Hastings Law Journal Volume 34 | Issue 5 Article 9 5-1983 Water-Quality Standards, Maximum Loads, and the Clean Water Act: The eedN for Judicial Enforcement Lawrence S. Bazel Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Lawrence S. Bazel, Water-Quality Standards, Maximum Loads, and the Clean Water Act: The Need for Judicial Enforcement, 34 Hastings L.J. 1245 (1983). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol34/iss5/9 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Comments Water-Quality Standards, Maximum Loads, and the Clean Water Act: The Need for Judicial Enforcement In 1972, Congress replaced the existing Federal Water Pollution Control Act with what has become known as the Clean Water Act.' a complicated 2 and ambitious program in- The new Act established 3 tended to eliminate water pollution. Congress incorporated two methods of pollution control into the Act. The first regulates wastewater discharges; it requires all point sources,4 which are primarily industries and municipalities, to use the "best practicable" and "best available" technologies for treating waste- water.5 The second method regulates the cleanliness of the nation's waters. Simply described, it requires federal and state pollution-con- trol agencies to find pollution problems and solve them. To find problems, the agencies must divide the nation's waters into segments, set water-quality standards (WQS) for each segment, and discover which segments are violating their WQS.