The Clean Water Act: putting the law to work to clean up Georgia's water

The Clean Water Act was enacted to protect the quality of our nation's waterways. In creating this legislation, Congress initially intended to eliminate all pollution discharges into our waterways. Unfortunately, this goal has not been realized. Instead, under the Act, industries and municipalities are allowed to discharge pollutants into the waters of the state under a program called the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES).

Under this program, an industry or municipality can receive a permit to discharge specific amounts of pollutants. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) has been delegated the authority for setting and enforcing NPDES discharge permit limits by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). NPDES permits are up for renewal every five years. Interested citizens can comment on the permit limits and, in some cases, the EPD holds a public hearing to hear citizen concerns. Permits may be appealed within 30 days of their issuance.

NPDES permit holders are required to submit a monthly Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR) on their discharge. It is self-reported. Georgia does not charge a fee for discharging pollutants into our waterways but the state can assess fines and penalties for permittees who exceed their permit limits. Failure to file a DMR or falsifying a report can also result in a fine.

With the ongoing assistance of attorneys Justine Thompson and Kasey Sturm from the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest and Don Stack and Manjunath Gokare of Stack and Associates, the Altamaha Riverkeeper organization has improved water quality through NPDES permit appeals and Clean Water Act cases.