Jennifer Hall-Massey claims contaminated water has caused her 7-year-old son, Ryan, to require extensive dental work. Photo: New York Times

This past Saturday, September 12, the New York Times published a lengthy expose article on the hundreds of thousand of unreported violations of the Clean Water Act. And although the legislation was passed in 1972, the Times only focused on the period of 2002 to 2007...to find over 500,000 violations. Both small business and large are guilty, some of minor infractions such as failing to report emissions, but 60 percent were “significant noncompliance” — meaning their violations were the most serious kind, like dumping cancer-causing chemicals or failing to measure or report when they pollute.

Here are some of the facts:

• An estimated one in 10 Americans has been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways
• An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from drinking water contaminated with parasites, bacteria or viruses
• More than 23 million people received drinking water from municipal systems that violated a health-based standard
• 40 percent of the nation’s community water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act
• Chemicals, inorganic toxins, and heavy metals can accumulate in the body for years or decades before they cause problems. Some of the most frequently detected contaminants have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders
• The number of facilities violating the Clean Water Act grew more than 16 percent from 2004 to 2007 (2008/2009 data not available at this time)
• Fewer than 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations resulted in fines or other significant punishments by state officials

One town just outside of Charleston, West Virginia, has started a lawsuit aimed at the local coal companies mining in the area, and owners of many "slurry ponds". For years, they have suffered from extreme dental problems, burning rashes after taking baths, stomach ulcers, a higher occurance of brain tumors, among many other ailments.

But, despite their tap water testing positively for the exact profile of pollutants that are pumped out by the neighboring coal companies daily, causes of cancer and the other ailments are not completely understood and a direct link is amiguous.

Other reasons for non-report are the usual: Underfunding, powerful lobbyists, politicians with agendas, and overwhelming bureaucracy. For those few idealistic environment lawmakers who join the cause, the battle is a study in uphill drudgery, leaving many casualities. 

For this article, the Times created some incredibly useful tools for checking the pollution in your area.

National Database of Water Pollution Violations

Interactive Version of Community Violations

State Enforcement Records

Read the whole artice here.