TABLE OF CONTENTS The plethora of laws, rules, regulations, ordinances, and restrictions that regulate the discharge of industrial liquid wastes, the management and disposal of industrial solid wastes, and the emission of airborne pollutants present a truly formidable challenge to anyone attempting to become knowledgeable in the area of environmental compliance. These environmental laws and regulations are published in hundreds of documents; and new laws and regulations are written, passed, and promulgated every year by dozens of local, county, state, and federal legislative bodies and executive rule-making agencies. The great majority of the presently enforceable laws and their implementing regulations have been promulgated during the past 35 years.
Most states have had regulations forbidding the pollution of surface water and groundwater since well before the 1950s. For instance, the Pennsylvania State Legislature passed the Clean Streams Act in 1937, which created the Sanitary Water Board and empowered it to administer the law as interpreted by the Board and implemented by a bureau. The Clean Streams Act expressly prohibited the discharge of industrial wastes to waters of the Commonwealth, which included groundwater as well as surface water. Industrial waste was broadly defined as any liquid, gaseous, or solid substance, not sewage, resulting from any manufacturing or industry. As one of its first items of business, the Board issued a number of rules, including a requirement that all facilities for industrial waste treatment apply for and be granted a permit before commencing construction. The Pennsylvania Department of Health...
