Washington – The Bush administration made it harder Tuesday for nonpermanent streams and nearby wetlands to be protected under the federal Clean Water Act.
The new guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers requires that for such waters to be protected, there must be a “significant nexus” shown between the intermittent stream or wetland and a traditional waterway.
And the guidance says a determination will be made on a case-by-case basis, analyzing flow and other issues.
Environmentalists argued that would negate the broader regional importance of many such waterways in the aggregate on water bodies downstream.
Assistant EPA Administrator Benjamin Grumbles said the new guidance to regional offices and enforcement officials “sends a clear signal we’ll use our regulatory tools” to meet President Bush’s promise of no net loss of wetlands.
He said it “maintains … the Bush administration’s strong commitment to wetlands conservation.”
Environmentalists said the new rules will put in jeopardy many of the intermittent streams and headwaters that now fall under the Clean Water Act and result in less protection of wetlands.
“This guidance adds unnecessary and unintended hurdles for agencies and citizens trying to protect our waters,” said Jan Goldman-Carter, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, and she called it a “retreat from protecting many important headwaters streams and wetlands.”
Grumbles said the new guidance conforms with a ruling by the Supreme Court a year ago. A divided court said that while the government can block development in a wetland, even miles from a traditional waterway, it can do so only if there is a significant connection shown with the waterway.
Ban on NPEs urged
An environmental group asked the federal government Tuesday to ban certain toxic chemicals in industrial and household detergents because they are believed to cause male fish to develop female characteristics. The Sierra Club also asked the Environmental Protection Agency to bar the use of these products in areas where wastewater-treatment plants aren’t equipped to remove nonylphenol ethoxylates.
Derived from petroleum, NPEs are used mainly in detergents but also in papermaking and flame retardants. Researchers suspect the fish problem is rooted in wastewater and farm runoff polluted with chemicals that stimulate estrogen production. NPEs are one of them.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
