For this, my last post, I thought that I would focus on the Clean Water Act, an important piece of legislation that has had major impacts on water in the United States. Unfortunately, you will still have gaps in your knowledge regarding worldwide pollution, but I think that by now, it’s fairly clear that we have a serious problem on our hands regarding the scarcity and pollution of water. Since I think that is fairly well established, I wanted to end on a slightly more positive note and really explore the goals and accomplishments (or lack thereof) of an existing program to help protect water.

The Clean Water Act first appeared in American legislation in 1948 with the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. This early version of the CWA left sanitation planning up to the surgeon general, and allowed the Federal Works Administration to help local and state governments with prevention and cleanup efforts. Though this was a step in the right direction, water sanitation was still not monitored as closely as it should have been.

The year 1962 was hugely important for the environmental movement; it saw the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring which discussed the horrible environmental effects of using synthetic pesticides, making the case that if “humankind poisoned nature, nature would in turn poison humankind.” Though this book wasn’t necessarily about water pollution, Silent Spring ushered in a new era of change; by 1972 it seemed as though the entire nation had embraced the environmental movement.

In 1972, the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency all came into being. The most important amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (essentially now the CWA) was the creation of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination Permit (henceforth referred to as “NPDEP”) system which created pollution permits that determined the amount of discharge allowed from particular factories throughout the nation; enforcement of these permits was handed over to the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency. By 1977, the EPA had created wastewater standards for all contaminants and made it illegal for anyone to discharge pollution from a point source (a fixed position somewhere) without a permit. The Act has remained the same, with some budget adjustments and such, since 1972.

You’re probably wondering now how effective the Clean Water Act has been, and in reality, it has coupled great strides in cleaning water with setbacks or areas that haven’t changed substantially since 1972. When it comes to enforcing of the NPDEP system, things have remained pretty inconsistent, and a lot of companies do not meet pretreatment standards. In addition, exemptions are issued fairly often, some even if they conflict with the EPA mandate focused on protected any possible drinking water. According to a report by ProPublica, the recent surge in domestic drilling has brought in a lot more exemption applications, which is followed by intense political pressure to approve the exemptions and allow for the exploration of other energy sources. Beyond drinking water problems (mostly due to the contamination of aquifers, which are large underground stores of freshwater), many rivers (and streams, creeks, etc.) suffer from poor water quality because of the mostly uncontrolled non-point water pollution (that is that it comes from an indirect source like runoff from fields or construction sites).

Despite these drawbacks, the Clean Water Act has met with some huge successes. Prior to the Act’s implementation, only 33% of all U.S. waterways were considered fishable or swimmable; the number of fishable/swimmable waterways has now increased to 65% (which is amazing if you take into account the industrialization that has occurred at the same time). Before the Clean Water Act, the United States was reported to be losing 500,000 acres of wetland per year; that number has now dropped below 60,000 acres of wetland lost a year. Finally, according to an EPA report from 2012,  90.7% of U.S. water systems met all of the health based standards in 2011.

At the end of the day, there is still much work to be done when it comes to stopping pollution and improving the Clean Water Act. The fact remains, however, that is has made significant strides in cleaning waters that were previously unusable, at the same time that the modern world is advancing and creating more pollution and debris than ever before. That in and of itself is an accomplishment worthy of praise.  

In the spirit of conserving water (since that is more within our control than decreasing pollution substantially), I’ll leave you with this incredible site which lists 100 ways to conserve water.  Check it out here, and you too help take care of our watery world!