Keeping Clean Waters “Clean” - Antidegradation

In maintaining the integrity of our waters, Congress wanted to keep the cleanest waters clean, and preventing them from becoming polluted except in extremely limited situations. Therefore, in addition to setting a designated use as part of a water quality standard, federal regulations also require the states to protect and maintain existing water quality and any previously “existing use” of the stream not reflected in a state’s codified use designation. 

Simply put, an existing use of a waterbody, whether fishing or swimming or trout spawning, is a use that existed before the Clean Water Act was enacted by Congress. The idea was the Clean Water Act would attempt to keep the clean waters “clean,” while agencies worked to restore the dirty waters to their previously “clean” status. Keeping the clean waters “clean” is known as “antidegradation.”

In 2007 MEA, representing several Wisconsin organizations and individuals, asked the Dane County Circuit Court to declare that permits for discharges of polluted stormwater runoff from small municipalities (MS4s) contain terms necessary to ensure that clean waters remain clean, as required by federal law.
The court denied that request and instead upheld DNR’s determination that MS4s need not ensure that clean waters are kept clean. To read more about the MS4 case click, here [this link does not exist on the website].  Despite the court’s ruling, MEA continues to work with DNR and US EPA to develop regulations that ensure MS4s, and all other regulated facilities discharging pollutants into Wisconsin’s waters [remove comma] comply with basic federal Clean Water Act antidegradation requirements.

In fall 2006 DNR, in response to an administrative petition filed by MEA and a consortium of environmental groups, amended its administrative rules to ensure that 1,100 miles of pristine river in northern Wisconsin will remain clean by designating those waters as Exceptional or Outstanding Resource Waters. To read more about Midwest Environmental Advocates work on the Hundred Healthiest Rivers Campaign please click here.

To read more about Midwest Environmental Advocates' Clean Water Campaign, click here.