EPA claims don’t hold water

By LESLIE HOLLOWAY

Environmental Protection Agency officials insist new regulations redefining “waters of the United States” do not expand the EPA’s authority, interfere with property rights or impose any new restrictions or costs on farmers and ranchers. But, like the emperor’s new clothes, what we see contradicts what we are being told.

For example, EPA’s regional administrator said in a recent commentary, “A tributary must show physical features of flowing water — a bed, bank and ordinary high-water mark — to warrant protection.”

However, the preamble to the regulation says, “In such cases where physical characteristics of bed and banks and another indicator of ordinary high water mark no longer exist, they may be determined by using other appropriate means that ... can indicate prior existence of bed and banks and other indicators of ordinary high water” marks.

In other words, even if no physical features of a tributary are present, EPA can regulate something — such as a ditch or a gully — as a tributary based on signs that it might have been one anytime in the past. That’s far different than what the administrator said.

Even double-spaced, hundreds of pages make for challenging reading, but it’s the only way to find the contradictions between what the regulations say and what the EPA says they say. Another example: EPA claims most “ditches” are exempt, but exceptions to the exemption mean lots of ditches will come under regulation.

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