Question

Develop a brief essay of which of which type of regulation may be best from an efficiency perspective( i.e., meet the goal at the least cost) for a point-source, regional pollutant, and a non-point source, global pollutant.

Answer 1

Point source water pollution comes from discrete conveyances and alters the chemical, biological, and physical characteristics of water. In the United States, it is largely regulated by the Clean Water Act (CWA). Among other things, the Act requires dischargers to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to legally discharge pollutants into a water body. Consequently, other regulatory approaches have emerged, such as water quality trading and voluntary community-level efforts.

point source pollution regulation:

The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 contained provisions that made discharging refuse matter into navigable waters of the United States illegal without a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.The focus of the law was controlling obstructions to navigation, such as dumping refuse into rivers, and discharging oil from ships and boats. Most legal analysts have concluded that the 1899 law did not address environmental impacts from pollution, such as sewage or industrial discharges.

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is widely dispersed in the environment and is associated with a variety of human activities. These activities produce pollutants such as nutrients, toxic substances, sediment, and microorganisms that may be delivered to nearby waterbodies following rainfall or directly via atmospheric deposition. Under pristine conditions, land generally has an enormous capacity to remove pollutants from rainwater. However, activities that produce NPS pollution also cause changes in vegetative cover, disturbance of soil, or alteration of the path and rate of water flow. These physical changes may prevent the land from naturally removing pollutants in stormwater.

There are two interacting effects of NPS activities: (1) production of a pollutant and (2) alteration of the land surface in a way that increases pollutant loading to receiving waters. The goals of NPS pollution best management practice (BMPs) are to maintain or restore the ability of the land to remove pollutants and to limit production of the pollutant.

Nonpoint source (NPS) water pollution regulations are environmental regulations that restrict or limit water pollution from diffuse or nonpoint effluent sources such as polluted runoff from agricultural areas in a river catchments or wind-borne debris blowing out to sea. In the United States, governments have taken a number of legal and regulatory approaches to controlling NPS effluent. Nonpoint water pollution sources include, for example, leakage from underground storage tanks, storm water runoff, atmospheric deposition of contaminants, and golf course, agricultural, and forestry runoff. Nonpoint sources are the most significant single source of water pollution in the United States, accounting for almost half of all water pollution and agricultural runoff is the single largest source of nonpoint source water pollution.