You're 40! Happy Birthday to one of our most important environmental laws. The Clean Water Act, enacted after states wrestled with solutions to polluted waterways, brought on a federal safety net for water quality that guaranteed a minimum level of protection to all Americans, no matter where you lived - and it has worked.

Waterkeeper Alliance // Clean Water Act 40th Anniversary from W2 Films on Vimeo.

In the Huffington Post today, various Waterkeepers looks back at the impacts of the Clean Water Act to their respective area. Our very own Spokane Riverkeeper recounts how they used the law:

In December of 2009, Spokane Riverkeeper filed a sixty day "notice of violation" with the City of Spokane as a precedent to a federal citizen-enforcement lawsuit to enforce, under the Clean Water Act, a dramatic reduction in these illegal discharges. The notice made clear that City of Spokane officials had known about illegal PCB discharges from city outfalls since 2004 but had repeatedly failed to report or take meaningful and effective steps to stop them. The city had violated both the Clean Water Act and the state's municipal-stormwater permit for Spokane. In April 2011, a settlement was reached, which, to the best of anyone's knowledge, was the largest Spokane-River-related environmental settlement in the region's history. The agreement called for combined-sewer-overflow fixes, enhanced education and outreach, and funds for restoration projects in the area. But maybe more important than the dollars or the significance of the settlement was the region-wide discussion on PCBs that followed - leading to a well-organized and very sophisticated collective effort to identify PCB sources in the Spokane River basin and address them in various ways, from permit-compliance to clean-up to source-control.

Read the rest HERE.

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