Category:Clean Water

Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children's lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land...

Water is one of the most basic of all needs - we cannot live for more than a few days without it. And yet, most people take water for granted. We waste water needlessly and don't realize that clean water is a very limited resource. More than 1 billion people around the world have no access to safe, clean drinking water, and over 2.5 billion do not have adequate sanitation service. Over 2 million people die each year because of unsafe water - and most of them are children!

~ Robert Alan Aurthur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Act

https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act

The Commons

Clean Water Act

Congress first passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in 1972. Amending the law five years later in what became known as the “Clean Water Act” Congress regulated by permit all end-of-pipe or "Point Source" discharges to navigable waters of the United States. In 1987, it extended the Clean Water Act to cover indirect or “Non-Point Source” pollution, most prevalent in stormwater runoff.

Stormwater Runoff

Stormwater runoff is water from rain or melting snow that flows from roofs, paved roads and parking lots, bare soil, and sloped lawns that cannot be absorbed in the ground. As it flows, the runoff collects pollutants like fertilizers, pesticides, oil and grease, animal wastes and sediments and carries them directly to coastal waters or to storm drains, which, in the case of coastal communities, often discharge to harbor waters. These pollutants restrict recreational use and degrade the marine habitat resulting in bathing beach closures and shellfish harvesting restrictions.

Common Pollutants

• Nutrients: Nitrogen & phosphorous (fertilizers, animal wastes, septic discharge)

• Man-Made Chemicals: Pesticides & herbicides

• Pathogens: Bacteria & Viruses from pet waste and failing septic systems

• Metals: Copper, Lead, Mercury, Chromium in car brake linings and tires

• Hydrocarbons: Gasoline and Oil leaks from faulty tanks and improper disposal

• Sediments: Dirt from road runoff and construction sites

• Organic Materials: Oxygen depleting Leaves, Grass Clippings, Plant Materials

• Trash and Debris: Litter is aesthetically unappealing and a hazard to wildlife

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Check the Quality of Your City's Water

https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) Tap Water Database

Water utilities' testing finds pollutants in Americans' tap water, according to an EWG drinking water quality analysis of 30 million state water records.

EWG took years to build their new website, pulling data from 28 million records from nearly 49,000 local utilities, along with state environmental agencies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the agency’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online database. Each utility had the opportunity to review its data. Authorities tested for 500 contaminants in all, and detected 267 in one or more cases.

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