In 1987, Congress added amendments to the Clean Water Act requiring EPA to develop a permitting program for stormwater runoff. These amendments exempted oil and gas exploration, production, processing or treatment operations, and transmission facilities. In the 2005 Energy Bill, Congress extended the exemption to all oil and gas construction facilities (Clean Water Act 2008, EPA NPDES 2006, W&WNews 2006).
Oil and Gas companies have used these exemptions to promote and develop wells using the technique of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) to extract natural gas. Please remove these exemptions from the Clean Water Act. It makes no sense. Clean water has to be clean. Please enforce the intent of the law.