APPENDIX
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
15a<br />
NPDES permit program because it was “virtually<br />
impossible to trace pollutants to specific irrigation<br />
lands, making these pollutants a nonpoint source in<br />
most cases.” 118 Cong. Rec. 10765 (Mar. 29, 1972).<br />
Opponents objected that the amendment would exclude<br />
large point source polluters simply because the<br />
channeled water originally derived from irrigated<br />
agriculture. Congressman Waldie explained:<br />
In California there is a vast irrigation basin<br />
that collects all the waste resident of irrigation<br />
water in the Central Valley and places<br />
it in a drain—the San Luis Draining—and<br />
transport[s] it several hundreds of miles and<br />
then dumps it into the San Joaquin River<br />
which flows into the estuary and then into<br />
San Francisco Bay. It is highly polluted water<br />
that is being dumped in waters already<br />
jeopardized by pollution.<br />
Will the gentleman’s amendment establish<br />
that as a nonpoint source pollution or will it<br />
come under the point source solution discharge?<br />
Id. Congressman Roncalio responded that his<br />
amendment would not require permitting for this<br />
type of activity—that is, that it would redefine these<br />
agricultural point sources as nonpoint source pollution.<br />
His amendment was then rejected on the House<br />
floor. See id.<br />
Congress eventually adopted a statutory exemption<br />
for agricultural irrigation in 1977, five years after<br />
the passage of the FWPCA. See CWA § 402(l), 33<br />
U.S.C. § 1342(l) (“The Administrator shall not require<br />
a permit under this section for discharges composed<br />
entirely of return flows from irrigated agricul-