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Page 5 of 7
Help for Ailing Ponds
Two pieces of legislation lead the way in protections for the ponds, directly helpful in America but as the vanguards of international legislation as well.
The first is the Clean Water Act. Written in 1972 and importantly amended in ’77, the legislation officially known as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments granted the EPA authority to regulate polluting discharges into American waters, establish water quality standards, punish unauthorized discharges of waste into navigable waters, and create and govern water treatment systems across the country.
The second greatest protection for American waters was the Safe Drinking Water Act. Originally written in 1974 and amended in ’86 and ’96, the act applies its rules and regulations to over 160,000 public water systems—wells, reservoirs, springs, lakes, and aquifers as well as the watershed sources of all these bodies of water. Under the act, the EPA was required to establish maximum contaminant levels on a wide variety of chemicals, particles, minerals, and other substances that contaminated our drinking water supply. It also gave the agency teeth to enforce those laws and provide remediation systems for areas where the basic need for safe water was not being met.
Between the two, point source pollution was massively constricted and largely eliminated. It was a remarkable success in the history of environmental protection, on a par with the national parks system.
What remains to threaten the ponds and other wetlands are largely non-point pollutions, emissions and contamination that occurs in everyday activities—the sort we all create on a daily basis. Instead of a pipe running out of a chemical plant and straight into a stream, what we worry about most these days is the small portion of environmental poisoning each of us contributes on a daily basis. Our cars poison the roads and air, we spill chemicals and distribute too much fertilizer on our lawns. Then rain brings those poisons back to the pond.
We don’t mean any harm, but in the next article we’ll see just where we stand beside our ponds.
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