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A horse stands next to a pond near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
A horse stands next to a pond near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ponds and ditches that flow into larger bodies of water are to be subject to federal pollution regulations. Photograph: Larry W Smith/EPA
A horse stands next to a pond near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ponds and ditches that flow into larger bodies of water are to be subject to federal pollution regulations. Photograph: Larry W Smith/EPA

Private landowners denounce new clean water rules as government overreach

This article is more than 8 years old

Regulations to extend pollution protections upstream has defenders of private property complaining of official meddling in country’s ponds and ditches

The Obama administration announced the creation of a new “clean water rule” on Wednesday, devised to protect America’s smaller streams and wetlands from pollution or disintegration.

Officials said the move, which will apply to 60% of the country’s water bodies, was a strengthening of part of the 1972 Clean Water Act designed to protect all American waters with a “significant nexus” to “navigable water” from pollution.

The announcement reinforces the provision that smaller streams and wetlands (even those that exist only seasonally) connected to larger water bodies are to be included in the law together with larger water bodies, something that was put into question by two US supreme court rulings that took place during the less environmentally inclined George W Bush administration.

Pollution upstream affects pollution downstream, the administration argues, and clean water is a cornerstone of a healthy population and economy.

But to some, the question has not been so simple.

A highly partisan battle to get the rule introduced – one that gained attention in the last year, but that has been ongoing for more than four years – has been fought out, with sometimes witty observations, on social media.

Republicans and agriculture lobbies have called the water rule a heedless bid to protect the nation’s “ponds” and “ditches” and an infringement of Americans’ property rights.

Other opponents have included fertilizer and pesticide makers, property developers, and oil and gas producers.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and environmental groups have been highlighting that the only ditches to be included in the rule are those ditches deemed to be functioning as “tributaries” that could flow into larger bodies of water, and carry pollution downstream.

In this battle of the water rule, US water, or #WOTUS (standing for water of the United States) as it is now referred to on social media, has taken on a character and life of its own, with some opponents and supporters making it the heart of a debate on what it means to be American.

#WOTUS rule released stripping property rights of all Americans. “Nothing left unregulated” is the new motto for the EPA #ditchtherule

— Justine Stevenson (@farmers_gal) May 27, 2015

America’s smaller streams provide drinkable water to 117 million Americans, said Gina McCarthy, who heads the EPA, the body responsible for devising the rule, in a press call preceding the announcement.


Without a newly clarifying rule, one in three Americans would have their water threatened by pollution, she said. This new rule explicitly states their inclusion in the law and does not provide for the inclusion of new groups of water systems, McCarthy added.

In a statement released on Wednesday, President Obama stressed an economic reasoning behind the new rule that went beyond drinkable water for individual Americans.

“Businesses and industries that depend on clean water face uncertainty and delay, which costs our economy every day,” he stated.

McCarthy said the EPA had found that 80% of small business owners were in support of the rule.

But still, the rule has attracted a vast amount of partisan controversy.

In the last few months, Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate have been organizing under different umbrella groups to try to stop the future implementation of the water rule.

We just passed HR1732 repealing @EPA’s #WOTUS rule, Republicans reducing Obama's overregulation & working for #Mainstreet #DitchTheRule

— Cong. Tim Huelskamp (@CongHuelskamp) May 12, 2015

The American Farm Bureau Federation, representing farmers from around the country, has been a loud opponent of the rule, calling it a form of federal overreach into the everyday functioning of individual Americans’ lives that could strangle farmers’ livelihoods.

Don Parrish, senior director of congressional relations with the Farm Bureau, called the rule the “most significant change in environmental regulation that has happened in a generation”.

Farmers were worried by the prospect of having to acquire extra permits and the penalties involved with non-compliance, as high as $37,000 a day, Parrish said.

The EPA insists current exemptions for farmers, ranchers and foresters will be upheld, with exemptions expanding slightly, not the opposite.

Parrish said federal authorities would be afforded great discretion in applying the rule, adding it was a breach of America’s social contract to produce food in an “affordable, abundant and safe way”.

“The federal government will have a say on whether or not you can use your land and how you can use it,” Parrish said. “That is very offensive to people who own private property in this country.”

Last spring, the Farm Bureau launched a social media campaign against the launch of a clean water rule with the hashtag #DitchTheRule – a hashtag that has blossomed and continues to be widely used by rule opponents on Twitter.

In an unlikely move that critics said was a political stunt unsuited to the federal agency, the EPA launched a #DitchTheMyth campaign in retaliation. This, too, gained considerable traction.

Private property rights do not include the right to adversely affect everyone downstream #ditchthemyth

— Sean Cecil (@espato) May 22, 2015

But for Brian Deese, a senior White House adviser, the line between who supports the rule and who doesn’t is very clear.

“The only people who oppose the rule are polluters who knowingly pollute our waters,” he said.

The new rule should either put a stop to that, or help issue hefty fines.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Government accused of failing to protect waterways from farm pollution

  • Government permission to use banned pesticides face legal challenge

  • Pesticides blamed for bee declines widespread in US waterways

  • 'Suppressed' EU report could have banned pesticides worth billions

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