ABSTRACT
In the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, many waterways in the United States showed signs of gross pollution. The Potomac River tidal basin near the nation’s capital was too dirty to provide swimming; the Cuyahoga River burned because of the oil on its surface; and Lake Erie was declared dead because there was no oxygen to support fish in its deeper waters. The Fox River water tended to hug the bottom and eastern shore of Green Bay. As the water, devoid of dissolved oxygen, worked its way up the eastern shore, the bountiful supply of immature mayflies left their normal habitat in the bottom sediments because of a lack of oxygen. The National Invasive Species Act of 1996 amended the Non-indigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act to prevent the introduction and spread of non-indigenous species into the waters of the United States. The 1996 Act was designed to protect all territorial waters of the United States.
