Federal Government and Estuarine Pollution Abatement

Estuaries are a valuable and vulnerable natural resource of national importance, the history of which has been steady and accelerating destruction from physical, chemical, and biological pollution. Coordinated national action is urgently needed to protect and restore the estuaries. The Federal role today is two fold: (1) Pollution control actions to the fullest extent of our present knowledge and legal authority to limit and prevent damage now being done to the estuaries and to restore the damaged environment; and (2) simultaneously, studies by several federal agencies on various aspects of estuarine pollution and its control in order to fill the large gaps in our knowledge and recommend stronger estuarine pollution control programs.