海角大神

Threadfin shad flitting at the mouth of a cove. White bass hugging dock pilings. Mayflies so thick on trees that branches dip into the water where bluegill brunch.

For anyone who likes to cast a lure into the world below, such images are sure signs of a healthy stretch of water. And from Appalachian highland creeks to the 鈥淏ig Muddy鈥� Missouri River, such scenes are becoming increasingly more common.

There is little doubt that the Environmental Protection Agency and the 1972 Clean Water Act are keystones to dramatic improvements in US water quality, the industrial degradation of which was highlighted by fuel distillates burning on the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, in 1969. The act allowed government regulators and individual citizens to sue polluters and force industries to stop dumping raw toxins into rivers, while carving out exemptions for some, primarily farmers and power companies.

Last week, the EPA announced a controversial new rule that would extend its jurisdiction to vast headwater regions that comprise nearly 60 percent of the nation's waterways 鈥� a move many heartland conservatives see as overreach by an already powerful federal agency.听House Speaker John Boehner has vehemently opposed the rule as 鈥渞aw and tyrannical power grab that will crush jobs.鈥澨齌he action, which is a response to a 2006 case where the US Supreme Court ruled that many non-navigable waters fell outside the EPA鈥檚 jurisdiction, is intended to give Washington more leverage to clean up the 55 percent of US streams that are currently listed in 鈥減oor鈥� condition.

The EPA and many environmentalists say those extra protections are needed to retain gains and forge more progress. But the fact that the US also has seen its water run clearer even amid the jurisdictional confusion over headwaters suggests, at least to some, that Americans as a whole are increasingly seeing the quest for cleaner rivers as a reflection not just of water as a basic necessity, but of the country鈥檚 core cultural values.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a sense of threat [from polluted water], which gets into the field of risk perception,鈥� says public opinion researcher Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, in New Haven, Conn.听鈥淏ut there鈥檚 also a sense of efficacy [around clean water gains], which basically means that people understand that there are concrete things that they can do as individuals or collectively as groups 鈥� whether it鈥檚 a neighborhood, a city or a state government 鈥� that will make a difference [on water quality]. Without that sense of efficacy, people say, 鈥業鈥檓 not going to waste my energy on a big problem that I may be scared about, but I can鈥檛 do anything about.鈥� 鈥�

Indeed, the fact that a stretch of the Mississippi River near the Twin Cities went from containing only two live fish to becoming one of the best sport fisheries in the nation suggests that 鈥渆nvironmental transgressions, properly atoned, may be forgiven,鈥� as the Waconia, Minn., Sun Patriot鈥檚 T.W. Budig wrote recently.

In 2004, even as the US Supreme Court questioned the Clean Water Act鈥檚 jurisdiction over flowing waters beyond rivers navigable by boat, the EPA began the most ambitious stream quality assessment in the country鈥檚 history, testing more than 1,300 representative waterways.听

After establishing baseline data in 2004, the EPA once again tested the waters in 2009, reporting the results in 2013. The report found that some troubled waterways were getting worse, affected by growing amounts of agricultural and storm runoff.

But amid such sobering facts, the EPA study also revealed a more hopeful finding: Many of the country鈥檚 rivers and creeks are returning to their natural state.

In a span of only five years, for example, the percent of US stream length found to offer a healthy fish habitat听rose from 51 percent to 69 percent, while the percent of stream length showing little evidence of human disturbance rose from 23 to 35 percent.

The reasons for such rapid improvement are varied and often water body-specific. An international agreement banning mid-lake ballast cleaning by container ships has left the Great Lakes far cleaner today than 20 years ago. The construction of secondary sewage treatment plants in Atlanta 鈥� prompted by citizen lawsuits and federal court rulings 鈥� led to the restoration of the Chattahoochee River.

The Cuyahoga, which became emblematic of America鈥檚 abuse of its rivers, has seen its sport fishery return, especially the population of small-mouth bass. (Residents are still warned to only eat fish from the river once a month.)

鈥淭oday 鈥� people can take canoe or kayak tours of the river through downtown Cleveland, something that would have been unthinkable 鈥� and dangerous 鈥� 40 years ago,鈥� according to 鈥淲aterways Restored,鈥� a recent policy report by Environment America Research and Policy Center.

And on the Missouri, America鈥檚 longest river, a government program to lease buffer zones between agricultural fields and rivers contributed to noticeable improvements in water quality over 10 years. And the ban of a harmful termite poison enabled officials to reopen some commercial catfishing grounds. In March, Burr Edde, of Malta Bend, Mo., caught a state record 120-pound catfish on a trotline.

