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Wetlands

odd no notes here 8/16, since the mud puddle beleaugered homeowner is bs trope/memeSEE PERC PAG LEG

see wotus

see clean water act

scotus 5 23

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AHA/ NOTE EVERY TIME GOP OPENS MOUTH STARTS W/ WE ALL WANT CLREAN AIR/WATRER THEN NEXT SENT GUTS IT

NO LNX TWT HEATED

The nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., took a swim with his family in a poop-contaminated stream this weekend.

The New York Times reports:

Rock Creek, which flows through much of Northwest Washington, is used to drain excess sewage and storm water during rainfall. The creek has widespread “fecal” contamination and high levels of bacteria, including E. coli, and the city has banned swimming in all of its waterways for more than 50 years because of the widespread contamination of Rock Creek and other nearby rivers.

Kennedy has not responded to requests for comment to explain why he did this. Many have speculated that it’s because Kennedy does not believe in germ theory, the foundational scientific principle that germs—like bacteria, viruses, and parasites—cause disease.

On Bluesy, epidemiologist Dr. Elizabeth Jacobs writes: “RFK Jr. doesn’t believe in germ theory, so him hopping into a sewage-filled creek reminds me of Immanuel Pfeiffer. He’s the anti-vaxxer who in 1902 went right ahead and took his unvaccinated self to a smallpox ward and lo and behold became very ill with smallpox.”

But that doesn’t ring entirely true, because Kennedy has always said he believes contaminated water causes disease. In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci, he wrote that he believes in miasma theory, which “emphasizes preventing disease by fortifying the immune system through nutrition and by reducing exposures to environmental toxins and stresses." He’s said he believes in “fortifying the immune system through healthy living, clean water, and good nutrition."

In fact, protecting clean water was once integral to Kennedy’s public identity. In 1999, he was named a ‘Hero of the Planet’ by Time for his work cleaning up the Hudson River with the Riverkeeper Association. Kennedy was also a founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance, “where he took on pollution from coal mines, coal-fired power plants and factory farms,” reports Inside Climate News. Kennedy has called Waterkeeper “my life’s work,” and said it “will always be my proudest achievement.”

But today, Kennedy is the top health official in an administration decimating America’s clean water protections. Trump has said his goal is to cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 65 percent, which environmental groups say would be “devastating” for clean water. Already, Trump’s EPA has started the process of significantly reducing the types of waterways that are protected under the Clean Water Act, in order to allow landowners, farmers, ranchers, and home builders to dump livestock waste, construction runoff, and industrial effluent into small streams and wetlands.

Waterkeeper, Kennedy’s old organization, has called this move a “disaster” for clean water in this United States. It points out that polluting small streams and wetlands “also contaminates downstream waters, decimating fisheries and recreational waters, jeopardizing businesses and agricultural production, and increasing local water treatment plant costs.”

That’s why Waterkeeper has become an outspoken opponent of Trump’s anti-clean water agenda. Since taking office, Trump has withdrawn regulations limiting “forever chemicals” in waterways; paused enforcement against coal companies whose waste is leaching into groundwater; and cancelled a program to protect Alabamans from raw sewage, among many other things. “Collectively, these actions alone threaten to reverse more than a decade of progress to reduce highly toxic pollutants from the environment,” Waterkeeper said.

But while Kennedy’s old environmental group is sounding the alarm about the health risks of polluted water, Kennedy—the nation’s top health official—is posting pictures of himself swimming in it. The reason is clear: He’s trying to convince himself and others that he remains a legitimate environmentalist. Worse, he’s trying to provide green cover for Trump, who he insists is bonafide nature-lover. It’s more than environmental theater; it’s environmental propaganda.

Kennedy’s form of environmentalism is the equivalent of toasting all-natural marshmallows over a tire fire. It might make for a good photo, but it’s actually poison. True environmentalism requires protecting natural resources, listening to scientists, and prioritizing public health over polluter profits. Kennedy used to understand that. Now, he’s full of crap.

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mma 6 23

Right-wing media are attempting to discredit mainstream coverage and reactions around the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit bodies of water protected under the Clean Water Act.

On May 25, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of wealthy Idaho couple Michael and Chantell Sackett in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, after a 14-year legal battle in which they fought to do construction near protected wetlands without a permit. All nine justices ultimately agreed they could do so, however, their reasoning differed and concurring opinion on the scope of the case was split 5-4.

