Green groups challenge Trump water rollback

A coalition of environmental groups sued the Trump administration on Monday, challenging a rollback of protections for the nation’s waterways originally put in place under the Obama administration. The Navigable Waters Protection Rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January limits federal protections for smaller bodies of water, a move critics say risks contamination of larger ones used for drinking water. The suit, filed by Earthjustice on behalf of Sierra Club, other environmental groups, and a number of tribes, argued the Trump administration erred in removing protections for wetlands and streams that result from rainfall. The plaintiffs called the rule an “egregious example of putting profits over people. Industrial polluters could potentially be given free rein to dump toxic pollution into nearly 2 million miles of the nation’s streams and 20 million acres of wetlands for which protections would be removed. This must not be allowed to happen.” The suit, filed on the day the law takes effect, is the third filed by a coalition of environmental groups and also follows litigation filed by 17 states. A Colorado-based suit has succeeded in temporarily blocking the rule there...MORE