The Water Quality Act of 1965 (WQA) was the first major statutory attempt to address the nation’s growing water quality problems. The Act proved to be a weak basis for enforcement authority, but did yield one major improvement: the development of ambient water quality standards. States were called upon to set their own standards and given flexibility to determine how standards would be met. The Act’s major weakness was that it gave no concrete authority to force effluent reductions by specific polluters. It was relatively straightforward to determine if ambient standards were being violated, but much.
