Our Stories

The Latest by Jennifer Chavez

Staff Attorney

Jennifer worked to halt water pollution in the D.C. and Chesapeake Bay region and to defend strong clean water protections nationally as a staff attorney in the Washington, D.C., office

The Dirty Water Rule
January 3, 2019

Making America’s Waters Burn Again

By Anna Sewell & Jennifer Chavez  /  Washington, D.C. Office

The Trump administration seeks to strip the Clean Water Act’s protections from an overwhelming number of our waterways. We're fighting back.

The Conowingo Dam.
June 11, 2018

Conowingo Dam Threatens to Dump Sediment Into Chesapeake Bay

By Jennifer Chavez & Lisa Fuhrmann  /  Washington, D.C. Office

We’re challenging Maryland’s thumbs-up for the renewal of the dam’s license.

mother and baby
April 14, 2017

Advocates Concerned about EPA Plan to Set a ‘Benchmark’ for Lead in Drinking Water

By Jennifer Chavez  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Community advocates have raised concerns about the EPA’s plan to set a benchmark for lead in water because it won’t protect infants, pregnant women and other sensitive populations.

Trash collects in a tributary of the Anacostia River outside of Washington, D.C.
April 9, 2015

Court Finds That Maryland Failed to Protect Rivers From Pollution

By Jennifer Chavez  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Maryland Appeals Court rules that the state's environmental regulators failed to curb pollution in waterways that flow through the state.

January 13, 2014

Bill Would Cripple EPA's Power to Prevent Toxic Spills

By Jennifer Chavez  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Those who push an extreme anti-environmental agenda often use the concept of freedom to promote their ideas. They are not concerned with your freedom to breathe clean air or to drink clean water. Instead they want to give corporations the freedom to exploit natural resources without regard for the adverse impacts, and they want to ensure that polluters have freedom from accountability for the potentially deadly impacts of their actions.