Clean Water

The Controversy
Up until the mid-20th century it was practice for cities to use bays, harbors, and rivers as dumping grounds and sewage run off. In fact major industrial parks built their waste pipes to spill directly into some of the rivers and lakes we use today as recreation (Congressional Digest, 1985). These are some of the Point Sources of water pollution. These are places that can be directly identified as points of pollution like city storm and sewer drains, sewage treatment plants ("Clean water act," 1972). Then there is a non-point source which is a combination of smaller sources that collect into lakes, rivers, and streams. These can come from agriculture farms or even contaminated wash from our freeways and roads.
There are almost an infinite amount of water pollutants that run off into our waterways each day. Pathogens such has salmonella, novo virus, and parasitic worms grow and thrive within our waters. Chemicals such as insecticides, herbicides run off from farms and other agriculture areas. Storm water runoff can introduce many types of fuels and oils, and heavy metals. Then there is immense amount of industrial waste like ammonia, sulfur dioxide from power plants, trash from illegal dumping (Pitt, 2001).
It’s it important to ensure our fresh water resources are protected and ensured. Although in most industrialized countries access to clean water is at 100 percent; in places such as Uganda and Mozambique where only 52% of the population has access to clean water it becomes alarming. It becomes more of a reality where countries like Syria and India where millions of dollar a year are spent on defense that only 80% of the population has access to clean water (UNICEF, 2001).

The Major Players/Important Facts
There are many controversies and players in the midst of the Clean Water Act. One major conflict is the