The Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act is the basic federal law governing all aspects of clean water protection in the United States. This landmark legislation was passed in 1972 at a time when rivers caught on fire and there was widespread and open pollution of our streams, rivers, and lakes.  The Act represented a huge step forward by requiring states to set clean water standards to protect uses such as swimming, fishing, and drinking, and for the regulation of pollution discharges.

Undoubtedly the Clean Water Act has done much to improve clean water in the United States. Major advancements in wastewater treatment and the reduction of pollution from pipes, sewers, ditches, and other point sources are due to this important law. Nonetheless, we still have far to go and need better implementation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 40 percent of America’s rivers and 46 percent of our lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, and aquatic life.

Threats to Clean Water

Here are just a few of the threats to clean water and the Clean Water Act:

Safeguards for small streams and wetlands under attack -- Small streams and wetlands are at risk following U.S. Supreme Court decisions and confusing agency guidance. Failure to protect these small streams contradicts robust scientific evidence showing that protection of the extensive network of small streams and wetlands is necessary for clean water in our larger rivers.

Failure to link clean water and water supply -- While the Clean Water Act focuses on clean water, having enough clean water is also critical to reach the Clean Water Act’s goals of chemical, physical, and biological integrity. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the distinction between clean water and water supply is “artificial,” this tie must be strengthened to achieve the law’s goals. Learn more about protecting flows under the Clean Water Act.

Loss of wetlands -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed a rule under their 404 wetland permitting program that would allow destruction of streams disguised as mitigation for development impacts. This fatally flawed proposal ignores science that shows the importance of headwater streams to healthy river ecosystems and will result in significant degradation of these important tributaries.

Mountaintop Mining -- The Bush administration adopted a rule allowing mining, industrial, construction, and other wastes, to be disposed of in the waters of the United States. The rule change effectively condoned the coal mining industry’s practice of mountaintop removal, which removes topsoil, rock, and forest and dumps it into valleys below.  In central Appalachia alone, 700 miles of streams were buried and thousands more were damaged by this process between 1985 and 2001. The Bush administration’s rule change squashed a spate of lawsuits that arose in the late 1990s because of this mining practice and allowed it to continue unchecked.

Read our "Celebrate Clean Water" Blog Series

• The Clean Water Act Turns 35
• How a Pillow Saved the Clean Water Act
• A Look into the Crystal Ball
• The Clean Water Act’s Sleeper Provision – Section 401
• Finding Your Voice
• The Clean Water Act: A Paddler’s Perspective
• Clean Water for Healthy Communities