This is yet another giveaway to corporate polluters and reckless developers
- All wetlands, rivers, and streams deserve protections, and we must urge EPA to protect them as much as they can with the limited authority they still have after the Supreme Court Sackett ruling.
- With this proposed Polluted Water Rule, it is clear the current EPA is more focused on catering to polluting interests than its core mission of enforcing our landmark environmental and health protection laws.
- The Polluted Water Rule guts basic clean-water safeguards in order to benefit a small number of industries that want to dump waste or fill wetlands without oversight
- This rule will create even more confusion and make enforcement harder. Americans want certainty on clean water – certainty that their waters are clean and healthy and that when they turn on their taps, the water that comes out is safe.
- The proposed rule gives little to no attention to the impact on health, water quality and flood prevention that will come with removing these protections.
- Timing the introduction of the Polluted Water Rule to coincide with the House pushing to pass the Permission to Pollute Act (H.R. 3898) represents a clear favoring of polluters and a string of rollbacks for clean water protections.
The Impacts of Weaker Clean Water Protections on Our Public Health & Economy
- If this administration further weakens protections for clean water, everyone will be faced with increased threats from pollution to clean, safe, reliable drinking water and public health.
- In addition to more contamination, we will also see worsened flooding and more severe drought, because of increased reckless development.
- Weakened rules would also threaten already-limited water supplies on which communities rely for drinking water, irrigation, businesses, and more.
- More pollution will increase costs for local water treatment and raise families’ water bills.
- Increased pollution threatens the tourism and outdoor recreation sectors of our economy that rely on clean water and pristine places as the foundation of their businesses.
Benefits of waters, wetlands, & wildlife
- Wetlands and streams are valuable resources that provide essential fish and wildlife habitats, store carbon, prevent flooding, filter out harmful pollution and protect clean drinking water.
- Science is clear: wetlands and streams of all kinds greatly benefit water quality in downstream waters, including drinking water sources.
- Pollution flows downstream. Major rivers and lakes cannot be effectively protected from pollution if the small streams that flow into them are unprotected. Wetlands are the kidneys of the watershed, filtering out pollution.
- Increased pollution threatens wildlife and sensitive areas that are critical to ecological diversity and healthy communities. In many cases these wildlife areas are linked to one another, making a small amount of pollution toxic for a large area.
- Tens of millions of people get drinking water from headwaters and streams that don’t flow year-round.
- We know that all waters are connected. However, polluters are pushing to further undermine protections for wetlands that directly abut other water bodies, but may lack visible surface water connections or if they might otherwise be “distinguishable” from the adjacent water.
- They’re also claiming that seasonal streams can’t be protected unless they flow for large stretches of the year (ranging from 6 to 9+ months). These kinds of arbitrary conditions have nothing to do with how wetlands and streams function in the real world.
Outsize burden on states to protect waters with limited resources
- The proposed Polluted Water Rule places a greater burden on states to protect wetlands and waterways with fewer resources, expertise or legal authority.
- The uncertainty and confusion that this rule proposes would place an even greater burden on state administrators to sift through applications using unclear definitions to try and determine which waters are protected and which are not.
Support for strong public protections for water
- The goals of the Clean Water Act are broadly supported by the public. Ninety-four percent of Americans say that protecting the water in our nation’s lakes, streams, and rivers is important.
- There is a huge disconnect between the administration and the vast majority of people across the country who value clean, safe water and have no interest in more pollution in their water.