A Cleaner Water Act

Four decades after the Clean Water Act's passage, it's safe to say that it has been a rousing success. Seventy species of fish swim the Cuyahoga again (ten fish in total were found when formal fish counting began in the 1980s!), and the rivers that course through our major cities are healthy and thriving. The Clean Water Act should be celebrated for what it is -- a flagship environmental achievement, one of the great government success stories of our time. But that is not the end of the story. For the act has been a victim of its own success. As our rivers get increasingly cleaner, so too are costs going higher and complaints of government overreach growing louder -- and, to a certain extent, more justified. Critics highlight billions of dollars spent on tiny improvements, while new sources of pollutants flow into bodies of water almost untreated. Improvements have stalled and new stresses like toxic red tides and oxygen-destroying algae blooms have become more prevalent. To ensure that our waters remain clean for another 40 years, we need to update the Clean Water Act for a new era, one that poses different challenges than those we faced four decades ago. Adapted from the source document.