Saturday is the 25th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, but there’s still much work to be done to clean up polluted beaches, rivers and streams across the country: A recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency found that more than half the 2,000 watersheds in the United States suffer from pollution problems.
     Actor Ted Danson, co-founder of the American Oceans Campaign, and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood on the banks of the Potomac River to call on Congress to go further to protect the country’s water.
     “The Clean Water Act announced in its primary objective that all [water] pollution would cease in this country by 1985,” Kennedy told ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America. “That didn’t happen and that’s because there was a large loophole in the Clean Water Act, which was polluted runoff.”

Runoff Causes Most Water Pollution

This runoff, also known as “nonpoint source” pollution because it doesn’t come from a pipe or other single outlet, is responsible for about 60 percent of U.S. water pollution, Kennedy said.
     Polluted runoff comes primarily from city streets and farm fields, he said. Airborne pollutants, washed out of the air by rain, also contribute heavily to water pollution.
     Kennedy said that while the federal government has invested $67 billion in sewage treatment since 1972, it has spent less than half a billion dollars to control polluted runoff.