This week, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers issued new guidelines that would, in effect, limit the scope of the Clean Water Act and make it “harder…for non-permanent streams and nearby wetlands to be protected.” (And here I thought the Bush administration was all wet.) In response to this move, Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, appealed to Congress (in the following op-ed piece in the Salt Lake Tribune) to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007, legislation which “reaffirms the traditional scope and clear purpose of the Clean Water Act”:
Congress must act to safeguard the Clean Water Act
Water flows downhill.
From that basic law of physics, it follows that anything dumped into a water source – including pollutants – will eventually wend its way downstream through the interconnectedness of wetlands, tributaries, streams, rivers, ponds and lakes.
For this reason, Congress passed the 1972 Clean Water Act to set a national standard protecting all the nation’s waters. For more than three decades, the agencies charged with enforcing those safeguards have viewed the aquatic system as a whole, realizing that the capillaries connect to the bloodstream.
The benefits to the nation from this farsighted legislation have been incalculable.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court threw it all into confusion.
In a contentiously split decision, the court mandated that, for the present at least, questions of Clean Water Act jurisdiction over many wetlands will have to be thrashed out on a case-by-case basis in the lower courts. The decision also placed federal protection of important headwater streams in doubt.
A 2001 decision further muddied the waters over Clean Water Act protection for isolated wetlands and streams.
The result of these decisions is certain: The lawyers will have a field day.
Now, the chief enforcement agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, will attempt to write new wetlands jurisdiction rules based on interpreting the tea leaves contained in the various justices’ voluminous opinions. That will mean more litigation.
The solution is obvious.
Some of Congress’ staunchest defenders of the Clean Water Act, including Reps. James Oberstar of Minnesota and John Dingell of Michigan, have just introduced legislation confirming that Congress meant what it said in 1972: The Clean Water Act applies to all the nation’s waters and not just some. The protections are a national standard, not a patchwork.
There is no good reason why this cannot be done before this Congress adjourns. [full text]
Kmareka.com 
Empedocles of Acragas (c. 450 BC) identified four elements or “roots” of all material things: fire, air, earth and water, from which “sprang all things that were and are and shall be…” It is a shame that the Bush administration seems more intent pursuing an economic agenda that sacrifices the quality and scarcity of the most precious resource of our planet, clean fresh water. This administration has disappointed so many in so many ways, but perhaps the lasting damage to our environment, in the face of increasing population pressures, will be a sad legacy for an administration of too many sad legacies.
From space, as we have all seen in the marvelous NASA images, Earth is a blue planet because of the abundance of water. Our world is unique. However 97% of water on Earth is salt water and not directly available to us. Another 2%, although fresh water, is unavailable and locked up as permanent ice. 1% of the fresh water is stored away in deep aquifers. Only a minute fraction, less than 2% of this water abundant blue planet is available for all human needs (never mind the needs of all other living organisms on Earth dependent on fresh water. Given the supreme importance of this resource, and its scarcity, one can only express amazement and shock that governmental policy, regulation and law would not do everything possible to ensure the preservation, quality and resource base of every drop of freshwater within its control. There is no substitute for clean and safe fresh water.
Thank you, Mr. Wolberg. I have been concerned about water for a while now. I hope we get lucky and earth rebalances itself. With global warming, there’ll be more water, right? Desalination seems like the way to go. How’s that for oversimplifying things?
Of that 2% of freshwater available, an awful lot is tied up in the Great Lakes. S for warming effects, most melting ice would end up in the oceans, although the Saudis once looked at the possibility of towing very large icebergs for freshwater. Not as crazy as it may seem, but expensive, and it does away with the need for desalination plants. As with all other technologies, desalination is an available option with a number of techniques–it’s all in the costs. The Libyans are literally mining vast underground water resources, again at great cost. Of some interest, most available freshwaters (about 60% as I recall) end up being used by agriculture, and urban centers are next in consumption. conservationmeasures a such as the treating of gray water, would be a huge help and could be diverted to the support of wetlands.
My favorite is companies in the southwest that use lots of water to maintain a lush, green lawn. Then the water soaks into the ground full of fertilizer and assorted other noxious chemicals.
That’s an excellent use of a scarce resource.
And yes, Mr Wolberg, it’s a matter of costs. But what is cost-prohibitive today can be cost-effective tomorrow, given the proper profit motive. Too bad so many companies are shorting R&D in favor of buying back stock to enrich upper management.
You are so right Klaus. Parts of Phoenix are so humid locally from keeping golf courses and lawns green that one forgets that this is supposed to be the desert Southwest. Of course with all the watering, allerrgies return as well. It is almost certain that with our rapidly growing population the demand for potable water will reach a crisis, and probably before there is a solution.