Legal Protection for Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems: In the Murky Wake of Rapanos, Can the Clean Water Act Require Water Quality Protections in the Name of Variably Dependent Groundwater Ecosystems?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Collin Gannon
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Clean Water Act ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Groundwater Ecosystems ◽  
Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems

scholarly journals Picking Up Where the TMDL Leaves Off: Using the Partnership Wild and Scenic River Framework for Collaborative River Restoration

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1878
Author(s):  
Alan R. Hunt ◽  
Meiyin Wu ◽  
Tsung-Ta David Hsu ◽  
Nancy Roberts-Lawler ◽  
Jessica Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Bacterial Contamination ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Clean Water Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Private Land ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wild And Scenic Rivers

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protects less than ¼ of a percent of the United States’ river miles, focusing on free-flowing rivers of good water quality with outstandingly remarkable values for recreation, scenery, and other unique river attributes. It predates the enactment of the Clean Water Act, yet includes a clear anti-degradation principle, that pollution should be reduced and eliminated on designated rivers, in cooperation with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state pollution control agencies. However, the federal Clean Water Act lacks a clear management framework for implementing restoration activities to reduce non-point source pollution, of which bacterial contamination impacts nearly 40% of the Wild and Scenic Rivers. A case study of the Musconetcong River, in rural mountainous New Jersey, indicates that the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act can be utilized to mobilize and align non-governmental, governmental, philanthropic, and private land-owner resources for restoring river water quality. For example, coordinated restoration efforts on one tributary reduced bacterial contamination by 95%, surpassing the TMDL goal of a 93% reduction. Stakeholder interviews and focus groups indicated widespread knowledge and motivation to improve water quality, but resource constraints limited the scale and scope of restoration efforts. The authors postulate that the Partnership framework, enabled in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, facilitated neo-endogenous rural development through improving water quality for recreational usage, whereby bottom-up restoration activities were catalyzed via federal designation and resource provision. However, further efforts to address water quality via voluntary participatory frameworks were ultimately limited by the public sector’s inadequate funding and inaction with regard to water and wildlife resources in the public trust.

ASSESSING THE FRAMEWORK OF POLICY OUTCOMES: THE CASE OF THE U.S. CLEAN AIR ACT AND CLEAN WATER ACT

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (04) ◽  
pp. 1450034 ◽  
Author(s):  
LUKE FOWLER
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Clean Water Act ◽  
Clean Air Act ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Assessment Criteria ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
The U.S

The Clean Air Act (CAA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) have been the lynchpins of the U.S. environmental policy for the last half century. Under both acts the federal government sets standards and the states implement, the outcomes of the CAA and CWA have not been the same however. While criteria air pollutants across the nation have been reduced or maintained under the management control strategies of the CAA, far less is known about the effects the CWA has had on water quality, even though, most agree water quality has improved since its implementation. These acts are built on similar frameworks, but the real difference lies on the embedded identification of assessment criteria. The CAA creates a rigid framework for the consistent identification and monitoring of air pollutants, while the CWA relies on a much more flexible system that varies over space and time. Thus, it is the embedded environmental assessment criteria within these acts that have led to different outcomes for similar policies.

From Catastrophe to Recovery: Stories of Fishery Management Success

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
Clean Water Act ◽  
Quality Standards ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Water Quality Standards ◽  
Treatment Technology ◽  
Scioto River

<i>Abstract</i>.—A 37-year series of standardized fish assessments in the Scioto River (Ohio, USA) since 1979 coupled with historical information documents a near complete recovery from heavily polluted conditions in the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries. Nearly 100 fish species were extirpated downstream from the city of Columbus (Ohio, USA) by sewage and industrial pollution. The 1972 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Clean Water Act) mandated the control of sewage and industrial pollution. Reductions in loadings of untreated or poorly treated sewage were incremental. Full recovery to near-prepollution composition and abundance took more than two decades after advanced wastewater treatment was achieved. Unpolluted tributaries served as recolonization sources for populations of extirpated species. These positive changes extended across all fish assemblage members as evidenced by increased values of the Ohio index of biotic integrity; modified index of well-being; native species richness, density, and biomass; and the reduced incidence of external anomalies on fish. These restoration successes and their documentation were facilitated by the Clean Water Act that set forth the goals for water quality standards and treatment technology for reducing water pollution and conducting baseline and follow-up monitoring. An important lesson learned was that serious doubts that existed in the 1970s about the feasibility of advanced wastewater treatment technology and the attainability of water quality standards in an effluent dominated river were completely erased by the demonstrated improvements in the fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages in the Scioto River. The extent of improvements in recreational opportunities have tracked that of the biota by an increased use for fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and related forms of recreation. However, maintaining these improvements will require continuation of high levels of wastewater treatment and water quality standards. A growing human population that is forecast to increase by one-half million persons by 2050 makes maintaining the currently high levels of biological integrity a continuing challenge. Given the lessons learned with the mosaic of stressors in the Scioto River over the past 150 years, we believe this challenge can be met successfully.

scholarly journals Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality*

2018 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. 349-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A Keiser ◽  
Joseph S Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Clean Water Act ◽  
Clean Water
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