Research Article
Apr 1972
Clean Water—An Environmental Challenge
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of the Sanitary Engineering Division
Volume 98, Issue 2
Abstract
In 1969 the Porter-Cologne Act in California broke through institutional constraints to link the environmental goals of society to the objectives of water pollution control technology. Historically, technology has been concerned with the concentration of coliform organisms, dissolved oxygen, BOD, and suspended solids. Such limited objectives are no longer adequate because of a broadened concept of beneficial use of water and the need to express its quality in terms of water-sediment-life relationships rather than concentration of impurities. However, the environmental goals of society derive from emotional well-springs and thus, people are expecting more environmental perfection than is possible without sacrificing the benefits of an urban-industrial-agricultural civilization. Particularly, it is necessary to recognize that achievable water quality is determined more by what happens on the land, than how rigid are water quality standards. Moreover, the time has come for engineers to break the traditional constraints of public works and engineering conservatism and to provide imaginative solutions in scale with realizable environmental objectives.
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Published In
Journal of the Sanitary Engineering Division
Volume 98 • Issue 2 • April 1972
Pages: 375 - 378
Copyright
© 1972 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published in print: Apr 1972
Published online: Feb 12, 2021
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Authors
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Percy H. McGauhey, F.ASCE
Prof.; Dept. of Civ. Engrg., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA
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Terms of Use: ASCE Library Cards are for individual, personal use only. Reselling, republishing, or forwarding the materials to libraries or reading rooms is prohibited.
Terms of Use: ASCE Library Cards are for individual, personal use only. Reselling, republishing, or forwarding the materials to libraries or reading rooms is prohibited.