Clean Water
Water pollution is a real danger to the public health, whether it stems from industrial production, farming, or municipal waste. Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is tasked with setting and enforcing regulations to ensure the safety of the nation’s water supplies. The agency has implemented a series of regulations over the years, including wastewater standards for industry and a permit system for contaminated water disposal.
Cry Wolf Quotes
Experience has also shown that there is another aspect of the problem which, by exciting hasty and improvident legislation, delays progress. I refer to the unpleasant connotation which surrounds the word ‘pollution.’ The public is likely to think of that word in terms of sewage and epidemics. I am told, however, that industrial waste is not a menace to public health….it is sewage which does the harm....
I appear before your honorable committee not in opposition to any specific bill pending before you but to express our approval of the position taken by the National Coal Association in this and preceding sessions of Congress in opposing the expansion of Federal bureaucracy over the daily lives of our people, some of whom are not cognizant of the dangers involved and the threats implied to the curtailment of their right to pursue their vocations unmolested and free from the cold hand of Federal interference.
If you were to force the industry to spend $300,000,000 or 50 cents on every ton they mined, you would destroy the industry.… I am sure that the committee realizes that the very life of many industries is involved in this question of industrial pollution. In the first place, industrial America, with its hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, is in fact the backbone of our American way of life.
There are economic variables also. For one or two mills, the sale of a byproduct may help finance a method of treatment, the cost which is otherwise prohibitive. Because the quantities are huge, however, the market for the byproduct is soon saturated; other mills must find some other method. Again, the cost of treatment for one mill may be so great compared to the cost for others as to destroy its ability to compete, resulting in ruin for the investors and migration for the employees.
Related Laws and Rules
Evidence
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Protecting the Clean Water Act: 37 Years of Progress
A fact sheet extolling the achievements of the Clean Water Act.
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Water Quality Today - Has the Clean Water Act Been a Success?
The Clean Water Act works and it hasn't impeded economic growth.
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Jobs vs. The Environment: An Industry-Level Study
Four industries that operate under intense environmental regulatory scrutiny, but haven't lost jobs as a result.
Resources
Blue Green Alliance is an alliance of labor and environmental organizations.
Food and Water Watch is national advocacy organization focused on the safety of our food and water.
American Rivers fights to defend and restore America’s river system, with particular focuses on keeping water clean and safe.
The Sierra Club is America’s oldest (founded in 1892), and largest, environmental non-profit.
