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A country’s water quality improves when its citizens demand it and the country is affluent enough to afford measures to clean up pollution and to take steps to prevent it in the future. In this module we will look at U.S. laws that protect water from pollution and ensure safe drinking water. We will also examine how laws in developing nations are changing to address water pollution.

Learning Objectives

After reading this module you should be able to

As recently as the 1960s, water quality was very poor in much of the United States, but a growing awareness of the problem encouraged a series of laws to fight water pollution. The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major piece of legislation affecting water quality. In 1972, the act was expanded into the Clean Water Act, which supports the “protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and recreation in and on the water” by maintaining and, when necessary, restoring the chemical, physical, and biological properties of surface waters. Note that this objective does not include the protection of groundwater.

The Clean Water Act originally focused mostly on the chemical properties of surface waters. More recently, there has been an increased focus on ensuring that the biological properties of the waters also receive attention, including the abundance and diversity of various species. Most importantly, the Clean Water Act issued water quality standards that defined acceptable limits of various pollutants in U.S. waterways. To help enforce these limits, the act allowed the EPA and state governments to issue permits to control how much pollution industries can discharge into the water. Over time, more and more categories of pollutants have been brought under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act, including animal feedlots and storm runoff from municipal sewer systems.

In addition to the Clean Water Act, other legislation has been passed to regulate water pollution, including the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974, 1986, 1996), which sets the national standards for safe drinking water. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA is responsible for establishing maximum contaminant levels (MCL) for 77 different elements or substances in both surface water and groundwater. This list includes some well-known microorganisms, disinfectants, organic chemicals, and inorganic chemicals (TABLE 45.1). These maximum concentrations consider both the concentration of each compound that can cause harm as well as the feasibility and cost of reducing the compound to such a concentration.

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MCLs are somewhat subjective and are subject to political pressures. For example, despite the evidence that 50 ppb of arsenic caused harm in humans, the MCL for arsenic was kept at 50 ppb for many years because of concerns that many communities could not afford to reduce levels to 10 ppb. As noted earlier in this chapter, the MCL for arsenic was finally reduced to 10 ppb in 2001.

What has been the impact of these water pollution laws? In general, they have been very successful. The EPA defines bodies of water in terms of their designated uses, including aesthetics, recreation, protection of fish, and as a source of safe drinking water. The EPA then determines if a particular waterway fully supports all of the designated uses. According to the most recent EPA data, 56 percent of all streams, 35 percent of lakes and ponds, and 70 percent of bays and estuaries in the United States now fully support their designated uses. This is a large improvement from decades past but, as TABLE 45.2 shows, we still have a lot of work to do to improve the remaining waterways. Today, the water in municipal water systems in the United States is generally safe. Water regulations have greatly reduced contamination of waters and nearly eliminated major point sources of water pollution. But nonpoint sources such as oil from parking lots and nutrients and pesticides from suburban lawns are not covered under existing regulations. In addition, the U.S. government has exempted fracking for natural gas (see Chapter 1) from the Safe Drinking Water Act, despite the fact that fracking injects a suite of harmful chemicals deep into the ground.

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If we look at water pollution legislation around the world, there is a clear difference between developed and developing countries. Developed countries, including those in North America and Europe, experienced tremendous industrialization many decades ago and widely polluted their air and water at that time. More recently they have addressed the problems of pollution by cleaning up polluted areas and by passing legislation to prevent pollution in the future. Developing countries are still in the process of industrializing. They are less able to afford water-quality improvements such as wastewater treatment plants or the costs associated with restrictive legislation. Moreover, political instability and corruption often make enforcement of legislation difficult. In some cases, contaminating industries move from developed countries to developing countries. Although the developing countries suffer from the additional pollution, they benefit economically from the additional jobs and spending that the new industries bring with them.

Water pollution problems are prevalent in many of the developing nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and eastern Europe. China and India, for example, have undergone rapid industrialization and have many areas of dense human population—a recipe for major water pollution problems. However, as a nation becomes more affluent, people often show more interest in the environment and resources available to address environmental issues. In Brazil, for example, industrialization began to take off in the 1950s. By the 1990s, the Tietê River, which passes through the large city of São Paulo, was badly polluted. More than a million Brazilians signed a petition in 1992 requesting that the government regulate the industrial and municipal pollution being dumped into the river. Today the Tietê River is much cleaner (FIGURE 45.1).