The Agency That Contaminated the Animas River Looks to Regulate Water in Your Backyard

Thirty-one states, in four districts, have filed motions with the federal courts to block the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) from beginning to enforce the new “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule, which represents a new interpretation of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Federal Register calls the new rule “definitional” and states: “The rule will ensure protection for the nation’s public health and aquatic resources, and increase CWA program predictability and consistency by clarifying the scope of ‘waters of the United States’ protected under the Act.”

 

WOTUS was published in the Federal Register on June 29 and will become effective on August 28.

 

The interpretation is important. The CWA used to apply to “navigable waters,” to now, as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently said: “include almost any piece of land that gets wet and puddles.”

 

Morrisey calls the rule “regulatory lunacy.” He’s hosted town-hall meetings where he’s heard from citizens concerned that “this rule would infringe on their property rights and force them to pay thousands of dollars to do basic work around their homes, farms and workplaces.” Morrisey adds: “This rule expands a scheme whereby property owners have to ask the EPA for permission to do yardwork.”

 

While the word “navigable” hasn’t been removed from CWA—as that would require an act of Congress—the EPA has expanded that definition to include any water that has a “significant nexus” with navigable waters. This is where water in your back yard could be impacted. Regarding the final rule, Paxton explains: it “is so broad and open to interpretation that everything from ditches and dry creek beds, to gullies, to isolated ponds formed after a big rain could be considered a ‘water of the United States.’”

 

Read More: The Agency That Contaminated the Animas River Looks to Regulate Water in Your Backyard – Breitbart