by Josh Rolph
As farmers and ranchers, we are stewards of the land and depend on it
along with clean water. Now imagine if both of these resources are
severely regulated by the federal government to the point where farming
is not economically viable. Unfortunately, this is now a reality with
the recent redefinition of "waters of the U.S." under the Clean Water
Act.
One of our members, a farmer on the east side of the San Joaquin
Valley, recently went through a full assessment of an 80-acre parcel of
agricultural property to see how it might be regulated under changes to
the Clean Water Act.
What he found was downright scary: Under the jurisdiction of an
overly restrictive Clean Water Act final rule, he would have to fallow
64 of 80 acres, or 80 percent of his farm, and would therefore be left
with only oddly shaped and disjointed areas of his property to farm. In
other words, sustainable farming as he knows it—meaning the kind of
farming that has supported his family and way of life for
generations—would be over. He is not alone. This could be anyone's
farmland in the state or nation.
A lot of ink has been spilled in the news media for more than a
decade about efforts by Congress, the courts and the Bush and Obama
administrations to redefine the Clean Water Act's "waters of the United
States" regulation, or WOTUS for short. The overarching final rule will
greatly expand the federal government's jurisdiction by radically
expanding what it means to be a navigable water.
For years, Farm Bureau and many others concerned about what this
would do to the future of farming tried everything to keep this
redefinition from happening. Now, however, it's no longer an idea or a
proposal. In late May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released
the final version of its rule redefining and expanding WOTUS.
If only the rule was about clean water. Instead, it's about
regulating land use, creating a permitting nightmare, greatly limiting
land-use options, requiring mitigation, negatively affecting land
values, and making it more difficult to obtain financing. At the end of
the day, and as the above real-life example shows, this rule makes it
significantly more difficult to farm.
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