The Importance of the Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act was first passed in 1972 to offer some sort of protection to the country’s waterways. The Act was first passed because all the lakes and rivers in the country were becoming more and more polluted at a very alarming rate, and the wetlands were found to be drying up as well. The basic aim of the Act is to stop pollution by preventing pollutants from being dumped into waterways, and to maintain the quality of water for a safer fishing and swimming environment.

The Act has a separate section for wetlands. Wetlands help by straining harmful pollutants from the water, by serving as areas of filtration and by providing flood control during storms. These wetlands are also extremely important to animals and plants.

The aim of the Act is to eliminate the dumping of pollutants into waters and to ensure that those waters were fit for swimming and fishing. And although these goals have not exactly been met, the amount of pollutant discharge has been drastically reduced, and today, the waters are much cleaner than ever before.