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Republican EPA Officially Rolls Back Clean Water Protections
In December 2018, Smart Dissent wrote that the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency was expected to propose changing the definition of “Waters of the U.S.” to erase federal protections on some waters, shrinking the number of waterways that are protected from industry pollutants. They were purposely seeking to weaken federal clean water rules designed to protect millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams nationwide from pesticide runoff and other pollutants.
FIVE ALARM FIRE. Now it's a reality.
The Trump administration on Thursday [9/12/19] announced the repeal of a major Obama-era clean water regulation that had placed limits on polluting chemicals that could be used near streams, wetlands and other bodies of water.
The Obama rule, developed under the authority of the 1972 Clean Water Act, was designed to limit pollution in about 60 percent of the nation’s bodies of water, protecting sources of drinking water for about one-third of the United States. Under the rule, farmers using land near streams and wetlands were restricted from doing certain kinds of plowing and from planting certain crops, and required to obtain E.P.A. permits in order to use chemical pesticides and fertilizers that could have run off into those bodies of water.
Those restrictions will now be lifted.
I've never met a person of any background or political party who wants the government to let corporations pollute the sources we rely on for drinking water even more. Yet that's just what Republicans are doing, threatening 117 million Americans. Big polluters are in charge of our government. This is corruption. This is the swamp.
The repeal of the Waters of the United States rule, which is expected to take effect in a matter of weeks, has implications far beyond the pollution that will now be allowed to flow freely into streams and wetlands from farms, mines and factories. The Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to establish a stricter legal definition of “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act, a precedent that could make it difficult for future administrations to take actions to protect waterways.
Sources:
http://smartdissent.com/article/trump-and-republicans-will-soon-unveil-plan-destroy-clean-water