Bush changing Regs under Clean Water Act - irreparable harm to wetlands [View All]

Elizabeth Shogren of the Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-water6nov06000436,1,6605475.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

"If implemented, the change would represent one of the most consequential of the actions the Bush administration has taken to ease environmental regulations.".. streams and wetlands would be open to development. ….Clean Water Act protection would no longer be provided to "ephemeral washes or streams" that do not have groundwater as a source. Streams that flow for less than six months a year would also lose protection, as would many wetlands, according to the document.State and federal officials have estimated that up to 20 million acres of wetlands, 20% of the wetlands outside of Alaska, could lose protection under a new rule like the one in the draft. The effect would be greater in California and other parts of the arid West, where many streams flow only seasonally or after rain or snow melts.” (it goes well beyond the) 2001 Supreme Court ruling that limited federal jurisdiction over isolated, non-navigable, intrastate waters and wetlands. waters of the United States was prepared by officials at the Army Corps of Engineers …..Dr. Alan Wentz, Ducks Unlimited's senior group manager for conservation. "It represents a radical change of direction from 30 years of Clean Water Act implementation and judicial interpretation, and if this becomes the corps' interpretation of the law, it will create irreparable harm to those wetlands of greatest value to waterfowl, such as the prairie potholes of the northern Great Plains."