Obama Administration Issues Rule Restoring Clean Water Act Protections

Media Contacts

Rule restores protections to over half of Connecticut’s streams

Environment Connecticut

Hartford, CT – 52 percent of Connecticut’s streams will gain federal protections under a final rule signed today by top Obama administration officials. The measure restores Clean Water Act safeguards to small streams and headwaters that have been vulnerable to development and pollution for nearly ten years.

“The waterways in which we swim, boat, fish, and that provide drinking water for millions, can only be clean if the smaller streams that flow into them are protected,” said Chris Phelps, Environment Connecticut State Director. “That’s why today’s action by EPA is the biggest victory for clean water in a decade.”

By closing loopholes created by Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006, today’s rule returns Clean Water Act protections to streams that feed the drinking water sources for over 2 million Connecticut residents and one in three Americans. Millions of acres of wetlands, vital for flood control and filtering pollutants, will also again be shielded under federal law.

The court rulings had put small streams, headwaters and certain wetlands in a perilous legal limbo, allowing polluters and developers to dump into them or destroy them in many cases without a permit. In a four-year period following the decisions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had to drop more than 1500 cases against polluters, according to one analysis by The New York Times.

First proposed in March 2014, the joint rule by EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is backed by robust scientific review and has gained broad support across a wide range of constituencies. Ordinary citizens, environmental advocates, local officials, as outfitters, small farmers, and other businesses dependent on clean water have signaled their support. People nationwide submitted 800,000 comments in favor of the rule last fall.

“Waterways like Long Island Sound are vulnerable to pollution flowing from upstream sources,” said Phelps. “Doing everything we can to protect all our rivers, streams, and wetlands is critical to continuing to improve the health of the Sound for generations to come.”

Environment Connecticut, among those pushing for restored stream protections for the better part of the last decade, has gathered thousands of comments from state residents and held more than 10,000 face-to-face conversations about the need to close the loophole in the Clean Water Act in the last year alone.

Despite broad public support for restored clean water protections, oil and gas companies, developers, and other polluters have waged a bitter campaign against them. The U.S. House has passed multiple bills to block or severely weaken the rule, including one measure as recently as two weeks ago.

While today’s action signaled the final chapter in the decade-long fight for small streams and headwaters, advocates warned today that U.S. Senate leaders were more determined than ever to use their authority derail the Clean Water Rule. Last Tuesday, a key subcommittee adopted a measure by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to thwart the rule. This summer, the Senate is likely to use the Congressional Review Act block the clean water protections, setting up a veto fight with the president.

 

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