US
Arizona Gov Wants States To Decide What Is Protected Under ‘Waters Of The US,’ Not EPA
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Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey asked the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to revise the Clean Water Act to allow states the flexibility to decide which bodies of water will be protected as “Waters of the U.S.,” according to the Arizona Daily Star.
Ducey wrote a letter to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt in June suggesting only streams that flow at least part of the year should be federally protected. Other bodies of water, such as ephemeral rivers and washes, should be open for developers to dredge or fill without a permit.
“The revised rule should … clearly identify that states have authority to determine waters regulated under the (act),” Ducey wrote, according to the Star.
Ducey exempted, however, rivers and streams on tribal lands and those crossing state lines or international boundaries.
He is, in effect, asking for formal authority to do what the state of Arizona has been already been doing, the governor’s press secretary told the Star.
Adopting Ducey’s suggestions as federal policy would most likely avoid situations like the $2.8 million fine a California farmer faced for plowing a field containing vernal pools — temporary pools of water currently protected under the Clean Water Act. (RELATED: Feds Fine Farmer $2.8 Million For ‘Deep Ripping’ Of Farmland)
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