Five conservative justices ruling for the majority decided that definitions previously laid out in the 51-year-old Clean Water Act were the problem, considerably narrowing the scope of which bodies of water must be protected. According to the environmental law nonprofit EarthJustice, which filed anamicus brief in the case, the new decision means that “as many as half of the 118 million acres of wetlands in the U.S. are no longer protected by the Clean Water Act, embracing the decades-long demands of mining companies, the fossil fuel industry, reckless developers, and other big polluters.” 

Mainstream media coverage of the ruling rightfully highlighted this serious outcome. Democratic lawmakers including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called out the decision’s radical implications and suggested it was driven by a partisan conservative agenda. Other experts pointed out that the majority decision ignores the best available science on how pollutants move through ecosystems.

In response, right-wing media celebrated the decision and slammed its critics, claiming that the unanimous ruling was intentionally being ignored to mislead the public and fit the narrative that conservative, Trump-appointed justices were making controversial decisions. In reality, the outcome of Sackett v. EPA was nothing if not controversial. Even Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh opted to side with the court’s three liberal justices, saying the majority’s decision to redefine what is protected under the Clean Water Act went against scientific evidence.

Right-wing media attacks focus on the majority’s decision to gut the Clean Water Act

Right-wing media attempted to expose those who called out the very real impacts of gutting the Clean Water Act and implied that the only decision that mattered — and the only one that should be publicized — was the unanimous ruling in favor of the Sacketts. Suggesting otherwise, according to them, was a gross misrepresentation of the ruling.

These allegations started on May 25 in response to Schumer’s tweet attacking the “MAGA Supreme Court” for the decision to “erode our country’s environmental laws,” adding that “this ruling will mean more polluted water, and more destruction of wetlands.” Twitter users accused Schumer of lying by highlighting the unanimous ruling in favor of the Sacketts, and even added a community note clarifying the decision. Echoing the online backlash, right-wing media including Fox News and Newsmax piled on Schumer as well.

Right-wing media also attacked The Washington Postand Bloomberg for not highlighting the unanimous decision more prominently, or even falsely stated that this was not even mentioned.

Why the 5-4 split between the concurring justices matters

It’s true that all nine justices ruled in favor of the Sacketts. Specifically, they found that the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA did not have jurisdiction over this particular property. But despite what right-wing media say, the differences in their reasoning are important.

Initially, the Sacketts filed a lawsuit against the EPA because the agency ordered them to remove sand and gravel fill from the lot where they wanted to build a house, arguing that it was on protected wetlands and they would need to return the area to its natural state. The couple brought the case to the Supreme Court for the first time in2012 after lower courts sided with the EPA, maintaining that the property was subject to the Clean Water Act and the Sacketts did indeed need permits to continue construction. The Supreme Court at the time ruled in favor of the Sacketts’ right to challenge the EPA’s order.

Aided by the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity, both of which were founded by the fossil fuel billionaire Koch brothers, as well as other industry groups, the Sacketts managed to get their case in front of the Supreme Court for a second time. They were represented by thePacific Legal Foundation,which has received funding from the fossil fuel industry and its allies and also fought to weaken the Clean Water Act back in 2006.

This time, five far-right justices didn’t just rule in favor of the Sacketts — they went so far as to adopt the narrowest possible definition of which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, completely changing how the law has functioned for the past 51 years. Kavanaugh, along with three liberal justices, argued that this decision went too far. Though they wrote a concurring opinion, he and three other justices fundamentally disagreed with Justice Samuel Alito’s reading of the law, which would not protect wetlands unless they have a “continuous surface connection” to bodies of water. Kavanaugh explained why that doesn’t make sense in his concurring opinion (citations omitted):

“Because of the movement of water between adjacent wetlands and other waters, pollutants in wetlands often end up in adjacent rivers, lakes, and other waters. Natural barriers such as berms and dunes do not block all water flow and are in fact evidence of a regular connection between a water and a wetland. … The scientific evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that wetlands separated from covered waters by those kinds of berms or barriers, for example, still play an important role in protecting neighboring and downstream waters, including by filtering pollutants, storing water, and providing flood control. In short, those adjacent wetlands may affect downstream water quality and flood control in many of the same ways that adjoining wetlands can."

