This summary was developed by Comprehensive Environmental Incorporated (CEI) for our clients. CEI is an environmental consulting firm, specializing in environmental services related to these laws. For more information contact CEI at 800-725-2550.

Environmental Acts as listed below began at the federal level, passed by Congress as Acts or Laws. Each designates the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with setting the required regulations under each law.

At the state level, each law is typically implemented by the state environmental agency. The state environmental agency then obtains primacy, or implementation and enforcement authority over most environmental laws and develops its own regulations. The state may make the regulations more stringent than the federal requirements, but they may not be less strict. EPA retains oversight authority over the implementation of all these laws.

The following summarize some of the major environmental laws existing today that have far-reaching effects on municipalities.

Clean Air Act (CAA)
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)
Clean Water Act (CWA)
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)

Clean Air Act (CAA)

This Act covers air quality and air emissions from power plants, industries and automobiles. The most significant amendment was in 1990, adding provisions to control ozone, acid rain, smog and air toxics. New regulations implementing the 1990 amendments will still be promulgated in the next few years. Originally passed in 1955, the Clean Air Act was amended to create a more rigorous law in 1970. The goal of the 1970 law was to achieve National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) in all states by 1975. It was then amended in 1977 to set new dates, since the NAAQS had not yet been met. The Act was then amended again in 1990 to address acid rain, ground-level ozone, stratospheric ozone depletion and air toxics. This act affects fleet vehicles, transportation networks and emissions from generators and treatment facilities, among others.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is a 1980 law that deals with abandoned hazardous waste sites. It was amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) in 1986 increasing state involvement and citizen participation. While Superfund sites were the focus in past years, a new initiative by EPA called "Brownfields" deals with less contaminated, underused sites where the potential liability for hazardous wastes issues has hampered redevelopment of the site. This area is currently highly active.

The emphasis in CERCLA on Superfund is gradually moving towards the Brownfields program, designed to address the multi-tude of sites that are less contaminated but still difficult to redevelop - often vacant lots or derelict manufacturing buildings. The purpose is to recycle old "brown" sites in cities and towns, boosting local employment of neglected areas, before clearing and developing new "green" sites that add to the air pollution burden with new roads and subdivisions.

This law, known originally as "Superfund," was passed in 1980, creating a tax on chemical and petroleum industries and establishing broad federal authority to respond directly to hazardous waste releases. The fund is used for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites, with the cleanups done either by the Potentially Responsible Party (PRP) with EPA or State oversight, or by EPA and the State directly.

In many cases, EPA attorneys attempt to recover the costs of the cleanup from the PRPs, which may number in the dozens or more, depending on the site. Many industries and agencies may have been named as PRPs if they disposed of wastes at sites that were later listed under Superfund or if they owned lands that became contaminated. Most communities have Superfund sites, which often take years to clean up because of the legal issues, intensive study and protocols involved under EPA rules.

Only sites that are listed on the National Priorities List (NPL)using specific criteria may be addressed under Superfund. As a result, many sites are not addressed in most states (although some have aggressive programs of their own), and communities are left with the burden of contaminated sites that are difficult to redevelop because of the contamination. To address this problem, EPA has begun Superfund redevelopment pilots and is using the "Brownfields" program to address other contaminated sites.

Clean Water Act (CWA)

The Clean Water Act is one of the oldest environmental laws. Today it covers a broad array of programs, including the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit process for municipal and industrial point source discharges into U.S. waterways. Currently, emphasis is on the regulation of non point sources of pollution (storm water) using a watershed based, pollutant-loading approach. This is now a highly active area of regulation.

Although the treatment of point source discharges has improved water quality significantly over the last 15 years, the fishable, swimmable goals of the Clean Water Act have not been met in many segments of U.S. waterways, largely due to nonpoint source pollution, or storm water. Thus, major new regulations, including Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) regulations are now in the development process.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, also known as RCRA (pronounced "rick-rah"), was passed in 1976. Its most prominent feature is the "cradle to grave" hazardous waste system, regulating storage and use of hazardous materials, and then storage and disposal of the wastes created from their use.

Hazardous and solid wastes are the primary focus of this Act. The law was passed in 1976 in an effort to control all varieties of solid waste disposal, to encourage recycling and to promote the use of alternative energy sources, especially those that con-vert waste to energy. The major emphasis of the Act is to control hazardous waste disposal "cradle to grave," with most of the regulations pertaining to industrial handling of hazardous materials and wastes.

More recent emphasis is on municipal solid waste as communities across the U.S. face closure of unlined landfills.

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)

The Safe Drinking Water Acts (SDWA) of 1974, 1986 and 1996 regulate all community sources of drinking water, with a growing list of contaminant based standards that must be met along with performance-based regulations requiring treatment of source waters. This too is a highly active area of the environmental laws, with major new rules on radon and arsenic, among others, pending finalization.

This Act was passed in 1974 with minimal standards for drinking water, basically requiring chlorine disinfection for most surface waters. Regulations on groundwater contaminants, particularly the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that result from solvent waste mismanagement, were implemented in 1989 and many wells were shut down or treated around that time. Regulations on several other contaminants were also implemented, mostly for community water systems.

Amendments were passed in 1986, adding significant new components to the law that required treatment of nearly all surface waters; new monitoring of distribution systems; testing for lead and copper; and the addition of a host of new contaminants to be either regulated outright or studied for regulation. The amendments also called for EPA to study whether all groundwater sources of drinking water should be disinfected.

This resulted in the Groundwater Disinfection Rule now in process. This regulation will require that public water supply wells susceptible to viral contamination be disinfected.