Clean Water Restoration Act Factsheet
The Clean Water Act has protected the Nation’s water bodies from unregulated pollution and rescued them from the crisis status they were in during the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, our waters were in dire shape. The Cuyahoga River caught fire several times, Lake Erie was all but devoid of life, oil spills commonly occurred on our coasts, and industrial polluters treated rivers and lakes as open sewers.
Now these vital protections are being lost. In two recent decisions, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2001 and Rapanos v. United States in 2006, the Supreme Court misinterpreted the law and placed pollution limitations for many vital water bodies in doubt.