Right-wing media’s gripes ignoring the concurring opinion and framing the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling as key to the case are completely bad-faith attempts to gaslight the public into thinking that the decision was less controversial than it actually was. This narrative directly benefits the industries that were so keen to help gut a bedrock environmental law while refusing to accept clear scientific evidence that is inconvenient to their bottom line. As Earthjustice puts it, the effort was part of “a coordinated push by industry polluters that want to blow a hole in the Clean Water Act, bulldoze cherished wetlands, and contaminate the country’s streams with waste from mining, oil and gas, and agro-industrial operations as they see fit, just to maximize their profits.”

This isn’t the first time this court has delivered a victory to polluters. In June 2022, the court’s conservative majority issued a devastating ruling in West Virginia v. EPA that severely limited the EPA’s power to make power plants cut the toxic pollution that is driving the climate crisis.

exxon evil pending on crypto ~ wetlands which are buffer to protect indig POC from storms/sea level rise

BP api exxon funded astro front crypto wetlands orgs to punk congress into paying for gulf spill cleanup but also derg ~ wetlands

// awf

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The National Wetlands Coalition, founded in 1989,[1] has opposed U.S. wetlands policy, saying "the federal government, while seeking to protect wetlands, casts a wide net and imposes burdensome and ineffective regulations on private property that does not function as or provide the ecosystem benefits of high-value wetlands".[2] Time Magazine called it "a big-biz coalition against wetlands".[3]

In 1995, the organization consisted of about 60 municipal associations, utilities and major industrial companies, such as Exxon, Texaco and Kerr-McGee.[4]

The National Wetlands Coalition has been characterized as the quintessential astroturf organization, which is an organization that presents itself as a grassroots organization, but was actually founded by (and is largely funded by) a separate commercial or political organization in order to promote its own agenda, while keeping its relationship to the new organization hidden.

A study by the University of Oklahoma used the National Wetlands Coalition as a specific example to examine the influence of corporate front-group stealth campaigns, in which corporations form associations that, in turn, adopt names that are designed to misrepresent their true intentions.[5] The results of the study indicated that front-group stealth campaigns were effective in enhancing public perceptions of the front group itself. The National Wetlands Coalition campaigns successfully undermined perceptions of the targeted attitude object, eroding support for any federal efforts to restrict wetlands’ development or regulate developers.

The organization has been relatively inactive since around the late 1990s.[6] The website was being "reworked" from February 2001 through November 2005;[7] it went offline in December 2005.[8]

tom b raw an 5 23

https://www.alternet.org/brett-kavanaugh-lobbed-the-judicial-version-of-a-grenade-at-sam-alito-this-week-analysis-2660660997/

reacting to a blunt-talking concurring opinion submitted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh taking on the ruling authored by colleague Sam Alito, Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson suggested in a new column for MSNBC there is the makingsof a schism developing within the conservative majority court.

At issue was the court severely limiting the ability of the government to enforce theClean Water Act,with Kavanaugh agreeing with the ultimate decision, but siding with the liberal wing in pointing out that the court is making law instead of interpreting it.

According to Levinson, the court's ruling was an egregious assertion of the court's authority and "the court’s ruling isn’t merely practically pernicious for those who care about the environment; it is legally wrong."

As she notes, the conservative wing of the court continually emphasizes that they are jurists and not elected lawmakers and, surprisingly, Kavanaugh reminded Alito of that in the text of his concurrence.

"It is unusual for Kavanaugh to break with his conservative colleagues, and the fact that he did so here shows us how truly baseless the court’s reasoning is," she suggested before explaining, "Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion explains why the court’s interpretation of the text of the Clean Water Act is fundamentally unmoored from the text itself. To use his words, 'the Court is imposing a restriction nowhere to be found in the text.'"

"The question before the court in this case was which wetlands are considered to be 'adjacent' to a body of water covered by the act, and therefore itself protected by the act," she wrote. "While the court’s ultimate decision was unanimous, its reasoning was splintered. A thin five-member majority of the court, defying basic rules of legal interpretation, concluded that 'adjacent' means 'adjoining.'"

As she notes Kavanaugh pointed out that the court went out of its way to ignore the obvious meanings of the words involved.

