Pros And Cons Of The Clean Water Act

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Overview of the Problem In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act (CWA). This policy has been established to end with water pollution problems around the United States. Congress intended the Clean Water Act to be comprehensive and ambitious. The law’s stated objective was “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters (Andreen & Jones, 2008). Major amendments enacted in 1977 and 1987 included provisions aimed at further improving the regulation of toxic substances. But despite its many successes, the Clean Water Act (CWA) and its amendments have failed to adequately control many sources of toxic pollutants. For example, the act required that by 1983 all surface waters should have attained …show more content…

Despite these drawbacks, the Clean Water Act has met with some huge successes. Prior to the Act’s implementation, only 33% of all U.S. waterways were considered fishable or swimmable; the number of fishable/swimmable waterways has now increased to 65% (which is amazing if you take into account the industrialization that has occurred at the same time). Before the Clean Water Act, the United States was reported to be losing 500,000 acres of wetland per year; that number has now dropped below 60,000 acres of wetland lost a year. Finally, according to an EPA report from 2012, 90.7% of U.S. water systems met all of the health based standards in 2011 (Emily Snyder’s Civic Issues Blog 2013). The strategy embodied in the Clean Water Act has proven remarkably successful. The amount of pollution discharged by both municipal and industrial facilities has fallen sharply, the loss of wetlands has been cut by 90 percent, and water quality has broadly improved across the entire nation (Andreen 2013). However, the act has given beneficial results and has been increasing over the past years. Now people have more access to drinking water or go fishing to lakes and rivers without being in …show more content…

The act should become a safe policy that provides Americans to be safe from water pollutions. That is why the act has provided many solutions. The Clean Water Act forced cities to build sewage treatment plants and industries to cut their toxic-waste output in half (Science News 1993)
Conclusion
The Clean Water Act is an extraordinary and valuable piece of legislation. It has served the nation well, but it is showing its age and is in need of updating. Neither its design nor its implementation was or has been perfect. Americans care about clean water. More than half of Americans believe it is a right. Ninety-one percent are “concerned that America’s waterways will not be clean for their children and for their grandchildren” (Andreen & Jones 2008). Today, The Clean Water Act has undeniably helped control and reduce pollution of the nation's surface waters. Many gross pollution problems that existed a generation ago have been eliminated (Issues in Science and Technology, 1993). Furthermore, society has been increasing and it is all because of the rules that this act has taken. For example, all the penalties of throwing trash away and separate it in different

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