<P> The Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) program was authorized by the 1987 WQA . This replaced the municipal construction grants program, which was authorized in the 1972 law under Title II . In the CWSRF, federal funds are provided to the states and Puerto Rico to capitalize their respective revolving funds, which are used to provide financial assistance (loans or grants) to local governments for wastewater treatment, nonpoint source pollution control and estuary protection . </P> <P> The fund provides loans to municipalities at lower - than - market rates . As of 2009 the average rate was 2.3 percent nationwide, compared to an average market rate of 5 percent . In 2009, CWSRF assistance totaling $5.2 billion was provided to 1,971 local projects across the country . </P> <P> During the 1880s and 1890s, Congress directed USACE to prevent dumping and filling in the nation's harbors, and the program was vigorously enforced . Congress first addressed water pollution issues in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, giving the Corps the authority to regulate most kinds of obstructions to navigation, including hazards resulting from effluents . Portions of this law remain in effect, including Section 13, the so - called Refuse Act . In 1910, USACE used the act to object to a proposed sewer in New York City, but a court ruled that pollution control was a matter left to the states alone . Speaking to the 1911 National Rivers and Harbors Congress, the chief of the Corps, Brigadier General William H. Bixby, suggested that modern treatment facilities and prohibitions on dumping "should either be made compulsory or at least encouraged everywhere in the United States ." </P> <P> Some sections of the 1899 act have been superseded by various amendments, including the 1972 CWA, while other notable legislative predecessors include: </P>

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