Keep Our Water Clean: Clean Water Act Essay, Research Paper

Keep Our Water Clean: Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act has made advances to our society that have helped

our environment to flourish with life. The objective of the Act when it was

enacted in 1972 was to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and

biological integrity of the Nation’s water. This objective was accompanied by

other statutory goals to eliminate the discharge of pollutants into waters used

by boats by 1985 and to attain waters deemed ?fishable or swimmable? by 1983. So

far, the Act has done exactly what it was meant to do. Its purpose is being

served and we our benefiting with clean water.

No where in the context of the Clean Water Act does it say anything

about respecting the convenience of businesses wishing to dump their toxins into

our waters. The Act was not meant to please everyone, but it was meant to clean

our water, and that should please a wide majority. We should not have to

sacrifice our health for a business that does nothing for us. Clean water is

much more of a priority to us citizens than is the well being of a company that

we probably have never heard of and never will.

If the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1995 are passed, all that we have

worked for since 1972 will be lost. It will take all of the advances made to

clean our water and totally reverse them. This bill will take apart the National

Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, leaving loopholes for businesses

desiring to pollute our waters. This bill also demonstrates a flagrant disregard

for the state of scientific and technological knowledge in the area of water

quality. It will corrupt our water in such a way as to totally abolish the Clean

Water Act, rendering it obsolete.

The intent of the of the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1995 is to

increase flexibility on businesses, States, local governments, and landowners.

This increase in flexibility is meant to relax some regulations dealing with the

discharge of wastes and stormwater into waterways, authority of States to rely

on voluntary measures to control nonpoint source pollution, limit Federal

authority to restrict land use in wetlands, and require the Federal Government

to reimburse landowners for loss of property value resulting from wetlands

regulations. All of these measures will make it easier for toxins to be thrown

into our drinking water by businesses with no remorse.

This bill is supposedly supposed to help our environment, but it seems

to me that this bill is driven by political and economic interests, rather than

the well being of our environment. Why should we be more linient in the

protection of our water so a business may have a place to dump its wastes in.

Rather, we should enforce the protection of our water so that businesses are

forced to go elsewhere with their wastes. Our water is far to valuable for it to

be polluted and toxicated with whatever it is being dumped into it. Our water is

sacred to use for its value in public and economic health and the enactment of

this bill will devastate this goal we strive for.

This bill was written on behalf of some of the most notorious polluters

of our environment and I seriously doubt that fact that their goal is to better

our environmental status. They are out to make things easier for their

businesses to get rid of their wastes by dumping them into our water. The

realize that this water is used by many, yet they fell no guilt in their acts of

corruption. They could care less for our health, their main concern is money. If

dumping their wastes into our water would help them to save money, they are all

for it. The well being of our economy is irrelevant to them. It is not of their

concern.

Those in favor of the bill state that it would still maintain the

restrictions protecting our waterways, and at the same time, give business a

little more freedom to do their business. This freedom that the bill proposes is

exactly what we do not want. This freedom that we grant them will be enough to

destroy our waterways for good. Soon these businesses will expand this minimal

freedom to absolute freedom to dump their pollutants wherever they please if we

grant them this freedom. We must give no freedom if we care for the long-term

survival of our water supply.

By passing this bill and giving the responsibility of clean water

legislation to the States rather than the Federal Government, we are inviting

these notorious polluters to take command over our waterways to use them for

whatever we please. Clean water is a common goal among all States and it should

be granted to all States by the Federal government. By giving this

responsibility to the States, we make room for polluters to take advantage of

single States and use them for their dumping. This cannot happen if we want to

preserve our clean water. This will not happen under the status quo.

The Clean Water Act that presides has done miracles for our environment.

It has cleaned up our waterways, preserved our wetlands, and basically, enriched

our lives with clean, fresh water that, after the first glass, leaves us

yearning for more. Just the thought of having to drink water that was even

slightly under par sickens me. I am not willing to sacrifice my cool clean water

for the benefit of some money hungry business. I am sure that many feel the same

way. We love our water and will not give it up. If this bill is passed, it will

send our newly flourishing environment skyrocketing down the charts of serenity,

hence, bringing us back to where we were before the original Clean Water Act

took effect. I’ve never seen a an amendment to an act that totally reverses the

act in all ways. If we want clean water, we must do away with this putrid, beast

of a bill.