Op-ed: Clearer Rules, Cleaner Waters

The 1972 Clean Water Act, an act that should serve to regulate the flow of pollution into U.S. water bodies, might receive restorative treatment if Congress passes new legislation to revamp the rules, suggests an op-ed in the New York Times.

The risks to the nation’s waters grow by the day. A devastating internal document, obtained by Representatives James Oberstar and Henry Waxman, revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency has dropped or delayed more than 400 cases involving suspected violations of the law — illegal industrial discharges and the like. That is nearly half the agency’s entire docket. The reason cited in almost every instance was that regulators did not know whether the streams and wetlands in question were still covered under the act.

Read more here.

Source: The New York Times