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The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters by preventing point and nonpoint pollution sources, providing assistance to publicly owned treatment works for the improvement of wastewater treatment, and maintaining the integrity of wetlands. It is one of the United States' first and most influential modern environmental laws. As with many other major U.S. federal environmental statutes, it is administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in coordination with state governments. Its implementing regulations are codified at 40 C.F.R. Subchapters D, N, and O (Parts 100-140, 401-471, and 501-503). Technically, the name of the law is the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.〔See EPA, (Summary of the Clean Water Act ) ("Clean Water Act" is the law's "common name," including link to Senate version of the Act with proper title).〕 The first FWPCA was enacted in 1948, but took on its modern form when completely rewritten in 1972 in an act entitled the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972.〔(Pub.L. 92-500 ), October 18, 1972.〕 Major changes have subsequently been introduced via amendatory legislation including the Clean Water Act of 1977〔(Pub.L. 95-217 ), December 27, 1977.〕 and the Water Quality Act of 1987.〔(Pub.L. 100-4 ), February 4, 1987.〕 The Clean Water Act does not directly address groundwater contamination. Groundwater protection provisions are included in the Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Superfund act. ==Waters protected under the CWA == All waters with a "significant nexus" to "navigable waters" are covered under the CWA; however, the phrase "significant nexus" remains open to judicial interpretation and considerable controversy. The 1972 statute frequently uses the term "navigable waters," but also defines the term as "waters of the United States, including the territorial seas."〔CWA 502 (7); .〕 Some regulations interpreting the 1972 law have included water features such as intermittent streams, playa lakes, prairie potholes, sloughs and wetlands as "waters of the United States." In the 2006 case ''Rapanos v. United States,'' a plurality of the Supreme Court held that the term "waters of the United States": :...includes only those relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water "forming geographic features" that are described in ordinary parlance as "streams() ... oceans, rivers, () lakes." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Clean Water Act」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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