Great topic Wayne. We've cleaned up alot of the pollution in our lakes and rivers since the clean water act was passed almost 5 decades ago.

Clean Water Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Act

This is how bad the water pollution used to be:        

The fable of the burning river, 45 years later

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/22/the-fable-of-the-burning-river-45-years-later/?utm_term=.b194d2eec036

The reality is that the 1969 Cuyahoga fire was not a symbol of how bad conditions on the nation’s rivers could become, but how bad they had once been. The 1969 fire was not the first time an industrial river in the United States had caught on fire, but the last.  Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, river fires were common.  There were at least 13 on the Cuyahoga alone, but rivers in Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and elsewhere had fires as well.

Cuyahoga River

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River

Water Scarcity for 5 Cities?

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/31785/

Legislation must be enacted, proper laws, with real teeth to enforce the protection of our precious water resources.
 
Wayne, you are right, but enviroment protection is not a priority for the current administration, while dismantling protection seems to be.

The Mississippi River is the 15th largest river in the world discharging 16,792 cubic meters (593,003 cubic feet) of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico.

A free resource for a fleet of container ships for suppling water to drought stricken cities.

The EPA had all the regulations they needed to clean up our water by the end of the 70's, and as a result,  our water is much better now. But new regulations have been added almost every year since. Lot's of them.  Many/most downright stoopit.   We can roll back "clean Water" regs to the early 80's and still be doing great.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/03/drinking-water-safety-in-united-sates-can-be-fixed/#close

This story appears in the March 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine. 

As we mark World Water Day on March 22, the disturbing truth is that roughly a quarter of Americans drink from water systems that violate the Safe Drinking Water Act. Violations range from failing to properly test water to allowing dangerous levels of lead or arsenic—and occur everywhere: in rural communities and big cities, in red states and blue ones.

The lead contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, was extreme—and shocking because of the role that race played. However, it was not an isolated case, and we need to consider it a national wake-up call.

Across the country, water systems are old, badly maintained, and in dire need of modernizing—from lead service lines in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Newark, New Jersey, to silt and debris in drinking water after heavy rain in Austin, Texas, to fecal contamination in Penn Township, Pennsylvania. Worse, some are managed by dysfunctional agencies where incompetence and socioeconomic and racial bias may determine whether a community is made sick by its drinking water. The reality is that we can no longer assume that our water is safe to drink.

Here is my one and only experience with the EPA.

The EPA mandated that the county I live in, update their sewer system because there was still some sewage getting into the Ohio River.

Know that I'm an environmentalist and believe that this is absolutely a good idea. The plan, originally would cost 1 billion but they got it down to 729 million and told us that we were getting a great deal as they more than doubled our water and sewer cost, on the way to tripling in order to pay for it over the next decade.

https://wiky.com/news/articles/2016/feb/25/evansville-epa-reach-agreement-to-update-sewer-system/

Part of this plan, involved updated and fixing all the sewer pipes in the entire county, even places like where I live, 10 miles from the Ohio River and where sewage would never effect anything except right in that spot where it might leak out.

So 3 years ago, I wake up one morning to find a back hoe, big truck and 8 guys with shovels tearing up my front lawn and irrigation system.  I ran out there to find out what the heck were doing.

Just following orders. They told me there is a cracked sewer line on my property,  according to their guys x-rays pictures from 6 months ago and part of the EPA agreement noted above requires that they have to fix all the cracked sewer lines in the county. 

 I am outraged and insist that there is no sewer line where the are digging and they just ripped up my irrigation system. 

Nice guys. I even know the crew boss from the gym who gives me the name and number of the head honcho downtown to call about this.

I call downtown and that guy tells me that the city has an easement to do what they want to on my property within 15 feet of the street and they don't have to tell me anything about it and the EPA is the one that I should be mad at because they mandated the repairs that need to be done on my property. I am furious with him for defending the city not even leaving me a notice that they were coming and being arrogant about it and insist they messed up because there is no sewer line in that spot. We have words, then I go back outside to monitor the crew.

By this time they figured out that there is no sewer line in that spot like I said even after tearing a hole 3 times as big as needed to try to find the sewer line that's supposed to be there. 

So 8 guys with shovels stand around and wait for a couple of hours, for them to get some updated pictures of the sewer system in this subdivision to figure out where the sewer lines are in order to dig in the right spot. 

I call the head honcho back and he has already been told that they messed up from the crew and now is Mr. Nice Guy and apologizing for everything but still telling me that the EPA mandate is why they are there.

