CLEAN WATER ACT

The Clean Water Act establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters. The basis of the CWA was enacted in 1948 and was called the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, but the act was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972. Clean Water Act became the acts common name with amendments in 1977.The major amendments are: Established the basic structure for regulating pollutant discharges in water. Gave Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting waste water standards for industry. Maintained existing requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface water. Made it unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained under its provisions. Funded the construction of sewage treatment plant under construction grants program. Recognized the need for planning to address the critical problems posed by non point source pollution. Under CWA, EPA has implemented pollution control programs such as setting waste water standards for industry. We have also set water standards for all contaminants in surface waters. The CWA made it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into waters, unless a permit from EPSs National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program control discharges.

Recently there were reported cases of out breaks of ecoli brought by contaminated water in coastal towns in Pampanga and Balkan. So we need to reexamine the Clean Water Act. Department of Environmental and Natural resources, in coordination with Natural water resource board shall designate certain areas as water quality management areas and they said that the management areas shall be governed by a governing board. If certain bodies of water portions are found to have pollutants either from manmade source or natural, exceeding water quality guidelines, then it should be designated as quality management areas. Fines and penalties are given to any person who violates CWA. Surfrider Foundations early victory against Humboldt Pulp Mills is one of the most significant victories that utilized the power of CWA. Two pulp mills on Humboldt Bay discharged a combined 40 million gallons of untreated water per day into Pacific Ocean. Surfrider (a foundation of 55,000 members) filed suit against mills using CWA citizen suit provision. Surfrider claims that mills were not complying with the terms of their NPDES permit and this amount to violation of CWA. Surfrider sought to shut down the mills until they complied their permits and submit over $25 million in civil penalties. The Surfrider and EPA consent decreases required the mills to each pay $2-9 million, which at the time were the 3rd largest penalty. Thus it became a significant victory under the power of CWA. The biggest strength of CWA is that it finally addressed the problem of sewage pollution which plagues the country. One of the weaknesses of CWA is that there are many govt. agencies involved in implementation of the law. So there is an overlapping of responsibilities between govt. agencies resulting in a rather complicated situation.