Turning Tides: Policy, Ethics, and the Promise of Clean Water

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The United States stands at a pivotal moment in the history of clean water protection. More than fifty years after the Clean Water Act established the national goal of making all waters fishable and swimmable, recent legal decisions and rulemaking have dramatically weakened the Act by narrowing the definition of “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS). This redefinition threatens to remove federal safeguards from more than 80 percent of the nation’s wetlands and millions of miles of creeks and streams. This rollback comes amid persistent water pollution, escalating climate-driven risks, and ongoing environmental injustice, raising the urgent question: Can we afford to weaken the legal protections that sustain life itself? 

This policy note argues that the crisis is not only legal or scientific— it reflects a deeper philosophical struggle over how society values its relationship to the rest of nature. By tracing the history of the Clean Water Act, the evolving WOTUS debate, and emerging ethical frameworks such as the Rights of Nature, it shows how recent court decisions have weakened federal protections while a new consciousness around water, stewardship, and ecological interdependence is beginning to emerge. 

Even in a period of federal retrenchment, history suggests that water protections can be rebuilt. Communities, faith leaders, environmental justice advocates, and watershed organizations are already building coalitions at the local and state levels, laying the groundwork for a renewed movement grounded in both legal action and a broader public ethic that recognizes water as the basis of all life.