So they get the blue prints for the sewer system and realize they were 15 feet off. New hole that is in the right spot this time(outside my irrigation system that was tore up needlessly before).

I was anxious to see this damaged sewer line, skeptical that it needed to be repaired. They find the spot but there doesn't appear to be any damage. And there certainly isn't any leakage and the sewer line is actually one of the newest ones in this county. They cut out the pipe and sure enough, the tiniest hairline fracture is there on the underside of the pipe and it probably would have never leaked for decades if ever. They told me that it probably happened when they installed the system in 1987.

So I call downtown again to ask the guy how they rate priorities in deciding to fix sewer lines and how a minuscule crack in a new sewer system got such high priority when there had to be hundreds of other more important jobs.

I get him to explain the system. They rate pipes/lines on a scale from 1-5.  A 1 is a newly installed sewer. A 5 is an emergency break gushing out sewage. This tiny crack in our sewer line was rated as a 2. What the heck? Didn't you have a bunch or 3's and 4's that should have been fixed first?

He tells me he will get back with me.  The next day he calls and tells me that he spoke with the guy who took the underground images and that guy told him that he could have rated this as a 3 if he had wanted, so I should consider that my tiny crack was really a 3, not a 2.

Right. What we had was 8 guys paid for being here 6 hours, my irrigation system torn up  because of a mistake and front lawn torn up to fix a hairline crack in a non leaking sewer pipe because the EPA's mandate required it........part of a 700+ million dollar project(that we are all paying for) to keep the Ohio River, 10 miles from here, clean. 

So Carl,  which regulations, that BTW were in place when the dem government in Flint totally screwed up the water system in a "Cost cutting move", has Trump since rolled back?

There is a thought among some that most, if not all government regulations are good things and rolling any of them back places us all at risk. . That is often not the case.

And Mike,   your story is just one examples of several thousands.  The updated "Wet Land" regulations  over the last few decades, for example,  are a scary joke.

So Carl,  which regulations, that BTW were in place when the dem government in Flint totally screwed up the water system in a "Cost cutting move", has Trump since rolled back?

http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/trump-watch-epa/regulatory-rollbacks/

Trump’s “Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth,” directs that “[t]he heads of agencies shall review all existing regulations… that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources.”

The source has statements about the following:

Streams and Wetlands:  Water Pollution from Coal Plants : Toxic Coal Ash Pollution:   Climate Change:   Air Pollution Released During Industrial Malfunctions,   Startups, and Shutdowns:   Air Pollution from Oil and Gas Facilities:   Smog:  Fuel Efficiency Standards for Future Cars and Light Trucks:  Methane Pollution on Federal Lands:    Protections for Streams from Coal Mining Waste:  Mining:  Pesticides:   Chemical Plant Safety Rule:

carl, that sounds threatening and scary I bet there are pages on global warning as well

I bet there are pages on global warning as well

Just one paragraph, mc.

Climate Change:

On October 10, 2017, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a notice proposing a repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which requires utilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.  On December 28, 2017, EPA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to requesting comments on considerations for a potential replacement rule establishing greenhouse gas emissions guidelines for individual power plants, but no new rule has yet been proposed.  The Clean Power Plan, finalized August 3, 2015, is a central regulatory effort to curb climate change and the first federal regulatory attempt to curb carbon emissions from power plants, the largest source of such emissions.  This regulation was projected to add tens of thousands of renewable energy jobs by 2040 in addition to generating up to $54 billion in health and climate benefits, avoiding 90,000 childhood asthma attacks, and avoiding 3,600 premature deaths in 2030 due to reduced air pollution. EPA Administrator Pruitt had challenged the Clean Power Plan in four separate actions as Oklahoma Attorney General.  On the very same day Trump issued his executive order targeting certain environmental rules such as the Clean Power Plan for rollback or repeal, EPA announced that it would be reviewing the rule and would, if appropriate, initiate proceedings to suspend, revise, or rescind the rule and also moved to put pending litigation on the rule on hold.

So, at the least,  portions of the regulations are based on junk science.

Fine. Cut all the junk projections in half, and then let's wait for the Headlines.

We've been getting pretty much the same "junk projections" for about 40 years now.   They are updated regularly. Always 10-12 years from NOW.

It astounds me that people contiue to take them seriously.

what are you talking about Tim? don't you remember the flooding of the Empire state building from global warming {aka algore} and just hold on AOC says 12 more years buddy, just 12 more years

On the road right now.

CO2 is a beneficial gas not a pollutant.

There has not even been 1 premature death from breathing ambient atmospheric levels of it, not even 1 asma attack triggered from breathing it and not 1 creature harmed in any way from breathing it since humans have existed.

