Speak Up for Clean Water
Clean water is essential to outdoor recreation. Whether you’re paddling a river, exploring a stream, or surfing at the coast, healthy water is the foundation of safe and enjoyable experiences outside.
But right now, that foundation is being chipped away.
A series of policy proposals, funding decisions, and administrative rules are putting clean water at risk—from efforts to weaken the Clean Water Act to cuts in beach water quality monitoring to expanded offshore oil and gas drilling. While these changes may seem technical, their impact is simple: more pollution in the rivers, lakes, and coastal waters that people rely on.
“Clean water is foundational to healthy communities, resilient ecosystems, and the wellbeing of people and wildlife alike. Weakening protections for our waterways puts far more than recreation at risk; it jeopardizes public health, ecological wellbeing, and the future of generations to come. Clean water is too vital a resource not to protect, and strong safeguards are essential from source to sea,” said Beth Spilman, American Canoe Association Executive Director.
Threats to the Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act has helped to set standards for clean water since 1972 by regulating water pollution and setting water quality standards. Recent legislation like the PERMIT Act and changes to the definition of the “Waters of the United States” threaten how the Clean Water Act protects our water.
The PERMIT Act would significantly weaken the Clean Water Act by limiting what waters are governed by the Clean Water Act. It would reduce oversight and public input, enabling increased dumping of pollutants and threatening rivers, lakes, and coastal waters that communities rely on for recreation and drinking water.
Anneka Williams, Winter Wildlands Alliance’s Policy Director, said, "Protecting clean water means protecting it at the source. Across the West, snowmelt feeds the streams, wetlands, and rivers that sustain communities, wildlife, and recreation far beyond the mountains. By weakening the safeguards that protect these waters, the PERMIT Act would put clean water, healthy watersheds, and the landscapes that sustain them at risk."
The “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) defines what water falls under the protection of the Clean Water Act. The administration is moving to exclude many streams and wetlands from protection under this definition, even though these waters feed into larger rivers and drinking water sources. Weakening these protections leaves more waterways vulnerable to pollution, directly impacting recreation and the water quality relied on by millions of Americans.
Threats to Coastal Recreation
More than 180 million Americans visit U.S. beaches The BEACH Act is designed to protect public health by funding water quality monitoring and public notification at beaches, but chronic underfunding has already reduced testing frequency and reliability. Continued cuts or failure to support the program would leave swimmers, surfers, paddlers, and coastal communities at greater risk from undetected pollution and unsafe water conditions.
Offshore oil and gas development threatens clean water through routine discharges, spills, and habitat disruption that degrade marine ecosystems and coastal recreation areas. New plans to expand offshore drilling increases the risk of contamination to beaches and ocean waters, undermining water quality, wildlife, and economies that depend on fishing, tourism, and outdoor recreation.
What happens upstream doesn’t stay upstream. Streams and wetlands feed into the waterways where we paddle, swim, and fish—meaning weakened protections in one place can affect entire watersheds and communities downstream.
Outdoor communities across the country depend on clean water—not just for recreation, but for local economies, public health, and access to the outdoors. And this isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a shared expectation that our waters should be safe, clean, and protected. "We are, for the most part, water, and perhaps that's why we can't always see its essential nature. And yet, we must understand that maintaining the integrity of the streams feeding water into our faucets is fundamental to our health and the quality of our lives. Our oceans, rivers, and lakes–it feels intrinsically good to be in and around them because we need them. They are a part of us. But if we can't protect them, we don't just lose these opportunities to recreate; we threaten the lifeblood of our civilization,” said Evan Stafford, Communications Director for American Whitewater.
Outdoor Alliance’s member organizations, Surfrider Foundation, American Whitewater, Winter Wildlands Alliance, and American Canoe Association are on the frontlines of protecting clean water every day. Join them in taking action to protect clean water.