confidential memo after confidential memo about the lack of enforcement, but failed to take any real action to enforce the law or punish the polluters.
Today there is hope that under the Obama administration, the EPA will take a more vigorous approach to enforcement of the Clean Water Act. The new head of EPA, Lisa Jackson, has stated she will give the issue her “attention” and make enforcement a priority.
However, there is no evidence that enforcement funding will increase significantly to meet the need. Since most states are responsible for key aspects of enforcement of the act, mere “attention” to water safety from the EPA will not hire more state environmental enforcement workers to meet the increasing need.
Most importantly, not even a sincere desire on the part of Jackson to step up enforcement of the act can override the essential role of the state as the protector of the capitalists, not the environment. No progressive legislation or policy can alter the fundamental driving force of capitalist production: the pursuit of ever greater profits.
Community, labor and environmental activists are engaged in struggles every day to fight against toxic pollution, and these struggles deserve the support of every progressive person. However, under capitalism, it is more profitable to pollute rather than to protect and conserve the environment. We cannot fully tackle the environmental problems that we face today without eliminating the profit motive and putting industry in the hands of a workers’ state, to be operated in the interests of the majority of people—the working class.
