Essay: The Federal water Control Pollution Act

While most Americans claim to have access to safe and clean drinking water, however before 1972 this was not always the case. Now living in the United States you may feel you are immune to water pollution and contaminated drinking water, but how do we define clean and how do you know what is really in your water. The Federal Water Control Pollution Act was passed in 1972 in order to protect the navigable waters of the United States. While this policy has positively impacted our nation’s water, it has unfortunately brought a negative impact on non-navigable waters such rivers, small ponds, and land. In this paper we are going to explore the history of the Water Control Pollution Act and how it has affected our nation’s waters. We will define its strengths and weakness and theorize ideas on how to improve these concerns. We we also determine whether or not the policy does more harm than good and if the policy is justifiable while protecting the rights of citizens. These findings will be conclusive with expert research and scholarly sources. By the conclusion of our paper, the reader should be able to critically analyze this policy, understand the issue, and reasoning on why the policy was created.
The problem that this policy is trying to solve is the pollution of water, while aiming to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters. One of the solutions being proposed is to develop comprehensive programs for the prevention, reduction, and/or elimination of pollution in navigable waters and ground waters, as well as improving the sanitary condition of surface and underground waters. In order to achieve this, federal agencies had to cooperate with state and local agencies to develop comprehensive solutions, for example; in cooperation with State water pollution control agencies, public investigations concerning the pollution of navigable waters and reports on those results were done. Many improved methods and procedures to identify and measure the effects of pollutants, including those pollutants created by new technological developments, and for evaluating the effects of water quality of augmented stream-flows to control pollution were established. Also, trained personnel were needed to be able to operate and maintain existing and future ‘treatment’ works, and for this the Administrator financed pilot programs for the manpower development, training, and even retraining of the personnel.
Before the first Earth Day in 1970, increasing news of polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife were brought to light. At that time, president Nixon wasn’t interested or concerned about environment issues but decided to seize an opportunity to attract new supporters and sent dozens of environment proposals to Congress, including the Clean Water Act of 1972 (Madel, R., 2012). After the act passed through Congress, due to the cost associated with it, Nixon vetoed it. On October 18, 1972 the Senate followed by the House overrode Nixon’s vetoed and the bill was passed (David A Keiser, Joseph S Shapiro., 2019). The Clean Water Act is administered by the Administer of the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in coordination with state governments. According to Sec. 104 (C) the Administrator conducted research on, and surveyed the results of other scientific studies on the harmful effects on health and even welfare of people due to pollutants. These studies, in order to avoid any duplicate results, had to be conducted in cooperation with and through the facilities of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. The strengths of this policy were that it was supported by Congress so strongly that they overruled President Nixon’s veto on it. Also the fact that it was aiming to improve and conserve waters for the protection and propagation of fish, aquatic life, and wildlife, recreational purposes, and the withdrawal of such waters for public water supply, agricultural, industrial and many other important beneficial purposes.
The Clean Water Act states that the discharge of pollutant into navigable waters. The Supreme Court ruled that since the policy states “navigable waters”, this means the policy does not apply to waters you cannot sail a boat or ship down; such as ponds and seasonal creeks (The Economist, 2010). This limitation has an impact on the policy because it leaves a loophole for people to dump their pollutants into water that is non-navigable. Another flaw that is seen with this act is, dumping pollutants on land and then the pollutants runoff into waters, such as drinking water, and therefore contaminating the waters. With the wording of the policy, the biggest consequence has been the loophole the Supreme Court has found. Being able to dump water into small bodies of water, has decreased the success of the policy. This consequence is seen as negative because although the policy is effective by limiting the amount of pollutants dumped into the water, the non-navigable waters are being affected, which in turn, affects the environment around them. This unintended consequence can affect the population that surround the non-navigable waters, the pollutants may have chemicals and other harsh elements that may have negative impacts on the population. Runoffs from land dumping is another unforeseen consequence that is negative because people that are dumping in lands may not know the pollutants will end up in the waters and be bad water quality for the population.
The title did not truly reflect the true content of the policy because it was not detailed enough to concern all points of water pollution. The official title of the policy is, The Federal Water Control Pollution Act, but the most known title of this policy is, The Clean Water Act. The policy discusses not dumping pollutants into navigable waters but the non-navigable waters, land dumping, and burying toxic or harmful chemicals can lead to unsafe water qualities that have an overall effect on the population, environment, and wildlife, that is not discussed in the act.This policy harms the people, the environment, and wildlife that are affected by the pollution of the non-navigable waters, runoffs of land dumping, and the burial of harsh toxins/chemicals. The main concern with the Clean Water Act is that the goals would not be met by the expected deadline. One of the goals of the act was to decrease the loss of wetlands, that has yet to be accomplished. There has yet to be a reform to this policy that provides updates to previous goals and deadlines.
The original act was put in place in 1948, and went through several amendments to get to where it is today. Through the amendments, fines were enforced to make sure dumpers were being responsible for putting pollutants into the waters. Each amendment gave the government more authority in The Federal Water Pollution Act. With the authority, the government requires each state to follow EPA water quality standards for all navigable waters, according to the Environment Protection Agency. This policy is legal and under federal law, the EPA has developed water recommendations for pollutants in water, as well as implementing pollution control programs to decrease the likelihood of polluting the waters. Environmental ethics, specifically the considerations of rights, justice, utility, and care, provide the underpinnings for many of our current environmental laws. Applying these approaches to environmental problems and studying the regulatory framework in place to address them, helps people implementing this policy have a professional manner and its ethical.
