History of the ,clean Water Act, and What Caused Its Failure

By Peter Maier, PhD, PE

August 2008

Prior to 1972 states had their own ,water pollution, regulations, but since they were different, industries in ‘clean’ states moved to ‘dirty’ states. This led to employment loses in the ‘clean’ states and Congress was asked to set national ,water pollution, standards.

When reading the historical discussions prior to the actual ,CWA,, it becomes clear that the Act was not yet be able to set, sewage treatment, standards, but in stead established a principle in order to achieve a goal that when somebody uses water, it should be returned at least in the same or better conditions, hence the ultimate goal of the Act to eliminate all ,water pollution, by 1985. 

It was also realized that such a goal was not yet achievable, since the only technical term used in the legislation was demanding ‘secondary treatment’, without any further definition, but which was supposed to be 85% treatment. 

The legislation also selected a ‘technology-based’ program, in stead of a ‘water quality-based’ program, as it was felt that this would allow local politicians to manipulate local treatment requirements, thus avoiding the purpose and goal of the Act itself.

A technological-based program meant that everybody treating wastewater has to do so with the best treatment available, while a water-quality based program means that treatment standards could be determined by the water quality of the receiving water bodies.

The Act also acknowledged that ‘secondary treatment’ would not any longer be acceptable if better treatment would become available and incorporated special legislation to allow EPA to set stricter treatment standards to achieve the ultimate goal of 100% treatment. The Act also provided funding for R&D to achieve better treatment than the initial required ‘secondary treatment’.

When EPA implemented the ,CWA, it established the NPDES (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System) permit system and established 85% treatment of two commonly used pollution tests, the TSS (Total Suspended Solids) and the BOD5 (Biochemical Oxygen Demand test after 5 days) test.

The BOD5 test was widely used worldwide, but what was forgotten was the fact that the 5-day test was mainly used as a timesaver and only measured the pollution caused by fecal waste. When EPA assumed that the BOD5 of raw sewage is 200 mg/l to establish the ‘secondary treatment’ standards, it only addressed 40% of the ultimate BOD, which is 500 mg/l.

By setting 85% BOD5 treatment standards, EPA ignored all the ,water pollution, caused by nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste. For those interested in how the BOD test should be applied, visit www.petermaier,net and look in the Technical PDF file.

Using the BOD5 test without any nitrogen data, does not allow the real performance evaluation ,sewage treatment, plants nor to determine the real waste loadings on receiving water bodies.

Although EPA acknowledged the problems with the test in 1984, in stead of correcting the test, it allowed an alternative test and officially ignored the ,water pollution, caused by nitrogenous waste, while this waste, like fecal waste, not only exerts an oxygen demand, but also in all its forms is a nutrient for algae and other aquatic plant life. Utah States’ Science Council in 1984, recommended correcting this essential test, but their recommendation was rejected.

Nitrogenous waste, called a nutrient, according to EPA’s 1992 “National Water Quality Inventory Report to Congress” is now causing mayor problems in the nation’s rivers, lakes and estuaries.

The sad conclusion is, that solely due a lack of understanding of an essential pollution test, the ,Clean Water Act,, the second largest federally funded public works program, was a failure and that nobody seems to either care or can be held accountable.