Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters; recognizing the responsibilities of the states in addressing pollution and providing assistance to states to do so, including funding for publicly owned treatment works for the improvement of wastewater treatment; and maintaining the integrity of wetlands.[2]
For the Clean Water Act of Ontario, Canada, see Clean Water Act (Ontario).Other short titles
Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972
An Act to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
CWA
October 18, 1972
Federal Water Pollution Control Act
The Clean Water Act was one of the United States' first and most influential modern environmental laws. Its laws and regulations are primarily administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in coordination with state governments, though some of its provisions, such as those involving filling or dredging, are administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Its implementing regulations are codified at 40 C.F.R. Subchapters D, N, and O (Parts 100–140, 401–471, and 501–503).
Technically, the name of the law is the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.[3] The first FWPCA was enacted in 1948, but took on its modern form when completely rewritten in 1972 in an act entitled the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972.[4][1] Major changes have subsequently been introduced via amendatory legislation including the Clean Water Act of 1977[5] and the Water Quality Act (WQA) of 1987.[6]
The Clean Water Act does not directly address groundwater contamination. Groundwater protection provisions are included in the Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Superfund act.
Background[edit]
Health implications of water pollution[edit]
Contamination of drinking water supplies can not only occur in the source water but also in the distribution system. Sources of water contamination include naturally occurring chemicals and minerals (arsenic, radon, uranium), local land use practices (fertilizers, pesticides, concentrated feeding operations), manufacturing processes, and sewer overflows or wastewater releases. Some examples of health implications of water contamination are gastrointestinal illness, reproductive problems, and neurological disorders. Infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people whose immune systems are compromised because of AIDS, chemotherapy, or transplant medications, may be especially susceptible to illness from some contaminants.[7]
Waters protected[edit]
Under the current Supreme Court rule issued in 2023, all waters (such as streams, oceans, rivers and lakes) with "a continuous surface connection" to "navigable waters" are covered under the CWA.[12]
The 1972 statute frequently uses the term "navigable waters" but also defines the term as "waters of the United States, including the territorial seas."[13] Regulations interpreting the 1972 law have included water features such as intermittent streams, playa lakes, prairie potholes, sloughs and wetlands as "waters of the United States." In 2006, in Rapanos v. United States, a plurality of the US Supreme Court authored by Justice Antonin Scalia held that the term "waters of the United States" "includes only those relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water 'forming geographic features' that are described in ordinary parlance as 'streams[,]... oceans, rivers, [and] lakes.'" The concurrent written opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy defined the term more broadly, including wetlands with a "significant nexus" to traditionally-defined navigable waters.[14] Since Rapanos, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have attempted to define protected waters in the context of Rapanos through the 2015 Clean Water Rule, but this has been highly controversial. The agencies considered the CWA to cover bodies of water with a "significant nexus" with traditional navigable waters, according with Justice Kennedy's definition.
In 2023, the Supreme Court rejected the "significant nexus" test in Sackett v. EPA and established the current definition.
During the 1880s and 1890s, Congress directed USACE to prevent dumping and filling in the nation's harbors, and the program was vigorously enforced.[98] Congress first addressed water pollution issues in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899,[99] giving the Corps the authority to regulate most kinds of obstructions to navigation, including hazards resulting from effluents. Portions of this law remain in effect, including Section 13, the so-called Refuse Act. In 1910, USACE used the act to object to a proposed sewer in New York City, but a court ruled that pollution control was a matter left to the states alone. Speaking to the 1911 National Rivers and Harbors Congress, the chief of the Corps, William H. Bixby, suggested that modern treatment facilities and prohibitions on dumping "should either be made compulsory or at least encouraged everywhere in the United States."[98] Most legal analysts have concluded that the 1899 law did not address environmental impacts from pollution, such as sewage or industrial discharges. However, there were several pollution enforcement cases in the 1960s and 1970s where the law was cited for broader pollution control objectives.[100]
Some sections of the 1899 act have been superseded by various amendments, including the 1972 CWA, while other notable legislative predecessors include:
When EPA first opened its doors in 1970, the agency had weak authority to protect U.S. waters, lacking the legal power to write effluent guidelines and possessing only general authority to require secondary treatment from industrial dischargers.[106]
The 1969 burning Cuyahoga River had sparked national outrage; the Act grew out of it.[107] In December 1970 a federal grand jury investigation led by U.S. Attorney Robert Jones (Ohio lawyer) began, of water pollution allegedly being caused by about 12 companies in northeastern Ohio. It was the first grand jury investigation of water pollution in the area.[108] The Attorney General of the United States, John N. Mitchell, gave a Press Conference December 18, 1970 referencing new pollution control litigation, with particular reference to work with the new Environmental Protection Agency, and announcing the filing of a lawsuit that morning against the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation for discharging substantial quantities of cyanide into the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland.[109] It was largely based on these and other litigation experiences that criteria for new legislation were identified.
To date, the water quality goals stated by Congress in the 1972 act have not been achieved by American society:
More than half of U.S. stream and river miles, about 70 percent of lakes, ponds and reservoirs, and 90 percent of the surveyed ocean and near coastal areas continue to violate water quality standards.[49] The reasons for the impairment vary by location; major sources are agriculture, industry and communities (typically through urban runoff). Some of these pollution sources are difficult to control through national regulatory programs.[121]
However, since the passage of the 1972 act, the levels of pollution in the United States have experienced a dramatic decrease. The law has resulted in much cleaner waterways than before the bill was passed. Agriculture, industry, communities and other sources continue to discharge waste into surface waters nationwide, and many of these waters are drinking water sources. In many watersheds nutrient pollution (excess nitrogen and phosphorus) has become a major problem.[122] It is argued in a 2008 paper that the Clean Water Act has made extremely positive contributions to the environment, but is in desperate need of reform to address the pollution problems that remain.[123] A 2015 paper acknowledges that the CWA has been effective in controlling point sources, but that it has not been effective with nonpoint sources, and argues that the law must be updated to address the nation's current water quality problems.[124]
A 2017 working paper finds that "most types of water pollution declined over the period 1962-2001, though the rate of decrease slowed over time... Our finding of decreases in most pollutants implies that the prevalence of such violations was even greater before the Clean Water Act." Several studies have estimated that the costs of the CWA (including the expenditures for the Title II construction grants program) are higher than the benefits. An EPA study had similar findings, but acknowledged that several kinds of benefits were unmeasured.[120]: 2 A 2018 study argues that "available estimates of the costs and benefits of water pollution control programs [including the CWA] are incomplete and do not conclusively determine the net benefits of surface water quality."[125]
