Posted November 14, 2013
Agriculture organizations are raising concerns over the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) draft report “Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands to Downstream Waters: A Review and Synthesis of Scientific Evidence,” according to an article by Drovers available here.
In September, EPA sent a draft rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to clarify the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. A recent post from this blog on the EPA’s announcement of the draft rule is available here. The proposed rule is being reviewed by OMB, and is not yet available to the public. EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) will hold a public meeting on the draft report in December. The notice is available here.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) said that the report “fails to discuss how effects are measured; and whether it is possible to establish science-based effects thresholds that could ultimately be applied in a regulatory context.” The NCBA also urged the SAB to reject the draft rule.
The Water Advocacy Coalition said, EPA “put the cart before the horse,” and asked the agency to withdraw the draft rule and wait for the SAB’s final review of the rule before making any regulatory decisions.”
Bloomberg BNA recently released a leaked draft of the proposed rule in an article here. Bloomberg reports that based on their scientific and technical experts, the EPA and the Army Corp of Engineers concluded that “tributaries, as defined in the proposed regulation, in a watershed are similarly situated and have a significant nexus alone or in combination with other tributaries to the chemical, physical or biological integrity of traditional navigable waters, interstate waters or the territorial seas.”
For more information on the Clean Water Act, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
Share: