A Time to Celebrate: A Time To Act

October 18, 2022

The Clean Water Act – a Brief History 

This year marks the 50-year anniversary of the federal Clean Water Act, which made it illegal to contaminate navigable waters without a permit, set pollution standards for the nation’s waterways, and established compliance and enforcement mechanisms.  

Like many of the environmental laws adopted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the federal Clean Water Act was passed in response to a growing number of environmental catastrophes that led to public demand for action. Whether it was the Cuyahoga River in Ohio catching on fire, the massive oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast, large-scale fish kills across the U.S., or communities rebelling against their rivers, creeks and coastal waters reeking from raw sewage discharges and other industrial waste, it was clear something needed to be done.  

Over the past 50 years, the Clean Water Act and related legislation have directed over $1 trillion to infrastructure investments, led to significant improvements in water treatment technologies, and played a key role in holding polluters accountable for their role in degrading water quality.  

Perhaps most importantly, the Clean Water Act also allowed private citizens, and nonprofit groups like LA Waterkeeper, to enforce the law. This type of litigation has made it possible for the communities most harmed by pollution to step into the role of enforcer when regulatory agencies fail to do so. 

A Small But Mighty Team Armed with the Law 

Since Terry Tamminen first took the helm as the Santa Monica BayKeeper in 1993 - the organization that was to become LA Waterkeeper – we have been a small but mighty team that has had an outsized impact on the health of LA’s waters. Through our history, we have been drivers on the region’s most critical water issues. LA Waterkeeper lawsuits have: 

•  Dramatically reduced the flow of toxic pollution into our waterways, changing how our roads are built, our industrial facilities operate, and our water systems are plumbed;   

• Ensured cleanup plans are in place for our most polluted waterways, and protections are adopted for our most at-risk inland and coastal waters; 

• Driven policy changes that are resulting in multi-billion-dollar investments in climate-resilient local water solutions like the Safe Clean Water stormwater program and wastewater recycling;  

• Reinvested more than $15M back to remediate past environmental harms in our most impacted communities, more than half of which has gone directly to community-based organizations. 

In all, our advocacy and litigation will result in an estimated $50B in economic activity and hundreds of thousands of green jobs created over the next 25 years. That means that every dollar invested in LA Waterkeeper helps spur more than $1,000 of investment in clean water projects and a resilient water future!  

A Pledge Unfulfilled 

The Clean Water Act is most known for its ambitious (and unmet) goals of producing “fishable, swimmable” waters across the U.S. by 1983, and the elimination of all discharges into the nation’s navigable waters by 1985. Despite the accomplishments highlighted above, the Act has largely failed to achieve its stated goals. Almost four decades since its deadline for ‘fishable-swimmable’ waterways, about half of all assessed waterways are so polluted that they fail to meet established water quality standards, and that total is higher in heavily urbanized areas and in agricultural centers.  

The LA region is no exception. An astounding 99% of our assessed bays, harbors, estuaries, lakes, reservoirs and wetlands, as well as 582 miles of assessed shorelines, rivers and streams, do not meet federal clean water standards.  

What’s Next – Delivering on the Promise 

And now we face a myriad of daunting challenges that were not considered 50 years ago—the scourge of climate change and historic drought; plastics and forever chemicals found in our waterways, in our fish and even in our very bodies; and the urgent need to address environmental injustice. 

At LA Waterkeeper, we believe we need a renewed vision and 21st century tools to fulfill the promise of safe water and healthy communities. We envision a three-pronged approach that can get us there. 

• Enforce existing laws & regulations: The agencies entrusted to keep our water safe and clean must meet that obligation by fully enforcing existing laws and regulations. 

• Protect and modernize laws: In the face of a looming Supreme Court decision that could dramatically curtail clean water protections, our elected officials must protect existing clean water laws while closing loopholes to more effectively address urban and agricultural runoff, forever chemicals and other emerging threats, and water scarcity. And as we modernize our laws, the principles of equity, environmental justice and resilience must be front and center. 

• Increase investment: When the Clean Water Act was initially passed, it came with massive federal investments in our water and wastewater infrastructure. While the recently adopted federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act helped reverse an insidious downward trend in in clean water funding over the past 50 years, even these measures represent little more than a down payment on the investment needed for a resilient water future.  

LA Waterkeeper’s Commitment 

LA Waterkeeper will be there at every step to ensure our laws and regulations are strong and enforced, our waterways are healthy, and our water systems are resilient. Recognizing the disproportionate impacts low-income communities of color face, we will continue working to direct investments to affected communities, restoring habitats and building the green infrastructure needed to sustain a healthier and more just future for all Angelenos.