Editor’s Comments: A Toast to the CWA at 40

This fall marked the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, and along with the occasion came messages from every side–some hailing the CWA as a crowning jewel of environmental policy, others saying it has already been so weakened by recent court cases that it now lacks teeth to protect our waterways, and a few calling for its complete overhaul.

There’s no doubt that the CWA has faced, and continues to face, challenges. We have seen years of wrangling over how, precisely, we should define “waters of the US” and the implications that has for EPA’s authority in, among other activities, regulating construction-site discharges. Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court reached a decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, allowing property owners to challenge in court some EPA decisions. And American Rivers and other organizations have spoken out against the passage last year of HR 2018, dubbed the “dirty water bill” by those who oppose it; the bill reduces EPA’s authority under the CWA to veto Army Corps of Engineers dredge and fill permits that will potentially harm lakes and streams, and it weakens the agency’s ability to enforce water-quality standards in one state even when the consequences create problems downstream in another state.

Yet for all the challenges, this anniversary is as good a time as any to step back and consider what the landscape looked like before the passage of the CWA–and before the creation, just a couple of years earlier, of the EPA itself.

Simply identifying which waters are polluted, and by what, had not previously been done in any systematic way; neither had setting the standards by which to measure pollutants, or setting goals–like the “fishable and swimmable” criteria–we wanted our waterways to achieve. The ability to issue permits for point- and nonpoint-source discharges; to protect wetlands (once commonly viewed as wasteland to be filled in and built upon, rather than as resources to be protected); and to protect coastal waters through the National Estuary Program all came about as a result of the CWA. For anyone who wants a reminder, EPA has put together a summary of key points and milestones of the Clean Water Act (water.epa.gov/action/cleanwater40).

We will continue to make changes, of course–as EPA is in the process of doing now with the national stormwater program, for which it will issue a new rule next summer–and there will continue to be challenges from industry, from special interests, from individual states to various CWA provisions. But because of the progress we’ve made, events like the fire on Ohio’s polluted Cuyahoga River–the 1969 event that many believe spurred the creation of the EPA in 1970 and the eventual passage of the Clean Water Act–are far less likely. And when we see conditions developing like the ones that led to that infamous fire, we now have the tools to do something about them.

What do you think are the biggest challenges the CWA faces today? What would you suggest to improve it? Share your thoughts by leaving a comments below.