"Kavanaugh tells us exactly why Justice Alito got it wrong, as well: his interpretation goes against the 'ordinary meaning' of the word 'adjacent' and the 'longstanding agency practice' of the Army Corps.Referring to dictionaries for the plain and ordinary meaning of the word adjacent, Kavanaugh notes, 'the definitions of "adjacent" are notably explicit that two things need not touch each other in order to be adjacent,'" she elaborated.

According to Levinson, Kavanaugh was being brutally blunt with Alito and his other conservative colleagues when he wrote, "I would stick to the text.”

"These six words are nothing less than the judicial version of a grenade," the law professor wrote before adding, "Kavanaugh is essentially reminding the majority that they had one job, and one job alone, when interpreting a federal law: to follow the text. They failed to do so. We will live with the practical and legal consequences of that failure for years to come."

You can read her whole column here

an 5 23

no lnx

U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority on Thursday severely curtailed protections for "waters of the United States."

The decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is "unanimous in result but very split in reasoning," explainedSlate's Mark Joseph Stern. "The upshot of Sackett is that, by a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court dramatically narrows" which wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act (CWA).

The majority opinion—authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by all of the court's other right-wing members except Justice Brett Kavanaugh—concludes that the CWA only applies to wetlands with "a continuous surface connection" to larger bodies of water, excluding those that are "adjacent."

Earthjustice declared in response to the ruling that "this is a catastrophic loss for water protections across the country and a win for big polluters, putting our communities, public health, and local ecosystems in danger."

Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), was similarly critical, saying that "the Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands."

"The majority chose to protect polluters at the expense of healthy wetlands and waterways. This decision will cause incalculable harm. Communities across the country will pay the price," Bapna warned.

"What's important now is to repair the damage," he added. "The government must enforce the remaining provisions of law that protect the clean water we all rely on for drinking, swimming, fishing, irrigation, and more. States should quickly strengthen their own laws. Congress needs to act to restore protections for all our waters."

Elizabeth Southerland, former director of science and technology in EPA's Office of Water, noted that "since 1989, the U.S. government has used Clean Water Act authority to either prevent the filling of wetlands or to permit filling only when an equal acreage of wetlands is reclaimed or restored."

"Wetland preservation is critical for providing flood control, absorbing pollutants, preventing shoreline erosion, storing carbon, and serving as a nursery for wildlife," stressed Southerland, now a volunteer with the Environmental Protection Network.

Thursday's decision, she said, "is a big win for land developers and miners, who will now be free to destroy certain types of wetlands without paying for wetland reclamation," and "a big loss for communities who will have to pay more to treat their drinking water and respond to increased flooding and shoreline erosion."

The high court was criticized for hearing the case—brought by an Idaho couple denied a permit by the EPA—as the federal agencuy was finalizing a new waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule following the Trump administration's widely condemned rollback. The Biden administration's policy was just finalized in December.

"While Earthjustice and our allies are closely evaluating the impact of the Sackett decision on the new WOTUS regulation," said Sam Sankar, the legal group's vice president of programs, "we can say with certainty that the court has once again given polluting industries and land developers a potent weapon that they will use to erode regulatory protections for wetlands and waterways around the country."

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see wotus

The Waters of the United States rule, designed to limit pollution in about 60 percent of the nation’s bodies of water, was put forth by the E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers in 2015. It had extended existing federal protections of large bodies of water, such as the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound, to smaller bodies that flow into them, such as rivers, small waterways and wetlands.

Issued under the authority of the 1972 Clean Water Act, the rule has been hailed by environmentalists. But farmers, ranchers and real estate developers oppose it as an infringement on their property rights.

Republicans in farm states cheered the administration’s move on Wednesday.

“The Obama administration’s outrageous Waters of the United States rule would have put backyard ponds, puddles, and farm fields under Washington’s control,” said Senator John Barrasso, the Wyoming Republican who is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “Today’s action will give Wyoming’s ranchers, farmers, small businesses, and communities clarity.”

horror story b/c it could rain and a duck could migrate

jindal helped oil co's destroy trms (wanted to build barrier islands, useless and expensive if not actually harmful)

inhofe only vote ~ everglades

djt mofo re wind; i assume this is wotus?

