Trump did away with the "Clean Water Rule"

So, someone on my facebook posted that Trump removed the Clean Water Rule. I googled it, but couldn't find specifics. As someone who generally agrees with a fair amount of Trump's policies.....I want to get the other side of this opinion. Why did Trump do it? Does anyone have more info? Is this really his attempt to appease big business, or is there more to it?

a reply to: supermarket2012

My Mother In Law visited today and she is an ardent Trump supporter but this decision has her upset.

She mentioned something about gold being discovered in Alaska near a salmon stream.

That might have something to do with it, then again, it might not.

Wait...we had clean water?

The problem with the Obama era 'rules' was declaring man made ditches protected waterways.

If Trump did something to stop that.

Farmers are better off to start with.

The new rule would replace the already-repealed Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS), crafted under President Obama, which expanded the types of waterways protected by federal law.

The Obama administration argued smaller bodies of water, even some seasonal ones caused by snowmelt, must be protected in order to stop pollution from reaching larger sources, including those used for drinking water.

thehill.com...

Big cities are the leading source of water pollution these days.

Which brings us to the ecological disaster of places not being ran by Trump, but haters. Where human feces in places like California is polluting the water.

It's another attempt in the long list of trying to smear Trump.

This going to be downplayed by the usual suspects with a whole lot of whataboutism.
Trump is looking for new voters, no matter the cost

a reply to: XCrycek

Had you even read the thread before you posted?

a reply to: supermarket2012

Here is one example of how the Clean Water Act was subject to federal abuse and overreach:

This Veteran, Who Supplied Water to Firefighters, Went to Prison for Digging Ponds
Here is a podcast on the same subject: Horror Stories of EPA and Corps Overreach under the Clean Water Act

There are countless examples of ordinary individuals persecuted under the Clean Water Act -- NOT big corporations polluting our waterways -- for activities on their own properties.

I have not checked out the new rules, so I cannot comment on the advantages/disadvantages of the new rules. But there is no doubt that the old rules were hurting individuals -- particularly farmers and ranchers -- and their property rights.

originally posted by: supermarket2012
So, someone on my facebook posted that Trump removed the Clean Water Rule. I googled it, but couldn't find specifics. As someone who generally agrees with a fair amount of Trump's policies.....I want to get the other side of this opinion. Why did Trump do it? Does anyone have more info? Is this really his attempt to appease big business, or is there more to it?

The problems with our country are not rocket science. Billionaires pay the lobbyists for representation in government. The lobbyists then force the politicians to pass legislation creating cartels and monopolies in exchange for campaign financing. The same is true with consumer protection regulations.

The bottom line is the common citizen has taxation without any representation!

a reply to: XCrycek

Whataboutism? Really??? LOL! The funniest thing about your comment is that it can be taken so many different ways... because it really says NOTHING.

Either or both echo chambers can take that comment and run with it in full accordance with their confirmation bias. Anyone and everyone can fill in the massive blanks with their own specifics. Kinda like madlibs...

Oh my... thanks for the belly laugh.

Lets go back and Review

Drowning our property rights: EPA's misuse of the Clean Water Act -09/24/14

In several different ways, President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is using and abusing the Clean Water Act to improperly block economic development projects and take away Americans' property rights........

In other words, EPA manipulated its own bureaucracy in order to control potential and future projects of American businesses on private property. It did so to proactively discourage investment in the venture, so it could never begin to get off the ground......

Up until now, the Clean Water Act has applied to navigable water bodies. But under this drastic administrative rewrite, it would govern virtually any activity impacting an area where water flows. That means federal government permits would be required for all sorts of routine activities.

This has profound implications for all Americans, not just large mining and other businesses. It means that installing a playground in a backyard or extending a driveway may well require expensive, cumbersome federal government permitting. And that means super-expensive and protracted litigation could be involved too.
.

Not much from the previous administration seemed to be "for the people" - At least not for the Citizens of the USA - Good for POTUS Good For America ....bad for the Haters lol ... YMMV
Excelsior !

a reply to: dfnj2015

... The lobbyists then force the politicians...

Those poor widdle politicians being all forced to take their bribes and gifts against their will. But I bet those politicians put up a good fight, eh? They tried their darnedest to keep that money out of their pockets and bank accounts, but those oh-so-powerful lobbyists forced them to take their shekels... those poor politicians had no choice!!!

Oh wow. Two awesome belly laughs to start the morning... lucky me!!!

This law was the bane of many people trying to build on their properties in my area.

We have a lady inspector who thinks every puddle makes an area "wetland", and thus, won't approve most sites.

Oddly enough , everyone she's related to has absolutely zero problems getting sites approved, even ones right on the water....

Hopefully this will take some of the wind out of her sails.

Normally to do an end run around her you would have to call the army corps. of engineers, pay around 20k for them to do a real assessment .

95% of the time they are brought in, the feminazi gets overruled, which prompts all sorts of headaches for the homeowner, as she doesn't like it.

Should be interesting to hear if this is even acknowledges by her as she's full tilt progressive and detests our President.

For my little neck of the woods, I say good riddance to a crap law.

My granddaughter posted an article about this on Facebook. I did some research and Neo96's post above is pretty accurate. The stuff it refers to that was reversed decades ago had major flaws, I think it should be looked at better to make sure that people do not abuse the rollback, get rid of loopholes it may have.

