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For more than 100 years, the federal government has been passing laws to provide funding and oversight for the
development of dams, reservoirs, and canals. Not until the 1940s and 1950s, however, did Congress begin to address water pollution legislatively. And initial efforts in this area, like the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, did not address pollution prevention plans or the development of water quality standards. Instead they focused on funding water treatment plants,
identifying polluted bodies of water, and locating the polluters for legal action. Unfortunately, the strategy of determining which polluter caused which pollution was expensive and often
unsuccessful.*
Comprehensive legislation to protect water quality did not occur until the 1960s. Rachel Carson's 1962
bestseller Silent Spring, bolstered by articles and scientific reports detailing pollution problems, provided the impetus for the nation's first water quality legislation.* During the early 1960s, the National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League, and the National Audubon Society campaigned for strong federal water quality bills.
One result was the 1965 Water Quality Act, which established the Water Pollution Control Administration within
the Department of the Interior. With the creation of this new federal agency, water quality was for the first time treated as an environmental concern, apart from the more traditional public
health concern. The 1965 law was soon followed by the 1966 Clean Water Act, which provided construction grants for wastewater treatment facilities.
The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, administered by the Department of the Interior, attempted to preserve
waters with outstanding scenic, recreational, or habitat value by placing them on a Secretary of Interior-approved list. To a limited degree, the law protects these listed "wild and scenic
rivers" from water projects and from additional discharges. It prohibits the development of public or private hydroelectric power plants on these rivers and restrains certain other types of
development.
In Texas, only the Rio Grande has been designated as a wild and scenic river, and this designation has not
protected the river from degradation. In fact, in 1993, American Rivers, a nonprofit watchdog organization, named the Rio Grande the most endangered river in the United States.*
The Clean Water Act of 1972 forms the basis today for water quality protection for surface water in streams,
rivers, and lakes as well as for groundwater. It was enacted as a series of amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, a law spurred by public concern over epidemics of
disease caused by waterborne bacteria. The 1972 Act was prompted by the worsening state of U.S. rivers and by several high-profile oil spills, including the Santa Barbara channel spill, in
which 250 million gallons of crude oil escaped to damage miles of California coastline.*
The Clean Water Act set water quality standards for major rivers and lakes and required discharge permits for
both public and private facilities. The act was strengthened in 1977 in an effort to address the most visible causes of water pollution. It explicitly prohibited the discharge into waterways
of hazardous substances, including industrial waste, sewage, accidental spills, toxics, and other point sources. (The term point sources refers to sources of pollution that discharge directly
from a discrete location, or point, into a water body. Non-point-source pollution refers to pollution that cannot be identified as coming from one discrete location.) The act also further
protected wetlands by requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue permits, known as Section 404 permits, for all dredging and filling projects.
Between 1972, when the first Clean Water Act was passed, and 1990, about $260 billion in private and public
funds was spent on wastewater treatment facilities. Another $20 billion, most of it from the public sector, was spent to comply with federal requirements on drinking water quality.* The 1987 amendments to the Water
Quality Act were the first concerted effort by the federal government to address pollution from non-point sources, including agricultural fields and feedlots, urban streets, and runoff
channeled through municipal storm-water systems. The law required states to develop a non-point-source management plan. However, states are not required to go beyond voluntary programs. The
1987 act also created and funded several special programs, including one to deal with toxic hot spots and one to protect estuaries of national importance.
In 1994 and 1995, the U.S. Congress debated making major changes in the scope of the Clean Water Act, giving
industries and cities much greater flexibility in meeting clean water standards. However, national and state environmental groups voiced opposition and these changes were defeated. More
recently, the Bush administration at the federal level has made several proposals to change major provisions in the Clean Water Act -- a move largely opposed by national and state
environmental groups. For example, a Supreme Court decision narrowed the definition of what waters are protected under the Clean Water Act, holding that it doesn't apply to "isolated"
wetlands since it was meant to apply to "navigable waters." Based in part upon this interpretation, the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued new guidelines to their staffs about what
kinds of wetlands, streams and other water bodies should be offered protection under the Clean Water Act when considering permits to dredge water bodies. At the same time, other proposals
would scale back the comprehensive Total Maximum Daily Load program to only the most polluted streams and rivers and allow much greater flexibility in other "impaired" areas. Both of these
proposals are being contested both politically and legally.
Other federal environmental laws related to water quality include:
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969—Required an Environmental Impact Statement for federally funded projects.
- Endangered Species Act of 1973 and 1988—Protects animal and plant species that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has
designated as threatened or endangered.
- Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments of 1990—Focused efforts on reducing polluted runoff in 29 coastal states.
- Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 and Superfund Authorization and Renewal Act of 1984—Regulated management of
solid wastes and underground storage tanks.
- Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980—Created a $1.6 billion Superfund to clean up
abandoned hazardous waste sites and required major industries to report annual releases of toxic wastes onto the air, water, or land.
- Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act of 1972—Required registration and regulation of pesticides and other
agricultural chemicals.
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