{"id":5424,"date":"2015-08-25T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T15:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/?p=5424"},"modified":"2019-09-24T11:12:51","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T17:12:51","slug":"maintaining-water-quality-the-clean-water-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coleparmer.com\/blog\/maintaining-water-quality-the-clean-water-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Maintaining Water Quality: the Clean Water Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Polluted water<\/a> impairs the health of individuals, endangers wildlife, and increases water treatment costs. About 44% of assessed streams and 64% of assessed lake acres are not clean enough to allow fishing and swimming, according to the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> (EPA).Pollutants may include any number of chemicals and nutrients, but the leading violators include bacteria, mercury, phosphorus, nitrogen, and organic material.<\/p>\n

While water quality was the impetus behind the Clean Water Act, legalized in 1972, the Act was unclear when it came to protecting many US waterways. The Clean Water Rule<\/a>, finalized in May 2015, protects streams and wetlands scientifically shown to have the greatest impact on downstream water quality and which form the foundation of US water sources.<\/p>\n

Measuring Water Quality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Water quality is seldom a constant in any body of water. When it rains, contaminants<\/a> such as oil, grease, chemicals from motor vehicles, pesticides, road salts, and more run off streets untreated into rivers, lakes, and bays. Nitrate runoff from fertilizer can concentrate in drinking water if not removed by water treatment.<\/p>\n

Water scientists test water using equipment designed to detect these contaminants. Measurement instruments used in the field and in the laboratory include:<\/p>\n