The Trump administration announced plans Thursday to formally weaken protections for millions of migratory birds.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/wetlands-conservation-restoration-2627624238.html

Protecting the World’s Wetlands: 5 Essential Reads

The Conversation Feb. 02, 2019 08:00AM EST

Marshes at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland's eastern shore. Ataraxy22 / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

By Jennifer Weeks

World Wetlands Day on Feb. 2 marks the date when 18 nations signed the Convention on Wetlands in 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Since that time, scientists have shown that wetlands provide many valuable services, from buffering coasts against floods to filtering water and storing carbon. These five articles from our archive highlight wetlands' diversity and the potential payoffs from conserving and restoring them.

  1. Soaking Up Floodwaters

Wetlands line coasts in many parts of the world. They act as natural sponges that soak up floodwaters and absorb force from storm surges, protecting communities further inland.

Working with Lloyds of London, UC Santa Cruz researchers Siddharth Narayana and Michael Beck sought to quantify the value of these functions. Using insurance industry storm surge models, they calculated that during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, wetlands along the U.S. Atlantic coast prevented more than $625 million in direct property damage by reducing storm surge. They also estimated that marshes in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey reduced annual losses from flooding during smaller storms by an average of 16 percent, and up to 70 percent in some locations.

Narayan and Beck see restoring wetlands as an effective way to make coastal communities more resilient against storms and flooding:

"Across the United States, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia, coastal communities face a crucial question: Can they rebuild in ways that make them better prepared for the next storm, while also conserving the natural resources that make these locations so valuable? Our work shows that the answer is yes."

  1. Carbon-Rich Mud

Wetlands store large quantities of carbon in plant tissue and soils. But as climate expert Williams Moomaw and wetland scientists Gillian Davies and Max Finlayson point out, no global climate change agreement calls for protecting wetlands as a way to slow climate change. And around the globe, wetlands are constantly being drained, diked and paved over.

Coastal wetlands can extend well inland, transitioning from saltwater to brackish and freshwater.

EPA

In contrast, forest protection gets a special section in the Paris agreement, which offers developing countries incentives to protect and expand tropical forests as carbon sinks. Moomaw, Davies and Finlayson believe wetlands deserve equal attention:

"In our view, instead of draining swamps and weakening protections, governments at all levels should take action immediately to conserve and restore wetlands as a climate strategy. Protecting the climate and avoiding climate-associated damage from storms, flooding and drought is a much higher use for wetlands than altering them for short-term economic gains."

  1. 'Blue Carbon' Banks

Mangrove forests, which grow in salt water in tropical regions, are especially effective at locking up "blue carbon"—so called to distinguish it from "green" carbon storage on land. Louisiana State University scientists Robert Twilley and Andre Rovai estimate that "the wood and soil of mangrove forests along the world's coastlines hold 3 billion metric tons of carbon—more than tropical forests."

Mangrove forest in wetlands of Lebak, Sultan Kudarat, Philippines

Bonvallite / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

Coastal development is an enormous threat to mangroves, whether for vacation homes in Florida or aquaculture farms in Asia. Twilley and Rovai wanted to pinpoint what type of mangroves were the most effective at storing carbon. By comparing conditions in different settings where mangroves flourish, they determined that river deltas and estuaries offer the best conditions for mangrove growth and carbon uptake:

"Overall, mangroves in deltaic coasts such as the Mississippi River delta, the Amazon in Brazil and the Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh can sequester more carbon yearly than any other aquatic or terrestrial ecosystem on the globe. These are the world's blue carbon hot spots."

  1. Mangroves Versus Marshes

Mangroves are actually benefiting from climate change in some regions, such as Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. Villanova University biologist Samantha Chapman has found that mangroves are becoming more abundant in these areas, moving into zones formerly dominated by salt marshes, which typically are found in cooler zones.

Mangroves protect coasts more effectively against large waves, so this change isn't necessarily harmful. However, as Chapman says:

" ... it is important to note that marsh plants provide important habitats for numerous species of birds and fish. We don't yet know how these animals will fare as mangroves replace marshes, nor do we yet understand other downsides of plant range shifts due to climate change."

Moreover, she notes, mangroves are not building new shoreline quickly enough to keep up with sea level rise in all locations. As her findings show, there is still much to learn about how climate change will affect different types of wetlands in various locations.

