Controls
In the United States, the serious campaign against
water pollution began in 1972, when Congress passed the Clean Water
Act. This law initiated a national goal to end all pollution discharges
into surface waters, such as lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, and coastal
waters. The law required those who discharge pollutants into waterways
to apply for federal permits and to be responsible for reducing the
amount of pollution over time. The law also authorized generous federal
grants to help states build water treatment plants that remove pollutants,
principally sewage, from wastewater before it is discharged. Since the
passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, most of the obvious point sources
of pollution in the United States have been substantially cleaned up.
Municipal sewage plants in many areas are now yielding water so clean
that it can be used again. Industries are treating their waste and also
changing their manufacturing processes so that less waste is produced.
As a result, surface waters are far cleaner than they were in 1972.
In 1990 a survey of rivers and streams found that three-quarters of
these waters were clean enough for swimming and fishing. Cleaning up
the remainder of these rivers and streams will require tackling the
more difficult problems of diffuse, nonpoint source pollution. Congress
first took up the nonpoint source problem in 1987, requiring the states
to develop programs to combat this kind of pollution. Since interception
and treatment of nonpoint pollution is very difficult, the prime strategy
is to prevent it. In urban areas, one obvious sign of the campaign against
nonpoint pollution is the presence of stenciled notices often seen beside
storm drains: Drains To Bay, Drains To Creek, or Drains To Lake.
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