The current climate optimum has featured the best weather and climate for life and food production in 1,000 years. Adding the beneficial CO2, makes it the best for life since the Holocene Climate Optimum that was much warmer than this between 5,000 and 9,000 years ago. 

The EPA-s endangerment finding which allows it to regulate CO2 as a pollutant is one of the biggest piles of dung in political history, masquerading as science.

I’m a passenger in a car right now ori would show it to you.

Keep in mind that I’m an environmentalist.

I conserve water and energy, I turn the ac completely off in the Summer when my wife is not home and the heat down to as low as50 in the winter when she’s gone.....seriously-I damaged her tropical plants a couple of times-I wear a sweat shirt, my winter jacket, a hat and gloves with finger holes to type on the computer.

I  minimize use of plastics and paper/ cardboard. We used to recycle but got out of that routine. My kids would collect aluminum cans, crush them then we would sell them. They made $100 doing this.

I also exercise vigorously and exhale massive amounts of beneficial CO2 to do my part in helping to green up the planet (-:

Unless you are very active or get dirty, there is no need to shower every day. I shower after exercise or working outside and getting dirty. Showering every day Is a waste of water if you just do it out of habit. Green lawns are aethestically appealing but they waste billions of gallons of water.

The point of telling you this is that the hypocritical gatekeepers of the information that brainwash us about the fake climate crisis are maximizing their use of those fossil fuels to enjoy all the comforts they provide in their lives.......and calling people like me deniers for providing authentic science that contradicts their scary, speculative computer model simulations going out for the next 100 years.

And they have the gumption to tell us exactly what we have to do or we will lose the planet in 12 years, with solutions that will have zero effect on climate and don’t address any real environmental problems with our water, air or soils.

Mike, the subject of the thread was Water Pollution. Climate change was only one of sixteen subjects mentioned in the articles I referenced, and I only posted Climate Change because of mc's post..

"bet there are pages on global warning as well"

"Just one paragraph, mc."
 

Taking fresh water from the Mississippi might screw up the gulf which has been evolving for eons with it's contribution.  I live on the Hudson in New York and Exxon got fined for stealing it's fresh water above the salt line near Poughkeepsie. 

They need to regulate the chemicals used in fracking.  For ever they have been using the waste products from refining oil that they couldn't get rid of.

Sorry Carl. I realize you were just copying what was there in response to mc and not making a statement about a personal conviction.

I wish I had the time to debunk  the entirety of the source from the "Energy Integrity Project".  Side note,  ever notice when groups use words like "Fair" and "Integrity" in their titles,  they often are actually far from either? 

 My original question "Which regulations that were in place when the dems caused the Flint water mess..." was never answered.   But EIP's attempt to decry the deregulation of creek beds that are usually dry, other than after rain/snow events and the temporary wetlands, which are usually dry, was a bellringer of just who these people are.  Those new regulations enacted during the Obama admin gave the EPA power over just about every square inch of land in this country and were an absolute over reach.  That temporary wetlands thing alone caused a lot of farmers far more grief than anything Met Mike experienced.

Anyway,  here's one article that is directed towards a piece by National Geographic that sourced Energy "Integrity".

   https://www.energyindepth.org/fort-cherry-emissions-study-debunks-national-geographic-hit-piece-on-fracking-and-health/

"

The National Geographic Voices Blog published a story by the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) this week aimed at stoking fears over unfounded claims that volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from shale development pose a threat to public health.

Considering the piece was authored by a “reporter” from the Environmental Integrity Project — which receives funding from the anti-fracking Park Foundation and was responsible for a 2014 report that incorrectly claimed wells were being fracked with diesel — it comes as no surprise the story’s claims are not only based entirely on the anecdotal accounts of an anti-fracking activist, but also completely ignores the fact that the story’s central claim has been completely debunked."

My original question "Which regulations that were in place when the dems caused the Flint water mess..." was never answered.

Tim, while I do relish research, I do have a life beyond Market Forum. Such a project would be very time consuming and I'll leave it to you to prove your point. 

My point is easily proven and even your wildly biased and slanted reference supports that no regulations were repealed that should/could have prevented the dem mismanagement/poisoning of Flints water supply

Taking fresh water from the Mississippi might screw up the gulf which has been evolving for eons with it's contribution.

Lacey, I'm suggesting extraction after it enters the Gulf, which would not affect the mainland. The fresh water does not immediately mix with the salt water, and any amount recovered would be miniscule compared to the flow.

Since such an operation would take place within the territorial waters of the US, legislation similar to fishing rights would be required.