In Early Holiday 'Gift to Polluters,' Trump Guts Protections for 60 Percent of Nation's Streams, Wetlands, and Waterways
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sixty percent of U.S. waterways will be at risk for pollution from corporate giants, critics say, following the Trump administration's announcement Tuesday that it will roll back an Obama-era water rule meant to protect Americans' drinking water and all the waterways that flow into it.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the Obama administration's 2015 Waters of the U.S. rule (WOTUS) rule would be redefined and no longer protect many of the nation's streams and wetlands.
"This is an early Christmas gift to polluters and a lump of coal for everyone else," said Bob Irvin, president of the national advocacy group American Rivers. "Too many people are living with unsafe drinking water. Low-income communities, indigenous peoples, and communities of color are hit hardest by pollution and river degradation."
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No one needs clean water. We can use all the mine tailings, monsano sludge, farming poisons, and toxic dumplings we get.
Exactly, Jim Bob and the 2nd cousin he married don't need clean water, they drink Pabst for all their liquid needs. They'd rather have that low paying job working for a dirty non-renewable fossil fuel company so they can afford their double-wide, carton of Winston's and a 24 packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon than be able to drink water and enjoy a clean environment.
At what point would you consider clean water a pollutant? A river near us is polluted with clean water, the alphabet letter agencies that oversee the waterways have the farmers putting in filter strips and lagoons allowing nothing to reach the river but clean water. Now the fresh water clams are almost nonexistent, there are only a few fish that actually stay in the river, and the algae doesn't grow like it use to. People stopped fishing the river because there is no fish of any size to keep and also noticed even after a heavy rain the water just turns a little murky and clears right away.
I remember the good old days, fishing with my grandfather. The river was green with algae and there weren't any fish. All we caught was crawdads. He called them 'bait stealing bastards'. The only time I remember him cussing.
Hot sauce and garlic helps everything.
I would love to see the evidence of that comment
A simple experiment should work, take a fish tank, fill it with tap water, put fish in, and don't feed them. You might notice clean water alone doesn't keep the fish alive.
Brilliant comment.
Since I live in Florida, you map drew my eyes straight there, and what I saw was "most shipwrecks". Two things about that...1. What the hell does it have to do with water pollution, and 2. The vast majority of those shipwrecks are sail powered and wood built from the 15th through 17th centuries. How do they contribute to water pollution, especially since most of them have been in the water for centuries, and the water they are in is close to pristine?
Another example...New York is listed as the least amount of revenue for public libraries. What the HELL does THAT have to do with water pollution?
There are many more states with the same bs "excuses" for regulations.
The map is a farce
Actually has a lot t o do with pollution of the ocean, barge trash, leaks from all kinds of toxic loads, etc. Do you really not understand that.
Ok, that is a stretch, but I will give you that one. What about federal funding for libraries in New York. What does that have to do with pollution.
Alrighty then, I'm going to tell you a little story that doesn't involve corporate or institutional polluters and how the rules affected them.
In a former life I was married to, and worked for, and family that owned over 100,000 acres in the Texas panhandle. Their livelihood was raising cattle. On that ranch there are many little streams, most of which are dry year round, one which runs most of the year.
Because all of those little waterways eventually run into a federal lake behind a federal dam, the use of that 100,000 acres would have been heavily regulated by, and overseen by some dumbass in DC who didn't know what a cattleguard was. They wouldn't have been able to move their cattle from pasture to pasture, or feed their cattle during the winter, without some kind of guvment approval.
These types of rules are complete bullshit and nothing more than power grabs.
So please explain to me why you are willing to give up the rightful use of your land to some arbitrary decision making bureaucrat?
How about keeping the runoff from that tons of bullshit you leaked into the water
So were you ok with hundreds of millions of buffalo and bison visiting the water ways two times or more daily and relieving themselves in the water? If you ever watched a bovine drink they take in as much water as they can and in the process relieve some internal pressure right into the water or just onshore.
Gee, millions of Bison. The comment doesn't even play
It does if you go back a couple of hundred years and tens of thousands of years before. I thought it was kind of obvious what I meant, but alas, I guess not. Same with comment 1.2.5.
There weren't that many bulls. There were 2000 head of mother cows.
But whether you call it bullshit or not, the statement still stands until you prove otherwise. Mindless drivel does not negate my statement.
Your comment implies people that agree with the article actually know something about the law or took the time to read it.
So expecting the seeder of the article to have actually read and thought about is too much to ask? Geez. We are doomed.
The problem with regulation is the same for practically everything. One size does not fit all.
We can show how regulations have hurt and hindered us and we can show how regulations have helped and saved us.
The laws are antiquated. We are living in a time where information and data is at our fingertips but we haven't changed the way we make decisions about how laws are written. At least not to my knowledge.
You'd think that the folks between the coasts would be close to the land, close to nature...
You'd think they would be upset seeing the administration destroying the land...
MAGA!
a puddle on someone's farmland is not a waterway.