User:Serg2002/Groundwater pollution

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), protects groundwater by regulating the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as "Superfund," requires remediation of abandoned hazardous waste sites.

In November 2006, EPA published its Ground Water Rule, due to concerns that public water systems supplied by ground water would be vulnerable to contamination from harmful microorganisms, including fecal matter. The objective of the regulation, promulgated under the authority of the Safe Drinking Water Act, is to keep microbial pathogens out of public water sources.

Congress recognized that injection wells were a potential threat to groundwater quality when they passed the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of 1974. This instructed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create a national program that would prevent underground injection activities that would endanger underground drinking sources. The EPA must regulate underground injection of fluids and wastes through wells that discharge or may release such material into or above an underground reservoir of drinkable water. The EPA has promoted several Underground Injection Control (UCI) regulations in order to protect underground reservoirs of drinkable water from being contaminated.

Society and culture
Examples

San Joaquin, US

Researchers from Stanford started a study into the effects of intensive pumping in San Joaquin county, California. San Joaquin county has faced serious intensive pumping which has caused the ground below San Joaquin to sink and in turn damaged infrastructure. This intensive pumping into groundwater has allowed arsenic to move into groundwater aquifers which supply drinking water to at least a million residents and used in irrigation for crops in some of the richest farmland in the US. Aquifers are made up of sand and gravel that are separated by thin layers of clay which acts as a sponge that holds onto water and arsenic. When water is pumped intensively, the aquifer compresses and ground sinks which leads to the clay releasing arsenic. Study shows that aquifers contaminated as a result from over pumping, they can recover if withdrawals stop.

India

In India the government has proceeded to promote sanitation development in order to combat the rise in ground water contamination in several regions of the country. The effort has proved to show results and has decreased the groundwater pollution and has decreased the chance of sickness for mothers and children, something greatly needed as a great number of children die every day due to consuming polluted water. The countries effort has seen success in the more economically developed sections of the country.