Clean Water Act

IN RESPONSE TO increasing public concern for the environment and for the condition of the nation's waters, the U.S. Congress enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, revising previous ineffective legislation. Amended once again in 1977, Congress refused to allow continued unregulated discharges of untreated wastewater from municipalities, industries, and business into rivers, lakes, and coastal waters of the United States. The law became more commonly known as the Clean Water Act (CWA), and provided a plan to restore and maintain clean and healthy waters.

The CWA can be broken down into five main elements: minimum standards for waste discharges for each industry, standards for water quality, a permit program with enforceable discharge limits, regulations for specific problems like toxic chemicals and oil spills, and a loan program for the construction and modernization of publicly owned treatment plants.

Since its enactment, the CWA's greatest concern has been control of point-source pollution, which is discharged by sewers and factories. The minimum standards for waste discharges are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the standards result in waters which are better for the overall environment and public health.

The discharge permit program, known as the National Pollutant Discharge System (NPDES), is another way that the CWA regulates point-source pollution. The program requires any wastewater treatment plant to obtain discharge permits and follow EPA guidelines for water treatment.

More than 16,000 wastewater plants are part of the permit program and around 3,000 of those plants, mostly publicly owned, participate in the National Pretreatment Program. Pretreatment, designed to reduce the number of pollutants discharged into the sewer system by non-domestic sources, results in safer plant operation and wastewater and sludge which are able to be reused or recycled.

As a result of the CWA, many municipalities across the U.S. have received federal funds to build and to improve wastewater treatment plants. Revisions to the CWA in 1987 removed the previous construction grant program and replaced it with a streamlined State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund, which built upon the EPA's relationships with each state.

Since its enactment, the CWA has been amended numerous times in order to deal with specific environmental issues like wetlands protection or Great Lakes water quality. As a result of the EPA's enforcement of the CWA and its strong regulations and revisions, significant strides have been made, leading to improvement of public health and the environment. However, challenges remain to be overcome; problems mostly arising from non-point sources like combined and sanitary sewer overflows, continued water treatment infrastructure improvements, and municipal sewage sludge use and disposal.