In 1972, the Clean Water Act was established to
protect our waterbodys from pollution. Furthermore, in 1998
the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21)
Restoration Act was established to prohibit possession and
consumption of alcoholic beverages in the passenger areas of motor
land vehicles. The objective of both laws is clearly to
provide a greater degree of public health and safety.
As of July 2011 in South Carolina just within the past 6 months,
there has been a total of 280 recorded sewage overflows (sewage
pipes are containers) spilling 1,870,154 gallons of sewage into
neighborhoods, rivers, and streams, etc. Extrapolating these
numbers from a state level to the country level that comes to
approximately 900 billion gallons of estimated waste water
overflows that is introduced into our public trust waters
illegally. Each open container found in a vehicle is subject
to a fine of let's say a national average of $100.00 per
container.
As of February 2011, the public portion of the overall debt is
9.6 trillion.
900 billion gallons x 128 ounces/gallon = 115.2 trillion ounces
of sewage overflow.
Using just 1% of the motor land vehicle open container fine
amount we get a 0.08333333333 $/ounce fine.
115.2 trillion ounces sewage overflow * 0.08333333333 $/ounce =
$9.6 trillion
Ironically, the total amount of potential fine revenue for
sewage overflows is the same as the "publically" held portion of
the federal budget deficit. If the provisions of the Clean
Water Act were enforced there may be an opportunity to balance the
"publics" portion of the federal budget deficit while at the same
time send a notification to those who pollute our public trust
waters that we are watching out not only for the fishable and
swimmable aspects of our waterbodys but also our health.
-Santee Riverkeeper