KRC Opposes House Committee Amendment to Senate Bill 89

With insufficient exceptions, House Committee Amendment to Senate Bill 89 limits protections against pollution to only those waters that are defined as “navigable” under the federal Clean Water Act, stripping away protections for water resources that Kentuckians rely on for drinking water, recreating, fishing, watering livestock, and crop irrigation. The amendment claws back a small subset of state waters and leaves most groundwater resources and private wells outside of protected “waters of the Commonwealth.” Kentucky Resources Council continues to strongly oppose this bill and has developed Fact Sheet #3 to address the impacts to Kentucky’s waters by the House Committee Amendment to SB89.

What you can do:
➡️ Calls are the most important action you can take! Call the Legislative Message Line at 1-800-372-7181 (open 7am-6pm Mon-Fri) and leave a message for all SENATORS to support clean water in Kentucky and vote NO on SB 89.

➡️ Email legislators using this Action Alert. Please customize your email message to ensure impact. 

MORE INFORMATION:

In response to public outcry, supporters of the bill are circulating misleading claims that SB89 won't harm our water, and simply aligns our permitting program with federal law. Our Fact Sheet #2 addresses those false claims. As KRC's Tom FitzGerald explained in this Op-Ed for the Kentucky Lantern, "despite efforts to muddy the waters on the reach and negative impacts of SB 89, we can clearly see to the bottom of the proposal." The damage it will cause to Kentucky’s water resources, economy, and people is "crystal clear."

Last week, KRC, Kentucky Sierra Club, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, and Kentucky Conservation Committee held a press conference to raise concerns about SB 89, a bill that would weaken protections for Kentucky’s waterways, putting our drinking water and environment at risk. We were joined by Kentucky Poet Laureate Silas House (read his remarks here) and LiKen’s Madison Mooney, who shared their perspectives on what’s at stake.

In a letter to Representative Gooch, the Secretary of Kentucky's Energy and Environment Cabinet expressed the State's "grave concerns" about SB 89, saying it "applies a machete to an issue that needs a scalpel, at a cost to Kentuckians." Read that letter here. In a new letter to legislators, the Cabinet explains that the House Committee Substitute does not fix these problems, noting: "The proposed language does not address groundwater aquifers, which would leave approximately 89,000 Domestic Use (DU) and agricultural (ag) wells unprotected as well as 156 water systems whose source water comes from groundwater."

This bill puts our drinking water and natural resources at risk, increasing treatment costs for city and county water systems and the costs of pollution controls for permitted industries downstream. We ALL live downstream, and what happens upstream impacts us all. Raise your voice today so that Kentucky’s legislators do NOT roll back safeguards that protect clean water for future generations