By Alan Farago, Guest Writer and Clean Water Action Member When
the Clean Water Act was passed by Congress forty years ago, I
had no idea how important this landmark federal law would be to
my work as an environmental activist in Florida. On this
important anniversary, I am reminded how far our nation has
come, through landmark legislation created in the 1970’s under a
Republican administration, and how the original purpose of those
laws, including the Clean Water Act, represent the best of
America. I was a freshman in college in 1972. Laws were not
necessarily my primary concern, and the environment seemed fine
to me. That’s just life at twenty. If I had thought for a
minute, I would have remembered walking with grade school
friends to the banks of the Providence River in Rhode Island and
being awed by the sight of the river on fire. The same thing
happened in Ohio on the Cuyahoga. Eventually, this triggered the
calls for federal clean water standards. The Clean Water Act
organized the array of economic and