A New Take on Clean Water

Living on Earth

A recent 6 to 3 vote in the Supreme Court, ruled that fill material from mines will no longer count as pollution. In accordance, toxic tailings from mines can now be deposited directly into our waterways. Such dumping is set to happen at the Kensington gold mine in Lower Slate Lake in Alaska, not to mention into other waterways throughout the U.S. The ball is now in the Obama administration’s court ? they can allow this dumping or revert back to a definition of fill material that fits the original intent of the Clean Water Act. Host Steve Curwood talks with the environmental lawyer, Tom Waldo, who argued this case before the Supreme Court.

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