Air pollution may cause enflamed eyes and nose and an itchy, irritated throat, as well as problems in respiration. A number of chemicals found in polluted air cause cancer, birth defects, brain and nerve damage and long- term injury to the lungs and breathing passages. Some air pollutants are so hazardous that accidental releases can cause severe injury or even death. Air pollution might damage the environment like trees, lakes and animals have been harmed by air pollution.
Air pollutants have thinned the protective ozone layer over the Earth; this thrashing of the ozone might ause changes in the environment as well as more skin cancer and cataracts in people. Air pollution may damage property. It is capable of dirtying buildings and other structures. Some common pollutants eat away stone, damaging buildings, monuments and statues. Air pollution can cause haze, reducing visibility in national parks and sometime can interfere with aviation. The Clean Air Act will better air quality in the United States, a good thing for your health, your property and the environment.
The 1990 Act could change the way you work or do business, and it could, in some ways, hange the way you live. The 1990 Clean Air Act is lengthy about 800 pages because it tackles many difficult and complicated air pollution problems. Clean Air Act, federal legislation planned to standardize and decrease air pollution in the United States. The original Clean Air Act was approved by the Congress of the United States and signed into law in 1963, but not much of that original legislation remains in effect in the present day. The Clean Air Act has two main objectives: #1.
To recover the nation’s air quality and, #2. To decrease or abolish certain air pollutants that has een linked to problems for human health or the environment. The Clean Air Act designates maximum allowable levels of pollutants from automotive and industrial emissions and sets general standards for acceptable levels of pollution in the air. The Clean Air Act also includes a permit program. The permit program requires businesses to register the type and quantity of air pollution they will be releasing into the air and to make commitments to reduce future harmful emissions.
The Clean Air Act has done much to improve the nation’s air uality since its implementation. EPA statistics indicate that from 1985 to 1995, the average number of days that U. S. metropolitan areas failed to meet federal air-quality standards was reduced by half. The EPA estimates that from 1970 to 1996, carbon monoxide emissions were cut by 31 percent, particulate matter emissions fell by 79 percent, and lead emissions declined by 98 percent. Clean Water Act Clean Water Act, federal legislation expected to reduce water contamination in the United States.
The Clean Water Act (CWA) sets the basic organization for regulating ater pollution nationwide, including the discharge of pollutants from large industrial plants and sewage treatment facilities. Under the act, the release of all such pollutants, called point- source discharge, requires a federal permit, and the pollutants released must meet federally mandated sewage treatment standards. The CWA also establishes guidelines for reducing nonpoint pollution, the runoff of toxic matter such as fertilizer, animal waste, motor oil, and pesticides from farms, streets, and lawns into bodies of water.
The Clean Water Act remains one of the most successful pieces of nvironmental legislation in the history of the United States. According to the EPA, the number of U. S. rivers and lakes that are safe for fishing and swimming has risen by more than 70 percent since the early 1970s. The Proposed Clean Air Act President Bush wants to let industrial plants upgrade their facilities without improving air pollution controls. The new rules would give companies more flexibility to modernize or expand without having to install expensive new pollution controls, even though more emissions may result.
Plants with modern pollution controls would not have to upgrade the equipment for 10 years, and a new way of calculating pollution could reduce the chance that new pollution controls would be required. Under the new rule, older plants could avoid installing pollution- control equipment when they replace items such as a turbine or boiler, provided the cost does not exceed 20 percent of the replacement value of the entire unit . The effects of the act can cause respiratory disease in people and animals and can damage trees, lakes, and soil as well as human-made structures.
The Proposed Clean Water Act The Bush administration issued an immediate policy guidance that would remove protections from many of our small streams, ponds and wetlands that appear to be disconnected from major rivers and lakes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the guidance alone places at risk 20% of the United States’ remaining wetlands, some 20 million acres. EPA’s most recent data show that the nation’s waters are getting dirtier and nearly half of the rivers, streams, lakes and coastal estuaries are not safe for fishing, swimming, or boating.
Place sources of community drinking water at risk, and increase treatment costs to remove pollutants. Threaten public health from contact with bacteria, pathogens, toxics, and other pollutants in waters that would no longer be protected from all types of industrial discharges. Reduce and potentially destroy endangered or threatened wildlife species. Allow destruction of many seasonal wetlands that serve as nurseries for juvenile frogs, toads, salamanders and other species, and small streams that are essential to sustain healthy populations of fish, amphibians and other aquatic species.