Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
try's major rivers and their tributaries have their headwaters within
national borders—the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Columbia,
and Rio Grande. In addition, entirely contained within our borders is
the world's largest underground water resource, the Ogallala aquifer.
The amount of water used in the United States is staggering: on a per
capita basis, we use far more water than any other nation does.
But all good things must come to an end. Many areas of the United
States have begun to experience water problems related to population
distribution (too many people in southern Arizona); inadequate or dete-
riorating infrastructure (old and very leaky underground water pipes);
profl igate use on lawns (average 10,000 gallons per year per lawn in
suburbia), fl ower gardens, and golf courses (753 billion gallons per year);
and willful pollution of both surface and subsurface water supplies
(agricultural runoff and injection of pollutants into the subsurface). It
almost seems as though Americans have a death wish as far as water is
concerned.
What are the responsibilities of governments and individuals to ensure
water supplies and avoid a water catastrophe? Some things are the
responsibility of governments at various levels. Only governments have
the resources to rebuild and upgrade the infrastructure and the legislative
ability to stop the injection of pollutants into the subsurface, which
poisons our aquifers. At the federal level, ensuring that water is clean is
the responsibility of the EPA, and President Obama's EPA head, Lisa
Jackson, has begun cracking down on public and private polluters. In
September 2009, an investigation found that companies and other work-
places had violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times in the
past fi ve years alone, but fewer than 3 percent of polluters had ever been
fi ned or otherwise punished. The water provided to more than 49 million
people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals such as arsenic
or radioactive substances like uranium.
60
Jackson has ordered an assess-
ment of the agency's shortcomings, promised stronger enforcement, and
added new chemicals to the long list of contaminants.
As with most other environmental laws, responsibility is shared.
Washington sets the health standards, but the states write and enforce
the permits, which tell polluters what can and cannot be discharged into
the water. The EPA has the authority to crack down on polluters if a
state fails to enforce the laws. However, some consistent polluters are
unregulated, such as large animal-feeding operations (chapter 5). Power
plant emissions into the air are regulated, but the toxics they discharge
into the water, such as cadmium, lead, and arsenic, are not (chapter 6).
