Polluted Water
Polluted water can be found in various water resources, such as surface waters, like coastal bays, lakes, rivers and streams, as well as groundwater. These water resources may also be used for drinking water, industrial processes, agriculture, and irrigation, as well as providing opportunities for recreation, such as fishing, boating and swimming. Water resources are used by tribes to support and maintain traditional cultural practices and ceremonies.
Congress created the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1972 to address serious pollution problems affecting the nation’s rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. The main objective of the Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of our nation’s waters.
The Clean Water Act is a comprehensive set of programs and requirements created to address the many complex problems caused by a wide variety of pollution sources. One of The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), is one of the cornerstones of the Clean Water Act, which regulates the discharge of pollutants into the waters of the U.S. Under the CWA, NPDES permits are provided for industrial, municipal, as well as other point source dischargers by either EPA or an authorized state.
Cleaning and protecting our nation’s water supply from becoming polluted water is an enormous task. The EPA Office of Water Management (OWM), under the Clean Water Act, works in partnership with EPA regions, states and tribes regulating discharges into surface waters like wetlands, lakes, rivers, estuaries, bays and oceans. OWM focuses on control of polluted water collected in discrete conveyances (also called point sources), which includes pipes, ditches, and sanitary or storm sewers. In addition, OWM is home to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, the largest funding source to avoid polluted water quality, which is focused on funding wastewater treatment systems, nonpoint source projects, as well as estuary protection.
The Clean Water Act requires that anyone discharging polluted water from any point source, such as those mentioned above, into waters of the U.S. to obtain an NPDES permit from EPA or an authorized state. Typical point sources regulated under the NPDES program include polluted water from municipal water systems, municipal and industrial storm water systems, industries and commercial facilities and concentrated animal feeding operations.
In the past 35 years, the NPDES program has operated as a key role in restoring the quality of the nation’s waters. Only approximately one third of our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters were considered fishable and swimmable in 1972. Today, about two thirds of our waters are healthy. Greater than 50 categories of industry, several hundred thousand businesses included and the nation’s network of 16,000 plus municipal sewage treatment systems comply with standards implemented in NPDES permits. As a result of these permits, billions of pounds of conventional pollutants and millions of pounds of toxic pollutants have been removed from our environment.