Five decades after Clean Water Act, half of US waters too polluted to swim or fish
By Amanda Brandeis; Scripps National Correspondent SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Voted into law a half-century ago, the Clean Water Act of 1972 is still far from achieving its ambitious goals. The landmark law aimed to make U.S. waters safe for swimming and fishing by 1983. It also promised to eliminate all discharges of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985. "There were really outrageous incidents of pollution that really brought the issue of water pollution to the public’s attention," said Tom Pelton, director of communications for the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire. Nearly always covered in oil slicks, industrial runoff polluted the water for decades. "And it happened before in the '50s and the '40s. So much oil…