The Trump administration is again trying to make it easier for developers and farmers to fill or discharge pollutants into streams and wetlands – a move that’s prompted a protest from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The Clean Water Act protects the nation’s rivers, but what about streams and wetlands? Under the Obama administration, they were in – even if the streams ran only in wet weather and the wetlands were far from other bodies of water.
"In 2015, EPA put in a rule that was backed with a bunch of science about how waterways are connected. You know you don’t have to see a stream feeding a wetland to know there are connections through groundwater," says Beth McGee, director of science and agricultural policy at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "A lot of groups didn’t like it. Environmental groups, of course, thought it was the totally right thing to do."
Now, the EPA is proposing a change – removing protections for isolated wetlands and streams that sometimes go dry.
“Shenandoah Valley and other places where a lot of your rivers are starting, a lot of those headwater streams can be not running all the time, and so wetlands could be filled, waterways lose permit protection in terms of the discharge of pollutants into those waterways," she explains.
McGee says that won’t happen in three states that are part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
"Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia all have state laws that are as protective if not more protective than the federal standard."
But Delaware, West Virginia and the District of Columbia rely on the federal definition to protect their waters. That’s why she predicts lawsuits will be filed to prevent EPA from changing the rules.
