A.J. Buettner
Bio 276
Clean Water Act
2/25/16
The Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act was originally passed in congress in 1972 in order to protect all
bodies of water in the United States. This act protects any moving body of water such as
streams and lakes while not protecting ground water and man-made ponds. The Clean
Water Act has a “rule” that helps determine which bodies of water are covered by this act. I
feel that this Clean Water Act should encompass all forms of water including standing
ponds and slow moving shallow streams. There are plenty of groups that use large amounts
of water per year.
Manufacturers use more than 9 trillion gallons of fresh water per year. This is a ridiculous
amount of fresh water that is being used mostly for industrial purposes. The beverage
companies use more than 12 billion gallons of water annually. These large quantities of
water being used by these two groups can be seen as a huge waste of resources and are
taken away from families and people who desperately need clean water. There have been
various tragedies that occur from water being dumped in by large manufacturing
companies.
The Cuyahoga River Fire in 1969 was the most notable fire caused by industrial pollution
which caused almost $100,00 worth of damage to the area surrounding the river. It is
disturbing how much pollution is dumped into the rivers. I think that the companies
