HR: 14:00h
AN: NB23C-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: The Clean Water Act, Flow, and the Quest for Integrity of U. S. Waters
AU: * Norton, D J
EM: norton.douglas@epa.gov
AF: US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water (4503T), 1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20460 United States
AB: The federal Clean Water Act (Public Law 92-500, amended in 1977 and 1987) contains one of the broadest goals for ecological protection found in American environmental legislation: to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of U.S. waters. The act also refers to attaining water quality sufficient to propagate fish and wildlife and provides for a wide array of regulatory and non-regulatory protection tools. Despite the broad ecological connotations of its goals, its diverse toolbox, and its many successes, the Clean Water Act is not uniformly applicable to all forms of aquatic impairment because its most potent regulations are highly oriented toward controlling pollutants. Flow alterations and their biotic impacts are common examples of non-pollutant impairments that fit the Clean Water Act goal, but not its tools. Nevertheless, the lack of authority to regulate flow under the act has stimulated innovative, indirect approaches to the restoration of flow-related impairments. The presentation will address the limits of the Clean Water Act in addressing flow as well as a variety of examples of working within the scope of the act to overcome those limits.
DE: 0400 Biogeosciences
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1871 Surface water quality
DE: 6324 Legislation and regulations
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly