Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act 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 primary 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.
The Clean Water Act was one of the first and most influential modern environmental laws in the United States. Its laws and regulations are primarily administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 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.
Technically, the name of the law is the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. 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. Major changes have subsequently been introduced via amendatory legislation including the Clean Water Act of 1977 and the Water Quality Act of 1987.
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
Health implications of water pollution
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, local land use practices, 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.Gastrointestinal illness
include such conditions as constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, hemorrhoids, anal fissures, perianal abscesses, anal fistulas, perianal infections, diverticular diseases, colitis, colon polyps and cancer. In general, children and the elderly are at highest risk for gastrointestinal disease. In a study investigating the association between drinking water quality and gastrointestinal illness in the elderly of Philadelphia, scientists found water quality 9 to 11 days before the visit was negatively associated with hospital admissions for gastrointestinal illness, with an interquartile range increase in turbidity being associated with a 9% increase. The association was stronger in those over 75 than in the population aged 65–74. This example is a small reflection of residents of the United States remain at risk of waterborne gastrointestinal illness under current water treatment practices.Reproductive problems
Reproductive problems refer to any illness of the reproductive system. New research by Brunel University and the University of Exeter strengthens the relationship between water pollution and rising male fertility problems. Study identified a group of chemicals that act as antiandrogens in polluted water, which inhibits the function of the male hormone testosterone, reducing male fertility.Neurological disorders
s are diseases of the brain, spine and the nerves that connect them. The new study of more than 700 people in California's Central Valley found that those who likely consumed contaminated private well water had a higher rate of Parkinson's. The risk was 90 percent higher for those who had private wells near fields sprayed with widely used insecticides. Unlike water supplies in large cities, private wells are mostly unregulated and are not monitored for contaminants. Many of them exist at shallow depths of less than 20 yards, and some of the crop chemicals used to kill pests and weeds can flow into ground water. Therefore, private wells are likely to contain pesticides, which can attack developing brains, leading to neurological diseases later in life. A study led by UCLA epidemiology professor Beate Ritz suggests that "people with Parkinson's were more likely to have consumed private well water, and had consumed it on average 4.3 years longer than those who did not have the disease."Ecosystem impacts of pollution
Water pollution can result in the degradation of aquatic ecosystems—fresh, coastal, and ocean waters. Industrial wastewater discharges may include organic and inorganic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals. Anoxia, caused by untreated sewage or industrial discharges can harm fish and other animal populations. Oxygen-depleting substances may be natural materials such as plant matter as well as human-made chemicals. Other natural and anthropogenic substances may cause turbidity which blocks light and disrupts plant growth, and clogs the gills of some fish species. Nutrient pollution typically causes algal blooms and bacterial growth, resulting in the depletion of dissolved oxygen in water and causing substantial environmental degradation. Thermal pollution, typically caused by discharges of heated water from power plants and factories, decreases the level of dissolved oxygen in ambient water, which can harm fish, amphibians and other aquatic organisms, and reduce biodiversity.Waters protected
As of the 2023 Supreme Court rule Sackett v. EPA, only "relatively permanent" waters connected to "navigable waters," and wetlands that are "indistinguishable" from such waters, are covered under the CWA.The 1972 statute frequently uses the term "navigable waters" but also defines the term as "waters of the United States, including the territorial seas." 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, 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. 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. This definition "significantly tightens" the test for federal Clean Water Act regulation.
Pollution control strategy
Point sources
The CWA introduced the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a permit system for regulating point sources of pollution. Point sources include:- Industrial facilities.
- Municipal governments and other government facilities, and
- Some agricultural facilities, such as animal feedlots.
In legislation prior to 1972, Congress had authorized states to develop water quality standards, which would limit discharges from facilities based on the characteristics of individual water bodies. However, those standards were to be developed only for interstate waters, and the science to support that process was in the early stages of development. That system was not effective, and there was no permit system in place to enforce the requirements. In the 1972 CWA, Congress added the permit system and a requirement for technology-based effluent limitations.
In the 2020 Supreme Court case County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, the Court validated that some discharges may not be point sources, but are the "functional equivalent of a direct discharge" to navigable waters, such as in this case, the injection of wastewater into groundwater injection wells. As of the time of the case's decision, this was not an area the EPA has established regulations for, and the Court instructed the EPA to work with the courts to define such functional equivalents. The Court wrote that this would likely depend most on the distance the pollutants traveled and time to reach navigable waters, with consideration for the material that the pollutants traveled through, any physical or chemical interaction of the pollutants with components in the ground, and how much of the pollutant makes it to the navigable water. In July 2021, following the Supreme Court decision, the Hawaii District Court determined that the Maui County sewage treatment plant's groundwater injection of sewage was the "functional equivalent of a direct discharge" and required the plant to obtain an NPDES permit.