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EPA releases final Clean Water Act rule
The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released the finalized Clean Water Rule this morning. The EPA stresses the rule does not create any new permitting requirements for agriculture and maintains all previous exemptions and exclusions. Ag groups are weighing in with reaction to the final rule which says tributaries to navigable waterways must show physical features of flowing water; a bed, bank and ordinary high water mark to warrant protection. The rule limits protection to ditches that are constructed out of streams or function like streams and carry pollution downstream. Ditches that do not meet that criteria are not covered by the rule.
The National Farmers Union says the EPA made “a genuine effort” toward the end of the process to listen to farmers’ and ranchers’ concerns. NFU president Roger Johnson says, while they “appreciate EPA’s work on the regional water features (they) remain concerned about waters that cannot impact the quality of jurisdictional waters will fall under jurisdiction, or that farmers will not have the regulatory certainty they need to address (those) waters appropriately. He says NFU hopes EPA will clarify that.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is highly critical of the final rule, saying it “unilaterally strips private property rights and adds hundreds of thousands of stream miles and acres of land to federal jurisdiction.” The statement from NCBA says the EPA’s “flawed rule followed a flawed process” and “writes off rural America.”
Chip Bowling, President of the National Corn Growers Association, says the NCGA cannot and will not comment on the specifics of the revised rule until they fully review it. He says they want to closely look at how “on-farm ditches, ponds and puddles are treated in the rule.” A similar statement was made by Bob Stallman, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).
President Obama says court decisions in recent years “have led to uncertainty and a need for clarification” in the Clean Water Act – and “too many of the nation’s waters “have been left vulnerable to pollution.”
He says that’s why he called on the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to “clear up the confusion.” He says the final Clean Water Rule – reached after “extensive input from the public” – does just that.
The rule will take effect 60 days after being published in the Federal Register.
(Bob Meyer and Mark Dorenkamp contributed to this report)
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