Saving One of the Most Pristine Wetlands on Earth | National Geographic

youtu.be

  1. Small Streams, Big Roles

Wetlands aren't just found along the coasts. Many major rivers, such as the Colorado and the Mississippi, start as networks of small streams, some of which may only flow during certain seasons or when it rains. But as Colorado State University geoscientist Ellen Wohl explains, a lot happens in these small tributaries and isolated wetlands that affects the larger rivers downstream:

"Marvelously adapted organisms in dry streams wait for periods when life-giving water flows in. When the water comes, these creatures burst into action … Amphibians move down from forests to temporarily flooded vernal wetlands to breed. Tiny fish, such as brassy minnows … speed through breeding and laying eggs that then grow into mature fish in a short period of time."

Brassy minnows, found throughout the northern U.S. and Canada, live in cool, slow moving streams, creeks, overflow ponds near rivers, boggy lakes and ditches.

Ellen Wohl, CC BY-ND

Small channels in river networks also harbor microbes that are very good at removing contaminants from the water. And these channels slow down heavy rainfalls, allowing water to soak into the ground and reducing the risk of flooding downstream.

The Trump administration is seeking to rewrite a key section of the Clean Water Act, eliminating federal protection for many of these small streams and wetlands. Such action, Wohl contends, "will strip rivers of their ability to provide water clean enough to support life, and will enhance the spiral of increasingly damaging floods that is already occurring nationwide."

hurricane harvey 1 mill lbs chemicals in air, some can be cleaned via wetlands, also coastal buffer to storm surge, eroded by oil industry

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21022018/sea-level-rise-coastal-wetlands-global-warming-mitigation-wildlife-habitat-storm-surge-usgs

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scalia st'd

https://theconversation.com/does-scott-pruitt-have-a-solid-case-for-repealing-the-clean-water-rule-80240

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https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/10/headlines/ohio_epa_fines_energy_transfer_partners_over_18_pipeline_spills

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http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-clean-water-rule-2292421509.html

Throwing the weight of his office behind the nation's biggest polluters, President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing his administration to dismantle the Obama-era Clean Water Rule.

Surrounded by other foes of environmental regulation, including the newly confirmed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt, the president declared the 2015 law, also known as Waters of the United States, "a horrible, horrible rule. Has sort of a nice name, but everything else is bad."

...Passed under former President Barack Obama, the Clean Water Rule extends Clean Water Act protections to streams and wetlands. As The Hill observed Tuesday, Trump's move is seen as "an opening shot by Trump against the EPA, which was a frequent target of criticism from Republicans for alleged overreach under Obama's tenure."

Though implementation of the rule has been on hold due to ongoing litigation, the move drew outrage from environmental groups, who see it as a necessary provision for the protection of clean water.

The White House has not yet released the full text of the order but it reportedly directs the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to formally consider rolling back the rule, which Pruitt is sure to oblige given that while serving as Oklahoma attorney general he sued the agency he now heads against implementation of the Clean Water Rule.

..

High Court asked to hear suit over feds’ rigged scheme for “discovering” wetlands

South Dakota farming couple is represented, free of charge, by Pacific Legal Foundation

Miner County, SD;  August 10, 2016: The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to hear a South Dakota farming couple’s lawsuit over the federal government’s “rigged” formula for labeling their property as “wetlands” converted to agricultural uses.

Anthony L. Francois 

Senior Staff Attorney

 Damien M. Schiff 

Principal Attorney

Arlen and Cindy Foster are suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture for using a process that pre-determined the result when it “concluded” that 0.8 acres of their Miner County farm are “wetlands.”  Under provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985, such a classification can have the effect of denying a farmer access to certain federal assistance programs.

In a petition for certiorari filed this week, asking the Supreme Court to hear their suit over the arbitrary and unfair way that the “wetlands” designation was reached, the Fosters are represented by Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a watchdog organization that litigates nationwide for property rights and a balanced approach to environmental regulations.  Donor-supported PLF represents the Fosters free of charge, as with all its clients.

Arlen Foster’s family has been farming the same land in Miner County for three generations, since his grandfather bought the property in 1900.  He and his wife Cindy grow corn, soybeans, hay, and raise cattle,and hope that their grandchildren will have the opportunity to follow in their footsteps.

But an agency of the Department of Agriculture — the National Resources Conservation Service — has accused them of violating the Food Security Act of 1985 by farming 0.8 acres of federally protected wetlands on their property.

