Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Act regulations in Georgia. The state was required to identify pol-
luted waters and establish their pollution-load capacity. Similar suits
were filed in other states; for example, in Virginia, Smithfield Foods
was assessed a penalty of more than $12 million—the highest ever—
for violating the Clean Water Act by discharging phosphorus and
other hog waste products into a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
This chronology of events presents only a handful of the significant
actions taken by Congress (with the helpful prodding and guidance of the
Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council, as well as others)
in enacting legislation and regulations to protect our nation's waters. No law
has been more important to furthering this effort than the Clean Water Act,
which we discuss in the following section.
DID YoU KNoW?
There are approximately 155,000 public water systems in the United
States. The USEPA classifies these water systems according to the
number of people they serve, the source of their water, and whether
they serve the same customers year-round or on an occasional basis.
Clean Water Act*
Concern with the disease-causing pathogens residing in many of our natural
waterways was not what grabbed Joe and Nancy Citizen's attention with
regard to the condition and health of the country's waterways. Instead, it was
the aesthetic qualities of watercourses. Americans in general have a strong
emotional response to the beauty of nature, and they acted to prevent pol-
lution and degradation of our nation's waterways simply because many of
us expect rivers, waterfalls, and mountain lakes to be natural and naturally
beautiful—in the state they were intended to be, pure and clean.
Much of this emotional attachment to the environment can be traced
back to the sentimentality characteristic of the popular literature and art of
American writers and painters in the early 19th century. From Longfellow's
Song of Hiawatha
to Twain's
Huckleberry Finn
to the landscapes of Winslow
Homer and the vistas of the Hudson River School painters, American culture
abounds with expressions of this singularly strong attachment. As the say-
ing goes: “Once attached, detachment is never easy.”
* Much of the information contained in this section is from USEPA, Clean Water Act, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, 1996
(
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/
