ALBAIS, DIANE B. INTRO. TO ENVI.

ENG’G FEBRUARY 15, 2007

BS CPE ASSIGNMENT ENGR. PADILLA

CLEAN AIR ACT

A Clean Air Act describes one of a number of pieces of legislation relating to the
reduction of smog and atmospheric pollution in general. The United States Congress
passed the Clean Air Act in 1963, the Air Quality act in 1967, the Clean Air Act
Extension in 1970, and Clean Air Act Amendments in 1977 and 1990. Numerous state
governments and local governments have enacted similar legislation, either implementing
federal programs or filling in locally important gaps in federal programs.

The use of the federal government and state and local governments to enforce clean air
standards has contributed to an improvement of the health of Americans and a longer life
span for Americans. Critics argue it has also sapped corporate profits, and contributed to
outsourcing abroad, while defenders counter that improved environmental air quality has
generated more jobs than it has eliminated. A Pennsylvania legislative supporter of clean
air standards, Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, said "Vast progress has been made
toward the development of clean air, but sufferers of asthma and other diseases need us to
make much more progress in the future."

The Clean Air Act has spurred considerable action by individual states in the U.S. to pass
parallel laws addressing air quality maintenance and enhancement. Additionally the
Clean Air Act and state statutes have led to widespread use of atmospheric dispersion
models, including point source models, roadway air dispersion models and aircraft air
pollution models in order to analyze air quality impacts of proposed major actions.

CLEAN WATER ACT

The Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251, et seq., began life as the Federal Water
Pollution Control Amendments of 1972. Amendments in 1977 became commonly known
as the Clean Water Act.[1] The Act is the primary federal law in the United States
governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the
symbolic goals of eliminating releases to water of toxic amounts of toxic substances,
eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that surface waters would
meet standards necessary for human sports and recreation by 1983.

The system for granting and regulating discharge permits is called the National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), which regulates both point and
non-point sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States.

After Congress passed the CWA, the EPA promulgated effluent guidelines that regulate
water pollution from 56 industry categories. These regulations apply to between 35,000
and 45,000 facilities that discharge directly to the nation's waters, as well as another
12,000 facilities that discharge into publicly owned treatment works. These regulations
are responsible for preventing the discharge of almost 700 billion pounds of pollutants
each year.

While the technology-based standards have been largely successful, because they apply
to specific sources and are enforceable, the health and water quality-based standards have
been much less so. In 2002 there were still tens of thousands of rivers, lakes, and bays
that were not safe enough for fishing and swimming. The most important remaining
cause of these problems (typically, diffuse runoff from farms, streets, and yards) is known
as non-point source pollution, which was not addressed in the original Clean Water Act.

To assist municipalities in creating wastewater treatment plants that were capable of

meeting these standards, the CWA established a system to provide federal financial
assistance, first in the form of construction grants, which were modified several times and
later replaced by the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund in 1987. The Clean
Water Act and its regulations also establish pretreatment requirements for industrial users
contributing wastes to Publicly Owned Treatment Works.