Lecture Outline

• Twenty-five years ago - the Clean Water Act
• Past and present issues concerning water pollution
• Key concepts
• Groundwater
• Lakes, streams, and rivers
• Estuaries
• The oceans

Key Points:

Prior to 1972, controls on dumping of waste into our surface and ground waters were minimal. Waterways were viewed as convenient and inexpensive dumping grounds for both raw sewage and industrial end-products.

In 1960s, plight of our nation's waterwaysmoved to the forefront of public debate.

In 1972, during Richard Nixon's presidency, the two houses of Congress passed the landmark Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, which has since become known as the Clean Water Act. Nixon vetoed the bill, claiming that it imposed "extreme and needless overspending" on water pollution problems,but Congress overrode the veto in response to public pressure to clean up the nation's waterways.

Water pollution issues - past and present

Past

Focus of Clean Water Act - To clean up the nation's surface waters

• Industry - must dispose of dangerous waste in responsible manner - not into waterways.
• Municipalities - must treat sewage and return to waterways as potable water.

CWA - Very successful - estimated cost to date, $541 billion.

The Present: Politics and the reality

CWA is re-examined and renewed every 5 years. In 1993, Republican Congress invited industry representatives to write and a significantly weakened version of the Clean Water Act. Public support for weakening CWA is essentially non-existent, re-write failed and portrayed Republicans as stooges of industry and opponents of the environment.

The present course in water management is guided by the Clinton administration, which is emphasizing a streamlined more user-friendly regulatory process. The present adminstration is also shifting away from the piecemeal treatment of isolated water quality problems toward management of whole watersheds and ecosystems.

Issues of present concern

• Management of non-point sources of pollution
• Water pollution from airborne pollutants
• Mercury from coal-burning and industrial processes
• .Eutrophication from nitrates and phosphorus
• "Gender-bending" induced by pesticides and other chemicals
• Ground-water contamination
• Ground-water mining
• Ecosystem disruption by dams and flood-control structures
• Loss of native vegetation permits mass fluxes of agrichemicals to waterways and disrupts natural flood amplitudes

Important concepts

• Residence or flushing time - time it takes to flush water through a given lake, river, or aquifer
• "Downstream" - Water runs downhill and pollution problems are thus not isolated .

Groundwater

GW provides 97% of all drinking water to rural residents in US

GW is often a repository for fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.

Land subsidence upon GW withdrawal. Permanent subsidence and aquifer storage due to compacted pore space.

Mamy efforts at state and local levels to identify GW resources, clean them up if needed, and protect them from contamination.

Case study - Siting a waste dump (OVERHEADS)

Streams and rivers

Marine organisms in rivers and streams are barometers for toxicity of uurban and agricultural toxics that wash into lakes and rivers. How healthy are our local streams and lakes?

Case study - Gender-bending - the role of estrogenic chemicals in the environments.

Estuaries

Chesapeake Bay - an ongoing experiment in watershed/ecosystem management/restoration.

The Ocean

The ultimate downstream repository of pollutants. Accumulation of pollutants now degrade many coastal regions.

Red tides

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