Clean Water Act facts for kids
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| Other short titles | Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 |
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| Long title | An Act to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. |
| Acronyms (colloquial) | CWA |
| Enacted by | the 92nd United States Congress |
| Effective | October 18, 1972 |
| Citations | |
| Public law | 92-500 |
| Statutes at Large | 86 Stat. 816 |
| Codification | |
| Acts amended | Federal Water Pollution Control Act |
| Titles amended | 33 U.S.C.: Navigable Waters |
| U.S.C. sections created | 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251–1387 |
| U.S.C. sections amended | 33 U.S.C. ch. 23 § 1151 |
| Legislative history | |
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| Major amendments | |
| Clean Water Act of 1977; Water Quality Act of 1987; Clean Boating Act of 2008; Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014; America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 | |
| United States Supreme Court cases | |
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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.
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. 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 (WQA) 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.
Effects
To date, the water quality goals stated by Congress in the 1972 act have not been achieved by American society:
- "to make all U.S. waters fishable and swimmable by 1983;"
- "to have zero water pollution discharge by 1985;"
- "to prohibit discharge of toxic amounts of toxic pollutants".
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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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."
See also
- America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018
- Coastal Zone Management Act
- Great Lakes Areas of Concern
- Ocean Dumping Act
- Oil Pollution Act of 1990
- Safe Drinking Water Act
- Water supply and sanitation in the United States
- Mitigation banking
