The Clean Water Act Celebrates Its 40th Birthday This Year

Posted September 11th, 2012
Environmental

The Nation’s Waters Would Be in a Pitiful State Without It

This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act,  the nation’s principal law to protect our waters.  To commemorate the passage of this landmark legislation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created a new page on its website called “Water Is Worth It“.

 

Here from the EPA’s website is a brief history of the Clean Water Act:

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major U.S. law to address water pollution. Growing public awareness and concern for controlling water pollution led to sweeping amendments in 1972. As amended in 1972, the law became commonly known as the Clean Water Act (CWA).

The 1972 amendments:

  • Established the basic structure for regulating pollutants discharges into the waters of the United States.
  • Gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry.
  • Maintained existing requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters.
  • Made it unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained under its provisions.
  • Funded the construction of sewage treatment plants under the construction grants program.
  • Recognized the need for planning to address the critical problems posed by nonpoint source pollution.

Subsequent amendments modified some of the earlier CWA provisions. Revisions in 1981 streamlined the municipal construction grants process, improving the capabilities of treatment plants built under the program. Changes in 1987 phased out the construction grants program, replacing it with the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund, more commonly known as the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. This new funding strategy addressed water quality needs by building on EPA-state partnerships.

Over the years, many other laws have changed parts of the Clean Water Act. Title I of the Great Lakes Critical Programs Act of 1990, for example, put into place parts of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978, signed by the U.S. and Canada, where the two nations agreed to reduce certain toxic pollutants in the Great Lakes. That law required EPA to establish water quality criteria for the Great Lakes addressing 29 toxic pollutants with maximum levels that are safe for humans, wildlife, and aquatic life. It also required EPA to help the States implement the criteria on a specific schedule.

 

The EPA is a challenged entity.  Its effectiveness waxes and wanes according to the blowing in of the political winds, but it’s the best thing we have going.  The Gazette urges you to support the EPA, regardless of the direction of the hot winds blowing out of Washington.

The current mood in Congress has put the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the crosshairs.  Several people in Congress and even one presidential candidate have stated that they would remove the power of the EPA to control pollution by doing away with the Clean Air and Water Acts; some would just get rid of the EPA altogether.
In North Texas we breathe some of the worst air in the country because our former US congressman stood up for our rights for years by opposing the EPA’s efforts to impose air quality regulations on us.  As you might guess, that former congressman doesn’t live here and breath the air.