Water Pollution Regulations

The case, E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Train, held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the power to ratify regulations that impose limits on pollution while providing existing plants with a permit to vary slightly from the set limits. The case also led to a provision that allowed the appellate court to review any of the pollution restrictions if the need arises. The effluent limitations thus, enable entities to make discharges upon treatment. The case is the foundation for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) which allocates permits for entities to release discharges from a point source to existing open waters (Miller, Powers, & Elder, 2008). The EPA, as provided in this case, issues the permit that allows organizations to release pollutants into navigable rivers. Some coastal states allow offshore outfalls because it leads to the advantage that it will enable the natural dispersion and dilution of pollutants, which in turn reduces their impact on the immediate environment, especially at the point source. These states are also able to achieve the benefit of keeping the sewage field submerged by providing more allowance for the pollutants being released (Miller, Powers, & Elder, 2008). On the other hand, some states do not allow offshore outfalls because the models applied for the release limits are usually inaccurate, which means that there is still some pollution. The biological integrity of the nation’s waters refers to the restoration and maintenance of the physical, chemical, and biological reliability of the water resources across the country. The concept was established in 1972 with the aim of determining the objective of the Clean Water Act (Martin, 2013). It also laid a foundation for the protection of aquatic systems, with the main focus on the biological aspects of these resources. As such, the term is used to refer to the ability to develop and maintain integrated, balanced, as well as adaptive biological resources as the expected biological elements. 

References  

Martin, J. (2013). Hydro-Environmental Analysis: Freshwater Environments. CRC Press. 

Miller, J., Powers, A., & Elder, N. (2008). Introduction to Environmental Law: Cases and Materials on Water Pollution Control. Environmental Law Institute.