Long term, as stated in the policy, made a lot of grants available to research groups to help with the future and to be able to come together in helping the future. SEC. 109. (a) The Administrator is authorized to make grants to or contracts with institutions of higher education, or combinations of such institutions, to assist them in planning, developing, strengthening, improving, or carrying out programs or projects for the preparation of undergraduate students to enter an occupation which involves the design, operation, and maintenance of treatment works, and other facilities whose purpose is water quality control. Freyfogle (1994) argues that we must begin to see our relationship with the environment as a moral one, such that we view abuse of the environment as an offense to society rather than a matter of individual economic cost-benefit analysis (p. 842). This policy simply regulations on pollution of waters, and laws that “impose the basic tenets of rights, justice, utility, and care”
The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters. At the time, the policy was written there had been a lot of problems with companies discharging pollutant in to the waters. CWA made that unlawful and put a big stop to waters being polluted Since clean water act was implemented it has regulated discharge of pollution into our waters. In the past 40+ years it has reduced pollution in water, “Overall, more than 60 percent of the nation’s waters meet the Clean Water Act fishable and swimmable goal.” While back in 1972 when this act was implemented only a third were considered to be fit for these activities. The EPA has played a big role in achieving clean water. Their implementing of this policy makes it possible for the clean water act to work and people obeying the laws it sets. I believe this policy is very necessary due to the fact that water is needed in all living things and polluting it is bad for environment and living organism around it. This Act has made big differences since it has gone into effect. Cleaning up the waters has had a great impact on the environment and has made it easy for other acts that consider water. For example, Safe Drinking Water Act is also an enforced by EPA ensuring the water that is for public use to be clean and safe for them to drink. But they also protect the source of the water, rivers, lakes, and other water sources. The clean water act ensures that those sources are safe and protected from pollution.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act, infringes upon the unlawful values of manufactures, industries, and corporations who benefit from discarding harmful chemicals into non-navigable waters and landfill due to the inexpensive cost. According to the Natural Resource Defense Council, most Americans do have access to safe drinking water, however we are not immune to harmful chemicals such as copper, arsenic, and lead. As a matter of fact, these chemicals have been found across the entire United States. Corporate greed, is not the only contributing factor to water pollution in the United States. Littering is a societal norm, but becoming less prevalent. Every time a person chooses to litter or not recycle, these products end up in landfills, which represent a major portion of today’s water pollution. The trade off of ceasing these type of behavior has substantial benefits to the environment and our overall ecosystem. In this scenario the positives heavily outweigh the so called negatives.
How was this policy justified to the public?
The positive impact that the public experienced from this policy, made the decision overly justifiable. The federal government holds what is referred to as rights-based justification. This obligates the federal government to intervene when citizens natural rights are being violated. Controlling pollution levels in order to provide a safe environment and drinking water falls underneath this jurisdiction.
3.) After reading this article, I was left with a few questions. I was curious to as of what kind of pollution still existed after this policy was passed and how corporations go about obtaining a permit to lawfully discard materials into navigable waters. These questions lead me to the Safe Water Drinking Foundation, the NRDC, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Here I found information on several types of water pollution such as discarding chemical waste in non-navigable waters such as rivers, and small pounds. This is an unfortunate loophole found by those with the knowledge that their waste is harmful and are unable to attain a dumping permit. Land dumping is also a common source of water pollution that is caused by runoff from rain. In turn, I learned that obtaining a hazardous waste permit, is a heavily public involved process. A meeting is held and the public is allowed to attend and ask questions about what kind of waste the business handles and what will be discarded. After an official application is written, reviewed, and revised it is then released to the public for viewing and people are given the opportunity to accept or deny the request.
4.) Now that we are aware of the loophole that allows waste dumping in non-navigable waters, research showing the effects of these hazardous materials on the surround environments and the ones within close proximity of landfills could allow the federal government to appeal to change the verbiage of the this policy in order to protect all bodies of water.
5.) Laws and policies at the state and local level, interact with the federal water pollution control act, because they are required to enforce and to regulate the water pollution levels in cohesion with the federal laws. States may enforce a more strict policy when dealing with a water pollution issue, but if state involvement is not present then the obligation to enforce falls under the EPA. The water pollution control act interacts with several other policies on the federal level such as: the source water quality policy, the ground water quality policy, and the agricultural waste management conservation practices. These laws fall underneath one another by coming together in order to reach one common end goal, to improve our ecosystem.
References
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-08/documents/federal-water-pollution-control-act-508full.pdf
EPA History: Water – The Challenge of the Environment: A Primer on EPA’s Statutory Authority. (2016, October 04). Retrieved from https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-history-water-challenge-environment-primer-epas-statutory-authority.html
Glicksman, R. L., & Batzel, M. R. (2010). Science, Politics, Law, and the Arc of the Clean Water Act: The Role of Assumptions in the Adoption of a Pollution Control Landmark. Washington University Journal of Law & Policy,32.
Summary of the Clean Water Act. (2018, March 29). Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act
The odd limits of the Clean Water Act. (2010, March 01). Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2010/03/01/the-odd-limits-of-the-clean-water-act
The Regulatory Review. (2017, December 06). The Clean Water Act Needs Positive Reform. Retrieved from https://www.theregreview.org/2013/08/12/12-andreen-clean-water
Freyfogle, E.T. (1994). The Ethical Strands of Environmental Law. University of Illinois Law Review, 1994, 819- 846.
https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/water-enforcement
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1139701.pdf
https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/clean-water-act-cwa-and-federal-facilities
Madel, R. (2012, May 22). Nixon’s Clean Water Act Impoundment Power Play. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-madel/nixons-clean-water-act-im_b_1372740.html
David A Keiser, Joseph S Shapiro; Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality, The Quarterly Journal of
Economics, Volume 134, Issue 1, 1 February 2019, Pages 349–396, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy019