Federal Laws
The Clean Water Act (CWA) was passed by Congress in 1972, in response to the nearly unchecked dumping of pollution into our waterways. At the time, two-thirds of the country's lakes, rivers and coastal waters had become unsafe for fishing or swimming. Untreated sewage was being dumped into open water.
The goal of the CWA was to reduce pollution in all U.S. waters to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of our nation's waters." The law called for "zero discharge of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985, and fishable and swimmable waters by 1983. Although the CWA has been instrumental in improving the health of rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, by stopping billions of pounds of pollution from fouling the water, it has far from reached its goal of returning all waters to being safe for fishing and swimming.
The CWA established the basic structure for regulating water pollution in the United States. It gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry. The CWA also set water quality standards for contaminants in surface waters, and made it unlawful for anyone to discharge any pollutant from a point source into the water without a restrictive permit.
In many states, such as Georgia, the authority to administer the CWA in the state, including the issuance of permits pursuant to the CWA, has been delegated to the state. In Georgia, the Environmental Protection Division of the Department of Natural Resources administers the CWA and issues permits under it.
You can access the full text of the CWA online. Or, you can download a summary.
A copy of the CWA’s implementing regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations are available online (go to Title 40, Protection of the Environment).
River Network’s Guide to Using the Clean Water Act—an excellent layman’s guide to the CWA, is available online.
Please also visit these sections:
State Laws
Local Ordinances
