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Across the country -- despite the protections of the Clean Water Act -- wetlands and streams are threatened by a multitude of industries and interests. The mining and homebuilding industries fill streams and wetlands with sediment, in violation of the Act's permitting requirements and water quality standards. Agri-business seeks exemptions from the law to allow water contaminated with pesticides, nitrates, and heavy metals to runoff their farms and pollute streams, rivers, and the drinking water of millions. And the Bush administration has attempted to redefine vital stream and wetlands ecosystems as no longer part of the "waters of the United States" to eliminate all federal Clean Water Act safeguards against pollution.

The Klamath River basin wetlands were once known as the Everglades of the west, because they provided a vital feeding and resting place for millions of migratory birds. Tragically, more than a hundred years of government-subsidized reclamation projects have pumped much of the basin dry. Even the beautiful and vital Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge has been affected by the government's misguided policy -- the refuge permits commercial farming on over 20,000 acres of its land!

Earthjustice attorneys in Seattle are working to correct the mismanagement of the Klamath Basin, and Earthjustice attorneys across the country will continue -- as it states in the federal Clean Water Act -- the fight to make all the nation's waters fishable and swimable.