Clean water laws in US severely neglected

The New York Times reports that chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more that half a million times while state officials and the Environmental Protection Agency look on. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the EPA, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene. It is impossible to know just how many illnesses are the result of water pollution, or contaminants' role in the health problems of specific individuals. But concerns over these toxins are great enough that Congress and the E.P.A. regulate more than 100 pollutants through the Clean Water Act and strictly limit 91 chemicals or contaminants in tap water through the Safe Drinking Water Act. Regulators themselves acknowledge lapses. E.P.A. administrator Lisa Jackson, said that despite many successes since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, today the nation's water does not meet public health goals, and enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low. The Times research shows that 1 in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways. And last year, 40 percent of the nation's public water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once.