alternatehistory.com

November 3, 1966

Clean Waters Restoration Act Signed Into Law

President Johnson signed a bill into law today that provides money to help communities pay the costs of meeting water quality standards by constructing sewage treatment plants and preventing pollution from storm sewers. This act provides federal funds for states to meet last year’s Water Quality Act, which required that states establish and enforce water quality standards for all interstate waters. Senator Muskie (D-ME), chairman of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution and Senator J. Caleb Boggs (R-DE) supported the bill. [1] There was overwhelming bipartisan support for the bill, which passed earlier this year [2]

The law imposes a $100 per day fine on a polluter who failed to submit a required report. [3] It also authorizes $700 million for construction of sewage treatment plants by 1969. [4] The law also includes provisions for pollution that adversely affects the health or welfare of persons in a foreign country and gives that country the same rights as a state water pollution control agency. [5]

While the law may help clean up many of America’s rivers and lakes, for Lake Erie, it may be too late. Already a “dead zone” before the Fermi accident, the lake has become heavily polluted due to sewage, industrial wastes, and farm runoff. In a speech in Buffalo delivered in September, the President himself said that “Lake Erie must be saved.” [6] However, the signing of the Clean Water Restoration Act does not address the pollution of Lake Erie waters due to nuclear contamination.