Environmental Laws

We use environmental laws as a tool to enforce the law and promote compliance. The most important of these laws is the Clean Water Act. This law provides the basic structure for regulation of pollutant discharge with a permit system. It also provides power to citizens and citizen groups, like Coosa Riverkeeper, to file suit on behalf of the United States of America if a polluter violates any portion of the Clean Water Act. Polluters to our waterways must have a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit and meet the limits of that permit to be legal. We monitor discharge reports filed by polluters in the Coosa Valley to ensure permittees are meeting their limits.

In Alabama, the powers granted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been delegated to the state agency, Alabama Department of Environmental Management, an agency routinely criticized for lax enforcement of the law. It is that inaction to protect the basic rights of Alabamians that requires Coosa Riverkeeper to step into an enforcement role.

To read an article by Coosa Riverkeeper Frank Chitwood regarding the importance of environmental laws, see page 6 of our first newsletter.