PUB00111

• Year: 1996
• Title: Layperson's Guide to Water Pollution
• CWCB Section: Interstate & Federal
• Author: California Water Education Foundation
• Description: Layperson's Guide to Water Pollution
• Publications - Doc Type: Other

Background

COIll'cmiOflal palm source
pollution control has
focused 011 point source
discharges from industrial
or f1l1wicipal sources,
above, and illegal
dumping, right.

4

The West is famous for it skirmishes over water
quantity. But increasing attention is being paid to
concerns over water quality.

While environmental degradation often is blamed on
water diversions alone, strategies for restoring natu-
ral values often require restoring the purity and
productivity of water that remains, or is recommitted
to streams. Protecting water quality also is essen-
tial to ensure that existing water supplies can be
stretched to meet growing needs - for safe drinking
water, for profitable industrial use and for essential
agricultural uses.

.:;,,;;.i. "

Groundwater
quality also is a
major concern.
Pesticides have
been detected in
4,164 California
wells, according
to state data. And
in more than two-
thirds of those

cases, concen-
trations of the
chemicals
exceeded the
state's recom-
mended public
health limit. A
1988 state sur-
vey at 38.000
wells found one
in 10 contained nitrate above the maximum contami-
nant level. Similarly, urban areas are tracking indus-
trial solvents and gasoline that in some cases
threaten groundwater. Significant water supplies are
being abandoned because of pollution, forcing water
providers to add expensive treatment devices or look
elsewhere to meet societal needs.

-~
~..:.

Water quality problems also are proving to be as
perennial as water supply problems. As point sources
are increasingly controlled, scientists are beginning
to understand that polluting practices of the past will
have consequences far into the future, as lingering
poisons continue to do damage and pose danger.
While California's water fortunes are commonly
associated with the cycles of floods and droughts,
wet winters do not ease all water quality problems,
and in many circumstances, they make matters
worse.

The State Board's assessment shows nearly half
at California's 5.600 miles of rivers to be impaired-

that is, they do not meet water quality standards,
and at least one beneficial use is compromised as
a result. More than two-thirds of the state's lakes
are impaired and nearly all of the wetlands are
impaired.

The conventional pollution that most people are
familiar with comes from one of four point sources:
municipal, industrial, illegal and accidental. Most of
the muscle in federal and state regulations has been
applied to the first two pollution sources - municipal
and industrial discharges.

Prior to the CWA of 1972, many cities dumped
sewage into waterways with little treatment. The
stench of decaying sewage often wafted over San
Francisco Bay, along southern California beaches
and increasingly over inland rivers. Fewer than half
of the nation's homes were served by treatment
lacilities. In the 1970s and 1980s $128 billion was
spent nationwide by federal, state and local agencies
to construct and operate municipal sewage treatment
plants. As a resulf of that etfort, nearly three out of
four homes now are served by community treatment
works. While some major urban areas, including
Los Angeles and San Diego, were slow to upgrade
facilities, the investment nationwide cut in half the
volume of waste dumped into urban waters. even
as population and economic productivity substan-
tially increased.

Over the same time, federal regulations required
industries - whose foaming discharge pipes came
to symbolize the nation's disregard for the environ-
ment - to spend more than $60 billion installing and