By JIM RUTLEDGE
D.C. Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following an April 15 government-imposed deadline for feedback, the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers have begun scrutinizing thousands of public comments on a rule change ordered by the Trump administration to revise the controversial definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act (CWA) of 1972. Under the proposed rule change, vast amounts of the nation’s wetlands and thousands of miles of U.S. waterways would no longer be federally protected by the CWA, in a proposal announced in December 2018. The White House first announced last summer it wanted to throw out the Obama-era CWA rules that became law in 26 states in 2015. The CWA sets standards for pollutants in water supplies to protect drinking and surface waters with the goal of making them swimmable and fishable. The WOTUS revisions would “provide states and landowners the certainty they need to manage their natural resources and grow local economies,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. This approach, he said, would allow farmers for example to decide their own water management, which is subject to federal regulation, without paying thousands of dollars for consultants and engineers. In an email to Farm World on the status of the reviews, an EPA spokesman said, “Currently, the agencies are working on processing and review of all public comments in a timely manner.” The spokesman declined to comment on when the process would be completed. The WOTUS rules are spelled out in over 66 pages of the Federal Register. A comment from the Southern Environmental Law Center in North Carolina stated that builders, oil and gas drillers, and other industry owners would be the big winners if the government agencies adopt the proposed rollback on current WOTUS rules, which would make it easier to fill in bogs, creeks, and streams for plowing, drilling, mining, and building. A 73-year-old Missouri farmer and retired engineer wrote: “I am opposed to redefinition of the WOTUS as it is another means of allowing more pollutants (to) migrate into our drinking water. It seems that large agribusiness and other businesses want to make their life easier and more profitable at the expense of residences (sic). We need to error (sic) on the side of caution instead on the side of profit.” The American Farm Bureau Federation submitted a 25-page comment, citing support for the rule change and offering dozens of its own changes. Overall, it stated the revised rule “will go a long way to providing much needed clarity and certainty for farmers and ranchers.” The document was supported by more than 85 national farm organizations and food producers that included hundreds of thousands of farmers. Beating the cutoff deadline on the last day, the National Corn Growers Assoc. (NCGA) offered a seven-page submission with several proposed changes, one in particular calling on the EPA to exclude revisions to farm storm water drainage systems, which the NCGA said are “integral to corn production. “These systems commonly predate the CWA by decades, and in many cases by a century or more. Agriculture storm water systems were and continue to be as integral to corn production as is seed, fertilizer, machinery, and all the related elements and systems.” Imposing restrictions on these systems, the NCGA said, would be a “fundamental error.” The comments were signed by NCGA President Lynn Chrisp. Attorneys general from 14 states and the District of Columbia have announced they are vehemently opposed to the WOTUS changes. They reject the change, claiming the administration’s proposal violates the Administrative Procedure Act and runs contrary to the CWA’s objective of restoring the nation’s waterways. Gov. Kim Reynolds and three other Iowa government leaders have come out in support of the revisions, but Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller did not sign on to Reynolds’ letter of support. In February, 160 U.S. House members and 36 senators called on the EPA to extend the 60-day comment beyond the April 15 deadline, but the agency refused. When the Obama administration first introduced changes to the CWA in 2014, its 90-day comment period was extended several times, lasting 207 days between April-November 2014. More than a million comments were submitted. The new WOTUS rules are published in the Federal Register and can be found at https://federalregister.gov/documents/2018/12/28/2018-28296/revised-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states To view the more than 4,500 public comments visit www.regulations.gov, Docket ID No. EPA-HO-OW-2018-0149 |
