Please join us by following this link and add your voice by submitting a public comment to protect our water before April 15.
Middle Tennessee’s waterways are plentiful and diverse. We depend on our rivers and streams for drinking water, commercial navigation, recreation and the rich array of plants and animals that give our region its character and make it our home. The Maddox Charitable Fund is opposed to any changes to the Clean Water Act or to definitions of “waters of the United States” that would remove existing protections of major waterways, their tributaries, adjacent wetlands and ephemeral streams.
Dan and Margaret Maddox loved the outdoors and were avid hunters and anglers. Inspired by the majesty of the natural world, they became staunch conservationists and protectors of wildlife. As part of their legacy, the Maddox Charitable Fund has donated $4.2 million dollars over the past 10 years to organizations focused on restoring and protecting the health of our waterways, wetlands and natural areas, as well as on recruiting, retaining and reenergizing the hunters and anglers who will be our future conservationists. The proposed changes to the Clean Water Act would gut this investment and destroy the achievements and advances of our nonprofit environmental partners.
The impact of past investments in dam removal for connectivity, riparian buffer restoration and tree canopy enhancement could be lost if protections were rolled back. The careful monitoring of watershed health in a time of rapid urban development in Nashville would be hampered as protections against encroachment weaken. Partners using science-based solutions would be documenting waterways degradation rather than improvements. Public policy should equip nonprofit and community partners with tools to advance watershed health, not hamper their sustained and heroic efforts.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed DRASTIC changes to decades-long national rules that are vital to protecting our drinking water and the all-important streams and wetlands that prevent flooding and that filter our drinking water from pollution. The Maddox Fund is opposed to any regulatory or definition changes that would weaken water protections. We believe the EPA’s proposals to be reckless at a time when we should be strengthening protections of our waterways, not abandoning them.
