...[In] recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found... In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations…[include] dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment... The Times obtained hundreds of thousands of water pollution records…[from] every state and the E.P.A., and compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the E.P.A... More than 23 million people received drinking water from municipal systems that violated a health-based standard... Records analyzed by The Times indicate that the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities... [refers to Horsehead Corporation, Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park, Loadout Coal, Remington Coal and Pine Ridge (then part of Peabody Energy)]