Water Supply and Conservation

WATER SUPPLY AND CONSERVATION

WATER SUPPLY AND CONSERVATION. Water covers about three-quarters of the earth and makes up more than two-thirds of the human body. Without water (which supports animal habitats, the food chain, and human life) life as we understand it would be impossible. An abundant and invaluable resource, water can be poisoned and poorly used.

Each of us lives in a watershed, a landmass that drains into a body of water. Natural forces, such as gravity and condensation, distribute rainwater throughout the watershed, giving life to the plants and animals within.

When Europeans first began settling the New World, natural resources were considered basically inexhaustible. Over the centuries, however, trees were clear cut, animals over-hunted, and water used without concern for conservation or for maintaining it in an unpolluted state. As settlers pushed westward, they continued earlier practices—using (sometimes abusing) natural resources without thought for the future.

The largest damage human beings caused to the environment came with the Industrial Revolution. Factories dumped toxic materials freely into waterways and filled the air with particulate pollutants. Expansionists cut down trees to build railroads and settle new lands without regard to watersheds or the disruption of ecosystems. Forests, which are important to watersheds because of their ability to absorb water and prevent flooding, were completely cut down for timber throughout the country. The business of men was deemed more important than the business of nature, and those few voices that spoke out against expansion were labeled antiprogress.

Although Yellowstone, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks were created in the late nineteenth century, it was not until Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1901 that a widespread program of conservation began. The word "conservation" probably originates with Gifford Pinchot, head of the United States Forest Service during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, greatly influenced by environmentalists such as John Muir, took advantage of the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 that permitted the president to set aside lands as national forests. Presidents William Henry Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley had transferred some 50 million acres of timberland into the federal reserve system prior to Roosevelt; the conservation movement fully supported Roosevelt as he expanded these efforts, eventually adding another 150 million acres. Congress would complement Roosevelt's measures in 1911 with the Weeks Act, which allowed for multiple uses of public lands. Conservation in this era was not done for the benefit of nature itself, but for the benefit of people. A broad-based deep respect for nature, or even a firmly preservationist ethic, was in the future.

The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s would show Americans how nature could inflict more harm to man than man could to nature. Already in the midst of the Great Depression, the West and Southwest experienced lengthy droughts. Drought is actually the most deadly natural phenomenon in the world; agriculture eventually collapses as crops will not grow without water, the parched topsoil blows away, and animals and humans starve. The years of drought in the 1930s hurt not just the farmer, but all those who depended on him. Crop yields reached all-time lows, and migrant workers, without crops to help harvest, quickly became vagrants.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected president in 1932, did not hesitate to apply his New Deal to nature. With the help of Congress, he created the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The TVA built dams, at once helping to preserve the natural resources of the Tennessee Valley, but also inadvertently destroying some of them. The CCC enlisted able-bodied young men to dig ditches, plant trees, and beautify parks.

Silent Spring

World War II and the Cold War put the issue of conservation on the backburner for some time, but a new movement would emerge in the 1960s, initiated by the writings and efforts of one woman. By far the most influential piece of literature written on the subject, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) forecast the terrible consequences of the damage being done to the environment by field chemicals such as DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane). Carson, a marine biologist, had studied the effects of chemicals and pesticides on plants, animals, and water. She found that these chemicals disturbed the natural balance of the ecosystem, poisoning birds and fish, and endangering the humans who eat them. "The most alarming of all man's assault's upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials." Carson wrote, "This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world—the very nature of its life" (p. 6).

Silent Spring sent a shock wave throughout the nation. Many people had assumed that the government protected them from harmful substances such as DDT. They were outraged to learn that industry might be poisoning them. The outcry was tremendous, the environmentalist movement grew, and Congress was forced to act.

Legislation and Other Government Initiatives

In 1969 Congress passed the National Environment Policy Act. This Act established a general policy for protecting the environment; it required that all government agencies give proper consideration to the environment before initiating or approving projects. In 1970 Congress passed the Clean Air Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The Clean Air Act regulates air emissions from area, stationary, and mobile sources. The Occupational Safety and Health Act provides for worker safety, protecting workers from toxic chemicals, excessive noise, mechanical dangers, poor climate conditions, and unsanitary settings. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created to enforce these standards nationwide.

In 1970, under President Richard Nixon, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was formed. The EPA was established to enforce environmental standards, conduct research, help other organizations in reducing pollution through grants and technical assistance, and make recommendations to the president and the Council of Environmental Quality on ways to protect the environment. William D. Ruckelshaus was appointed the EPA's first administrator; he promised that the agency would "be as forceful as the laws that Congress has provided." Since its formation, the EPA has taken an active role in reducing hazardous emissions, restricting toxic wastes, and cleaning up oil spills and other environmental disasters.

