Groundwater and the law: records v. recollections.

Statements offered in current environmental litigation often make the argument that legislative bodies failed to extend protection to groundwaters until the 1970s.1 This assertion attempts to invert the legislative process by suggesting that only with the extensive sampling and analysis of groundwater stimulated by relatively recent federal legislative efforts has society recognized the problem of groundwater contamination. In fact, the opposite is true. Intense public concern impelled congressional action. Furthermore, recent environmental laws were not the first federal efforts to protect groundwater, nor do they represent a watershed in terms of social recognition of an environmental problem. The federal government showed interest in groundwater quality and quantity throughout this century and explicitly sought to improve the quality of surface and underground waters in 1948