Earlier this week two members of Congress sent a letter citing “grave concerns” over the implementation of the Clean Water Act to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.

In the July 7th letter to Johnson, chairmen Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee and James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee credit an internal EPA memo, which was given to them by activist group Greenpeace, for leading them to explore the EPA’s inadequate enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

The memorandum, which was sent on Mar. 4, 2008 from Granta Y. Nakayama, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, to Benjamin Grumbles, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Water, points out the conflicting ideals of the 1972 Clean Water Act and the 2006 U.S. Supremem Court decision Rapanos v. United States.

While the Act protects wetlands from urban development for water conservation, the court ruling challenges water protection provisions and upholds individual’s rights to build over wetlands.

According to Nakayama’s memo, the fundamental discord between the federal law and Supreme Court decision has led to confusion about federal wetlands protections which has resulted in the agency’s “conscious decision not to pursue enforcement of 300 Clean Water Act violations because of the jurisdictional uncertainty.”

In a Washington Post article printed Tuesday, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar responded to the congressional inquiry. “We will be reviewing the new request and will work with the chairmen to provide information on our enforcement program,” Shradar was quoted.

Part of a series of pivitol environmental laws passed in the 1970s, the Clean Water Act was a monumental step forward for the environmental movement and surface water protection in the United States. The recent Rapanos v. United States ruling, however, overturned earlier decisions that stopped two seperate developers from building on their wetland properties due to environmental regulations connected to the CWA.

In the end, the court ruled 5 to 4 in favor of development and left the CWA in limbo.

Photo: EPA