I am a supporter of the FWS and the EPA and consider myself a concerned ecologist. But some of those rules are rediculous that have been passed. None of them address the pouring of tons of unnecessary fertilizer and pesticides and herbicides by corn farmers planting corn for ethynol. The whole ethynol in fuel being good for the environment is a scam. One pushed long ago by a few senators who had friends doing agriculture. Growing real food on that land was way better than poisoning that land with chemicals that are not allowed in our food supply. Also the amount of herbicide used for grains for agriculture is crazy, that stuff disturbs the environment if it is too concentrated in an area. Farmers digging drainage ditches might be necessary to keep it entering the streams, if you start saying no to ponds that help to filter that chemistry then more of this stuff gets into the rivers and sea.

Obama did not do us any favors with passing that law, in fact many states rebuked that law and passed their own version which is workable from what I read. I do not think Obama thought anything out properly. He kept screwing up because he did not put someone investigating both sides of the issue like he should have.

I can't say that I agree with all of what this new reversal does, but I know that even some of the people I know that worked for the fish and wildlife service and the DNR said it was messed up. The fish and Wildlife people I know said much of it was positive, but some things were made actually worse by the Obama bill, because it also limits fixing things that are wrong too. It takes a year for someone to get an approval that actually helps things.

I am thinking that what the Trump administration did here is not really that bad, but some big corporations will abuse it. There are still other laws that protect the waters and land, those against rolling things bad do not realize there were already policies in place that protect some things covered in Obama's bill.

a reply to: Notoneofyou

We have a lot of seasonal tiny creeks from the snowfall too, and according to a guy I know that works for the county as a building inspector, the new Obama law made it harder for people to build a house or building around here too. Before you had to stay a certain distance away from streams and rivers, and had to make sure that your septic tank and field were above the waterline of the lakes and rivers. That is still in place. But if you add in the little ditches that drain the snow and are always damp, it makes it hard to put in a house. I know a lot of states don't accept Obama's law change, so this change in respect to Obama's regulations doesn't even matter in those states. If a state or county wants to exceed the laws, they can make their own rules to increase regulations, many states already have their own codes that are higher than the feds used to be.

originally posted by: neo96
The problem with the Obama era 'rules' was declaring man made ditches protected waterways.

If Trump did something to stop that.

Farmers are better off to start with.

The new rule would replace the already-repealed Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS), crafted under President Obama, which expanded the types of waterways protected by federal law.

The Obama administration argued smaller bodies of water, even some seasonal ones caused by snowmelt, must be protected in order to stop pollution from reaching larger sources, including those used for drinking water.

thehill.com...

Big cities are the leading source of water pollution these days.

Which brings us to the ecological disaster of places not being ran by Trump, but haters. Where human feces in places like California is polluting the water.

It's another attempt in the long list of trying to smear Trump.

Problem?

Obamas regulations were the solution.

Those "man made ditches" were often deliberately set up to carry water to or from places and were either fed from or lead to water courses. The could carry pesticides, sewerage or who knows what else directly in to our water.

Some of like to fish, and its a little difficult when a factory farm puts in a drainage ditch specifically to carry hosed down runoff from their pen away from their land and into our local river.

a reply to: rickymouse

Yeah, it's wierd as hell how some states and counties didn't recognize the law , and some ran with it full tilt.

In my county, we have little problems with this particular law being pushed to hard. However I live on the eastern border of my county, where it gets more attention.

But my buddy who live 2 miles away is in the neighboring county has had to pay for 3 different assessment (58k)from the army corps of engineers to build :
His home (1400 sq ft. Stick framed house)
His equipment garage (1200 sq ft pole barn)
His greenhouse and composting shack
(900 sq ft with 120 sq ft lean too)

All of this is on 80 acres of forest with a stream roughly 1000 ft away from the house.

Inspector said nope- wetland do to runoff/melt running to the river.

You can literally stand in his driveway and see clear over his neighbors place across the road due to the higher elevation. They were allowed to build 9 structures without any variance permits or any flak from the inspector. Also have clearly visible gray water pipe running directly to the river.

The inspector is the neighbors sister.

a reply to: supermarket2012

I turned on my water this morning. . . . .black sewage instead.

All thanks to Trump! *shakes angry fist at Trump*





This is an example of government manipulation.

Say a government wants the freedom to rape dead nuns.

They can't SAY that, so instead they pass a bill calling it, "Fluffy Kittens For Jesus Act".

(Who doesn't like fluffy kittens!)

Along comes a president who seeing how disgusting raping dead nuns is and repeals the act.

Now everyone says the president hates fluffy kittens and Jesus, when all he did was stop the legal raping of dead nuns.

Another win for America. Thanks Trump!

Under the rules in question, if you had a ditch with watery in it, the government controlled it, and it could be ruled illegal to try to create a ditch with watery in it even if it you had a darn good reason to be trying to create it.

It seems the previous law, as others have stated, did make it harder for some landowners to build. However there is also criticism:
www.vox.com...

“This sickening gift to polluters will result in more dangerous toxic pollution dumped into waterways across a vast stretch of America,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “The Trump administration’s radical proposal would destroy millions of acres of wetlands, pushing imperiled species like steelhead trout closer to extinction.”

Not sure how true that is but the idea is that ephemeral streams could flow pollution into bigger bodies oc water.

Roughly 51 percent of wetlands either intersect ephemeral streams or do not intersect any waterways, according to the slides, meaning they would be excluded from federal protections under the new proposal.

EENews-Goes more indepth

This new water act is going in the same direction the EPA has been heading in with rolling back regulations. With intent to opening up more freedom for industry.
www.nationalgeographic.com...

The size and influence of the EPA has shrunk under the Trump administration, and it's illustrated by their diminished prosecuting power. Criminal prosecutions are at a 30-year low

Environmentalists are not happy with Trump's administration, but im sure industrys are.