It does appear, after decades of a somewhat foolish focus on whether a pond in a farmer’s field is part of the navigable waters of the nation, thus subject to Federal control, the court is restoring some sensible balance to one of the environmental laws responsible for helping clean up the environment that has also, when used inappropriately, played such havoc with business and home life.
An excerpt.
Another view: Wetlands ruling won't harm Clean Water Act
By Reed Hopper -- Special to The Bee Published 12:01 am PDT Monday, July 24, 2006
Reed Hopper is responding to the editorial "High and dry court / Wetlands ruling threatens Clean Water Act," which appeared July 1. Hopper is an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented John Rapanos in his case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Reach Hopper at plf@pacificlegal.org. Web site: www.pacificlegal.org.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declared federal authority does not reach every pond, puddle and ditch in the nation. Now some -- such as The Bee -- argue this ruling undercuts the Clean Water Act and threatens wetlands conservation. But that argument goes too far. While the court in its Rapanos ruling decided remote water bodies are off-limits to federal regulators, it did not prohibit federal regulation of all wetlands. Nor is the Clean Water Act the only, or even the primary, means of wetlands protection.
According to the federal Council on Environmental Quality, the Clean Water Act avoids impacts to 9,000 wetland acres a year. In contrast, the council reports wetlands have actually increased nationally by more than 580,000 acres in two years through other federal and state programs in cooperation with landowners, and another 1 million acres have been improved or preserved. That certainly puts things in perspective.
Likewise, assertions that the court is one justice away from overturning three decades of environmental law are misleading.
In 30 years of enforcement, the government never adopted a consistent interpretation of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. Whereas the act authorizes the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate discharges into the "navigable waters," these agencies claimed authority over dry storm drains, remote man-made ditches, small ponds, mudflats and even ripples in desert sands where water rarely flows.
