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Clean Water Act turns 50!

from cwa50.org

Fifty years ago yesterday (10/18/1972), the Clean Water Act (CWA) became U.S. law.  This monumental piece of legislation aimed to restore and maintain the “chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” Three years earlier in 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, one of the most polluted in the country, caught fire for the 13th time in 100 years. Like the Cuyahoga, many American rivers including the Hudson and Esopus had long been used as municipal sewers and industrial dumps.

Cuyahoga River fire, 1952. Courtesy of the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University.

While significant progress has been made over the last 50 years, there is more to do to ensure clean and healthy rivers persist into the future. Climate change and volatile politics are real threats to rivers and the CWA. To this day, lawyers and politicians continue to argue over what constitutes the federally protected “Waters of the United States.”

The AWSMP advocates for thinking of rivers as systems. More than half of the water in large rivers comes from small streams and wetlands. Rivers can only be clean if the smaller tributary streams and wetlands that supply them are healthy.

Photo by Ed Ostapczuk

“Where a spring rises, or a river flows, there should we build altars and offer sacrifices.” – Seneca

Learn more about the Clean Water Act at cwa50.org

Written by:
Tim Koch
Published on:
October 19, 2022

Categories: UncategorizedTags: clean water act, cuyahoga, cwa, waters of the united states

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Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program

PO Box 667
3130 State Route 28
Shokan, NY 12481
845 688 3047
845 688 3130 (fax)

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