@ KennyR
"The United States Refuse Act of 1899 is a Federal statute that makes industrial discharges into bodies of water a crime. Every industrial discharge since then has been breaking the law. The statute has been ignored since."
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This one is almost correct. It doesn't say "bodies of water". It says "into any navigable water of the United States, or into any tributary of any navigable water"
This still sounds like a pretty good law; that is until you realize that it was still legal for industrial waste to be dumped onto dry ground or closed lakes.
But the real killer of this law was a portion that stated "the building of any wharfs, piers, jetties, and other structures is prohibited without Congressional approval"
The states looked at this and said, "we have never given away our rights and congress cannot assume the rights to regulate the building of these structures within the states.
A case of the states telling congress to go jump in the lake.