In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments, which would come to be known as the Clean Water Act (CWA). This Act established standards for regulating water pollution and gave the EPA the power to develop pollution control programs. The CWA also set water quality standards and limited contaminants in surface water. Industries were required to obtain a permit to discharge pollutants into water and were fined if they were found to be dumping waste into bodies of water.

The Act proved to be very effective. According to the EPA, in 1972 only a third of the nation's waters were safe for fishing and swimming; that had increased to twothirds by the early twenty-first century. Wetland losses were estimated to be about 460,000 acres a year, whereas today they are estimated to be between 70,000 and 90,000 acres a year. Agricultural runoff in 1972 was estimated to cause 2.25 billion tons of soil to erode and phosphorus and nitrogen to be deposited in many waters; runoff has been cut by about one billion tons annually, and phosphorus and nitrogen deposits have decreased.

Congress also passed the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act in 1972. This Act authorized the EPA to study the effects of pesticides and to regulate their distribution. Users, from the small-time farmer to large utility companies, were required to register with the EPA if purchasing pesticides. Later amendments to the Act forced pesticide users to take certification exams. In addition, all pesticides used must be registered with the EPA.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was the first law passed specifically to protect plants, animals, and their habitats. The Act created two lists: one for endangered species and one for threatened species; anyone can petition for a plant or animal to appear on the list. Currently, 632 species are listed as "endangered"; 190 are listed as "threatened." Killing, trading, or transporting any of these species is expressly prohibited. The Act also allows the EPA to issue emergency suspensions of certain pesticides that may adversely affect endangered species.

The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 authorized the EPA to establish standards for owners or operators of public water systems. In 1976, Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act, which gave the EPA the power to track the 75,000 industrial chemicals being produced by or imported into the United States. This Act was accompanied by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which granted the EPA the authority to regulate hazardous waste from "cradle to grave." Later amendments provided for the regulation of underground tanks storing hazardous materials such as petroleum and for the phasing out of waste disposal on land.

The 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act provided a "Superfund" for the EPA. The Act allows the EPA to respond quickly to oil spills and other disasters when those responsible cannot be found, or when the situation has become uncontrollable. The EPA can later recover costs from parties deemed responsible. This Act was strengthened by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990—a response to the Exxon Valdez disaster off of Prince William Sound in Alaska.

Conservation has also been advanced through management techniques. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 incorporated the efforts of government and industry to find cost-effective ways to reduce pollution. The Act made it easier for industries to comply with government regulations by opening the door for innovative operating strategies.

International Efforts

The Kyoto Protocol, which opened for signature before the United Nations in 1998, called for thirty-eight industrial countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (which are thought to destroy earth's ozone layer, thus leading to global warming) by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008–2012, including a 7 percent reduction by the United States. President George W. Bush has refused to sign the treaty. In May 2001, seventeen national science academies urged acceptance of Kyoto, declaring that "it is now evident that human activities are already contributing adversely to global climate change. Business as usual is no longer a viable option." In an address to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in February 2002, Bush called for voluntary action to slow the rising use of greenhouse gases.

Initially, the Bush administration had also expressed doubts as to how much of global warming was actually caused by humans. But in a dramatic turnaround in May 2002, the administration blamed human action for global warming for the very first time. Although Bush still declined to sign the treaty, a report was sent to the United Nations outlining the effects that global warming may have on the American environment.

Terrorism has brought a grim new face to conservation and preservation of resources. Fears have been expressed by both the government and the public that terrorists may, for example, try to contaminate drinking water. In June 2002, EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman announced the first round of water security grants, part of a $53-million package designed to help water utilities across the nation address susceptibilities. Whitman noted that there are "168,000 public drinking water facilities," alerting the nation to possible wide scale contamination. The grants will be divided among approximately 400 different areas. "These grants," Whitman declared, "will help ensure that the water people rely on is safe and secure."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brands, H. W. TR: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

Budiansky, Stephen. Nature's Keepers: The New Science of Nature Management. New York: Free Press, 1995.

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.

Findley, Roger W., and Farber, Daniel A. Environmental Law in a Nutshell. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1983.

Gore, Albert. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

Richardson, Joy. The Water Cycle. New York: Franklin Watts, 1992.

Snow, Donald, ed. Voices from the Environmental Movement: Perspectives for a New Era. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992.

Stanley, Phyllis M. Collective Biographies: American Environmental Heroes. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow, 1996.

Weber, Michael L., and Judith A. Gradwohl. The Wealth of Oceans. New York: Norton, 1995.

David Burner

Ross Rosenfeld

See also Clean Air Act ; Clean Water Act ; Endangered Species ; Forest Service ; Water Pollution ; Yellowstone National Park ; Yosemite National Park .