Perhaps the most broadly visible testament to improving water quality is the rise of the bald eagle, America鈥檚 national symbol. The species was almost wiped out by DDT, but its remarkable bounceback isn鈥檛 just a product of the ban on that particular eggshell-weakening pesticide, but to the swelling bounty of rivers, the eagles鈥� favorite hunting grounds.

At the same time, the EPA and the Clean Water Act have long been political punching bags in Washington, given the enormous check the federal government now wields on the ability of capitalists to glean profit from what many argue are private land uses. Many farmers and energy groups say state regulators, not federal ones, are best situated to regulate the quality of smaller streams and wetlands, even though those waters eventually join the navigable streams under the EPA鈥檚 jurisdiction.

Without proper EPA jurisdiction over smaller waterways, 鈥渋t鈥檚 been easier to destroy those features or pollute them or take actions that otherwise would have triggered some kind of protection under the Clean Water Act,鈥� argues Jon Devine, a water quality expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.

Steady improvements in water and air quality have seen a concomitant decrease in support for federal environmental laws, especially among Republicans.听 In 1992, 86 percent of Republicans supported 鈥渟tricter laws and regulations that protect the environment,鈥� a number that declined to 47 percent by 2012, according to the Pew Research Center.

At the same time, the broader consensus around cleaning up America鈥檚 waterways is uniquely bipartisan, says Professor Leiserowitz at Yale. His polling shows an 鈥渙verwhelming鈥� number of Americans in support of the government, whether federal or state, having a large role in protecting the nation鈥檚 running waters.

The quest for clean streams 鈥減lays out across political lines,鈥� Leiserowitz adds. 鈥淔or conservatives, especially, the value of purity is a really important one, and it carries ... deeper resonances around religion, spirituality, sin, and morality. Just the same, the word 鈥榩ollution鈥� carries with it a lot of cultural meaning beyond the parts in a million of arsenic in the water.鈥�

Improving water quality, he adds, also parallels another societal macro trend where 鈥渢here鈥檚 a large-scale shift in public concerns and consciousness around the quality of food and water that we ingest.鈥�

Farmers are at the center of the political debate, although energy advocates have also lambasted the EPA鈥檚 new water quality rule. Concerned about having to jump through new regulatory hoops for making small changes to their land, they are demanding that Congress block the rule before it takes effect in July, which the Republican-led chambers have vowed to do.听Speaker Boehner has said that the new rule places farmers 鈥� as well as landowners, small businesses, and manufacturers 鈥� "on the road to a regulatory and economic hell."

The EPA, for its part, says it has retained all previous agricultural exemptions and even added new ones in order to assure farmers that only illegal polluters will be affected. EPA head Gina McCarthy last week called farmers and ranchers 鈥淎merica鈥檚 original conservationists.鈥�

Many US farmers take advantage of government programs that give tax easements or lease payments to land owners for creating natural buffer zones that filter pollutants before they get to the river. But a combination of public pressure and technological progress has also pushed farmers to use pesticides and fertilizers more precisely to reduce damaging runoff.

On Tuesday, for example, Campbell Soup joined Wal-Mart, General Mills, and Smithfield Foods in an effort to help farmers in Nebraska and Ohio optimize their soil additives in ways that sustain yield while cutting chemical use by up to 20 percent.

Such听fine-tuning by farmers on America鈥檚 soybean and corn fields already has had dramatic impacts, reports the US Geological Survey.

Between 1992 and 2001, 17 percent of agricultural streams and 5 percent of mixed-land-use streams had pesticide concentrations that could be harmful to human health, the USGS reported last year. At the end of the ensuing 10 years (2002 to 2011), however, investigators could find only one agricultural stream with dangerous pesticide levels, and no mixed-use-streams with harmful pesticide pollution.

The 鈥渄ecline in the number of streams and pesticides exceeding human-health benchmarks 鈥� is consistent with regulatory changes and reductions in use between the two decades for these pesticides,鈥� researchers wrote in the paper, which was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology last year.

鈥淵ou really can make a huge difference, because the rivers are constantly moving,鈥� says Jeff Barrow, director of Missouri River Relief, and co-author of 鈥淔rom the Bottom Up: One Man鈥檚 Crusade to Clean America鈥檚 Rivers.鈥� 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 doesn鈥檛 take them long to get bad, or to clean up, because they鈥檙e dynamic. Every day it鈥檚 a new river, really.鈥