permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Trump administration to strip pollution protections, harming vital wildlife
| Environment | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/11/trump-administration-strip-pollution-protections-streams-wetlands-harm-wildlife-drinking-water

Trump administration to strip pollution protections, harming vital wildlife

List of waterways land users must obtain permits to pollute to be scaled
back, which could also allow pollution in drinking water

Emily Holden <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/emily-holden> in
Washington and Oliver Milman
<https://www.theguardian.com/profile/oliver-milman> in New York

Tue 11 Dec 2018 11.30 EST Last modified on Tue 11 Dec 2018 16.05 EST

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[image: Aerial view of Louisiana’s marshlands threatened by the BP oil leak
in the Gulf of Mexico. Migratory birds pass through the wetlands and much
of America’s seafood comes from the region.]
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/11/trump-administration-strip-pollution-protections-streams-wetlands-harm-wildlife-drinking-water#img-1>
Aerial
view of Louisiana’s marshlands threatened by the BP oil leak in the Gulf of
Mexico. Migratory birds pass through the wetlands and much of America’s
seafood comes from the region. Photograph: Julie Dermansky/Corbis via Getty
Images

The Trump administration
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration> is planning to
strip Obama-era pollution protections from thousands of US streams and
millions of acres of wetlands, in a move environmentalists warn will harm
vital wildlife and could allow pollution into drinking water.
Ex-EPA chief Scott Pruitt used personal email for government work
Read more

The federal government plans to scale back the list of waterways for which
land users are required to obtain permits to be able to pollute, according
to a description of the proposal by officials before text was made available
<https://www.epa.gov/wotus-rule>.

That pollution includes agricultural runoff from fertilizers and pesticides
and other industry waste, which can flow from smaller tributaries or
wetlands into major bodies of water. The vast network of waterways covered
by the current protections provide
<https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-04/documents/2009_12_28_wetlands_science_surface_drinking_water_surface_drinking_water_study_summary.pdf>
drinking water to around 117 million Americans.

Andrew Wheeler, acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), said the Obama-era regulations are a “power grab” that aimed to
control farmers, developers and landowners.

“More landowners had to go through a costly and time consuming process that
runs counter to our Republican form of government,” Wheeler said, as he
signed the proposed rule flanked by Republican lawmakers and Ryan Zinke,
the interior secretary. “This ends years of uncertainty over where federal
jurisdiction begins and ends.”

Zinke added that there is a “lot of anger in the west over federal
overreach” which he claimed Trump administration was addressing.

Mark Ryan, a former water expert at the EPA who helped write the original
regulation, said the Trump administration seems poised to reverse core
parts of the 2015 rule, as well as some of the protections that were in
place before then.
Sign up for the new US morning briefing

“They’re trying to sidestep the science,” Ryan said. “The science is pretty
clear that whatever happens at the top of the watershed affects the bottom
of the watershed.”

The 2015 Obama rule drew on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, but the
Trump rewrite focuses on a reinterpretation of the agency’s legal authority.
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Read more

Environmental experts said the change could harm wetlands that are home to
fish and wildlife and help protect against floods and naturally purify
water. They said it could allow pollution into connected drinking water
sources, too. The proposal comes as the administration is also rescinding
climate change and pollution rules for coal plants
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/06/trump-rolls-back-climate-change-rule-that-restricted-new-coal-plants>
and cars
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/02/epa-trump-vehicle-emissions-clean-car-rules>,
weakening efforts to save at-risk species
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/06/trump-administration-plans-to-weaken-protections-for-sage-grouse>
and introducing drilling
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/15/arctic-oil-drilling-texas-hilcorp-beaufort-sea>
and mining
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/16/national-monuments-grand-staircase-escalante-bears-ears>
on what were protected areas.

The move would fulfill a key Trump campaign promise
<https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/farmers-ranchers-think-epa-clean-water-rule-goes-far>,
and is likely to be put forward as a move that protects the rights of
farmers, landowners and real estate developers. Under the new rule, major
rivers would fall under federal protection while converted cropland,
wastewater treatment systems and most ditches on the roadside on or farms
would not.

Conservatives have seen the Obama-era rule – known as the Waters of the US
(WOTUS) rule, which was published by the EPA and the army corps of
engineers – as federal overreach.

Trump’s acting environment administrator Andrew Wheeler argued the Obama
standard “further expanded Washington’s reach into privately-owned lands”,
putting local decisions in the hands of distant “bureaucrats”.

EPA’s water chief David Ross told reporters the agency did not conduct any
modelling ahead of the planned move, including of how climate change will
alter water flows.

“Our job is to implement what power we’ve been given by Congress and to
stay within the limitations of that executive branch delegation,” Ross
said. “We’ve considered some of the scientific terminology and scientific
information we have, but our job is to really draw a line where we think
our legal authority allows us to do that.”

The Trump rule would maintain requirements for permission to pollute bigger
bodies of water, the rivers that empty into them and the wetlands that
touch them. Courts had already blocked the rule from taking effect in 28
states, but allowed it to proceed in the other 22.

Further legal action, waged by environmental groups, is likely in the wake
of the EPA’s reversal of protections.

“The Trump administration will stop at nothing to reward polluting
industries and endanger our most treasured resources,” said Jon Devine,
director of the federal water program at the Natural Resources Defense
Council.

“This proposal is reckless, and we will fight to ensure it never goes into
effect.”