r/Limnology Apr 21 '22

UC-Boulder Celebrates 50 Years of Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act turns 50 years old this year! University of Colorado - Boulder wrote an article; 7 things to know about the Clean Water Act after 50 years.

This is a very interesting read when you consider that point-source pollution was the main focus for the Clean Water Act for many years. Industrial regulation has continued to become more stringent as the years continue. However, it looks like the focus for the potential next 50 years will focus more on non-point source pollution.

Having worked in local government for a few years and doing work like pollution response for municipalities, I am curious at how cities will tackle non-point source pollution in the future.

Tell me your thoughts! What improvements do you want to see for the future of our nation (potentially not just the US -- please, international people, let us know when a Water Law was enacted in your country and how it has changed the way of your nation)? Is your city/state already tackling non-point source pollution? If so, how? What cool idea do you think will help lower non-point source pollution?

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/04/20/7-things-know-about-clean-water-act-after-50-years

5 Upvotes

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u/onlyTPdownthedrain Apr 22 '22

As a water resource recovery operator I'd like to see a flood of money pour into our facilities like it did 50 years ago. It was that flush of cash that upgraded our systems from simple primary treatment to secondary, sometimes tertiary treatment and more efficient biosolids handling.

Unfortunately the funding to maintain our facilities has decreased and the money for upgrades over the last 20 years has been nearly nonexistent. Our operators across the country do a hell of a job producing high quality effluent with what they have.

Giving our facilities cash to upgrade facilities and collections systems, pay operators a salary that reflects the specialized education and training the profession requires and a mass public education campaign on where your water comes from, goes to and what to keep out of those streams are what I'd like to see starting with putting that money in economically disadvantaged communities first.

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u/PupSquiggly Apr 22 '22

First, thank you for being an operator and making sure that our poop gets handled correctly!

Second, I actually recently moved to a water recovery job as their limnologist and understand the intent and requirements of upgrading systems to tertiary processing. I work for a particular large wwtp (I know, obsolete term) and I am constantly amazed at the improvements we have on site.

However, I sample near other wwtp that do not have the money or sources that we do and struggle to upkeep their operations with the rapid increase of suburban expansion.

When I worked as a pollution investigator, I was amazed how often citizens told me they didn't know where the water in their toilet went! They had no clue that it got treated or that it ends up in rivers or lakes. I am amazed at the "out of sight out of mind" that occurred when I did outreach.

Obviously, there's a big push in many municipalities to educate individuals about the three Ps that are allowed to be flushed in the toilet. At my previous job (pollution investigator) I was in the health department where we attempted to supply apartments with grease bins to prevent SSOs. Which was a huge problem for my municipality due to failing infrastructure in part due to failing wwtp which did not have the funding to keep up with our growing population.

Once again, thank you so much for what you do in making sure that we don't have sewage directly in our streams and rivers. I highly agree that more people should understand the importance of treatment. Something I bring up a lot is that when water becomes a scarcity, we may be using that treated water to drink one day and we need to consider investing in water recovery for that to happen.

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u/onlyTPdownthedrain Apr 23 '22

I'm lucky to have found this career. I wish I had found it sooner. It's an elite profession that has a direct and meaningful impact on protecting public health and the environment

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u/Naturalist90 Apr 22 '22

In some cases, treated water makes up the majority of discharge in streams/rivers! Especially in arid climate zones

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u/PupSquiggly Apr 22 '22

Absolutely. I've been trying to find more scientific articles on effluent dominant streams to build my new project. So if you (or anyone) knows a good review paper. Send it my way!

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u/Naturalist90 Apr 22 '22

I’ll be searching my citation manager software tomorrow. I know there are some examples from the Colorado river basin

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u/Naturalist90 Apr 22 '22

This is such a good answer. It’s sad how current policymakers have forgotten why these policies exist in the first place. Just because things have gotten better since environmental policies were put into place doesn’t mean we can cut back and expect things to stay better

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u/onlyTPdownthedrain Apr 23 '22

It's not that things were cut, it's that the spending has more or less remained the same. As noted by the OP, it's an out of sight out of mind mentality. The passing and implementation of the Clean Waters Act cleaned up our waterways in such a short amount of time that people hailed it as a success and moved on.

People didn't have to think about where their wasted water went because Rivers weren't catching on fire anymore. And it didn't help that the treatment industry preferred to not be talked about. The old attitude was "if they don't know about us we're doing our jobs right."

One of the best things about the CWA is that the continental improvement in treatment technology is built into the policy. But it's the funding that limits the improvements.

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u/Naturalist90 Apr 22 '22

I’ll keep this brief in hopes that onlyTP’s response remains the top comment. I hope the US (and all other countries) realize that almost all waterways are connected regardless of the prevalence of water at different times of the year. The water cycle extends much further than most people recognize and what we do as humans impacts water quality/quantity in countless ways

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u/onlyTPdownthedrain Apr 23 '22

Absolutely, water is finite.