Amending the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to Reauthorize the National Estuary Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio for the way we have worked together. There was a slight toll to be paid on the majority side for getting the National Estuary Program passed, but it was one we could live with, and I think these are both good pieces of legislation. I am glad we were able to pass them together.

If I could just briefly read from an editorial that was recently published by the Westerly Sun. Westerly is one of Rhode Island's cities. The area that Westerly is in is called South County, RI. There is a South County coastkeeper whose name is David Prescott, and he went out in a boat that belongs to an environmental group in Rhode Island called Save the Bay. He took some press folk down the Pawcatuck River with elected leaders from both Rhode Island and Connecticut.

I will read from the editorial:

Prescott shared a jarful of smelly green algae from the bottom of Little Narragansett Bay to illustrate how lawn fertilizer, engine oil and all manner of interesting items flushed down storm drains end up below the surface of what appears to be a bucolic setting around Watch Hill, Napatree Point and Sandy Point.

``If we went further up the watershed, we would actually see stuff that came right off the land, down the stormwater outfalls,'' Prescott said. ``This is the stuff that we know is in our developed areas. We see stuff such as oil and gas and grease and sand and trash and dog waste, and guess where it ends up? Eventually, it ends up here in the Pawcatuck River estuary and into Little Narragansett Bay.''

Based on his eight-year study of the river and bay area using water sampling, Prescott urged leaders from both states to heed Save the Bay's ``call to action,'' which would require developing stormwater management plans to better filter runoff, ensuring septic systems are regularly tested, encouraging homeowners to reduce or eliminate use of lawn fertilizers and pesticides, and enforcing ``no-discharge'' laws.

The newspaper concluded:

The Wood-Pawcatuck watershed, from Worden's Pond in South Kingstown to Watch Hill, filters the water in our aquifers and provides a quality of life many envy. We need to protect all aspects of our watershed and treat the Pawcatuck River and Little Narragansett Bay with more respect than has been shown over the decades.

I thank the Westerly Sun for those thoughts. I think they are very helpful. I am glad to have the chance to put them here into the record on the Senate floor.

The reason I read this is because the work of doing that upland planning that allows an estuary to be clean for swimming, fishing, boating, and all of the things that Rhode Islanders and our summer visitors enjoy, is through this National Estuary Program. It shows the common link of the algae problem David Prescott referred to with the algae problem Senator Portman has seen in Ohio.

I thank David Vitter, the Senator from Louisiana, for his cosponsorship of this and for his work to get this through the Environment and Public Works Committee with me. I also thank Sherrod Brown for cosponsoring this legislation.

If I am not mistaken, there is the Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve in Ohio, and this will help support the work of the Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Reserve. This is in Huron, OH, on the south-central shore of Lake Erie. It is one of Ohio's few remaining examples of a natural estuary that transitions between land and water, with a variety of habitats, from marshes and swamps, to upland forests, open water, tributary streams, barrier beach, and near shores of Lake Erie.

I am pleased both of these measures have been able to proceed.

I yield the floor.

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