An inquiry gamed to produce the desired result

“The bureaucrats made this bogus wetland determination against the Fosters using a method that they rigged to produce the desired result of determining that the Fosters’ property is a federally protected wetland,” said Tony Francois, a PLF senior staff attorney.  “The regulators had to determine whether the farmland in question could have supported wetlands vegetation in its pre-farmed state.  For an informed conclusion, they could have carefully analyzed the Fosters’ farmland itself, or used a nearby comparison site that shares relevant environmental characteristics.  Instead, they chose, for comparison, a site more than 30 miles away where they already knew that wetlands vegetation could be found.  In other words, they gamed the outcome by choosing a control site that gave them the answer they wanted.

“The Fosters are not the only victims of this fixed scheme,” Francois continued.  “The comparison site, which was employed in a lazy and arbitrary way to label their property as wetlands, is used for the same purpose throughout much of eastern South Dakota.  This comparison site was preselected 16 years ago with the knowledge that it supports wetland plants.  Now federal officials use it anytime they are investigating a possible wetland with similar soils and disturbed vegetation, anywhere in the surrounding 10,835 square miles.”

Courts must hold bureaucracies accountable to standards of legality and fairness

In asking the Supreme Court to hear the Fosters’ lawsuit, PLF argues that the Department violated due process and its own regulations by using a preselected comparison site that is so far away from the Fosters’ property and is already known to be wetlands.  Moreover, the petition argues that the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals showed too much deference when it declined to second-guess the bureaucrats’ unfair process.

“When an agency’s decisions have real-world consequences for the public and for individual property owners, unelected bureaucracies cannot be allowed to be their own judges and juries,” said Francois.  “In this case, we are trying to promote standards of fairness and credibility in environmental policy, and also to establish that courts have an active role in enforcing those standards.”

“I am disappointed but not surprised by the way federal officials handled the wetland determination that has such significant impact on our farm and our family,” said Arlen Foster.  “It is just simply the nature of the bureaucracy to cut corners and disregard rights when they do not have a personal stake in the results of their work.  Even beyond the importance of this case for my own family, it needs to be pursued to defend the principles and rights that those before us have bequeathed to all Americans.  That is why we are so grateful to Pacific Legal Foundation for their work in standing with us on these important issues.”

The case is *Foster v. Vilsack*.  More information, including the petition for *certiorari* and a_podcast_, is available at PLF’s website:  www.pacificlegal.org.

**_About Pacific Legal Foundation_**

Donor-supported PLF is a watchdog organization that litigates for limited government, property rights, and a balanced approach to environmental regulations, nationwide.  At the Supreme Court, PLF has won nine consecutive direct-representation cases for liberty and limited government.  PLF’s most recent Supreme Court victory came earlier this year, in the Clean Water Act case of _*U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes*_.

http://www.pacificlegal.org/When-regulators-label-property-as-wetlands-owners-may-seek-judicial-review

...PLF represents the property owners on appeal, and argues that Jurisdictional Determinations — “wetlands” designations under the Clean Water Act — are final agency actions subject to judicial review.  In attempting to hold Clean Water Act regulators accountable to the courts for their decisions about whether property is wetlands or not, and where they have regulatory power, this case follows up on our victory in *Sackett v. EPA*.  In that landmark 2012 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that property owners may appeal directly to the judiciary from a federal wetlands “compliance order.”...

http://www.pacificlegal.org/releases/release-8-10-16-foster-1-1523

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Corps_of_Engineers_v._Hawkes_Co.

all agree review/appeal ok? notes hakes is a mining operation, not mom and pop famers

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 National Park Service is celebrating its centennial this month — 100 years of protecting America's great public lands.

Yet the Park Service just approved disastrous plans to explore for oil and gas in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve — right next to the iconic Everglades National Park and home to the critically endangered Florida panther.

And what's more, the agency gave this plan the green light without completing the Environmental Impact Statement they're required to do by law.

NRDC rushed to court as soon as we could to protect this spectacular wild place. Now we need your help to ratchet up massive public pressure that will compel the Obama Administration to protect Big Cypress and its iconic wildlife before it's destroyed forever

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rfk2:

atrazine #1 in US, tho problems found in 80's; frog deform at 1/30th eap level; lawsuit forced gov to look into.  Gov hired Syngenta, a mfger 92

July 2003 epa regional office approved study by developer funded study that wetlands put out pollutants, then used to justify replace wetlands w golf

courses etc 92-3  biologist quit"bushwacked" 93

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Wetlands_Conservation_Act

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http://www.ducks.org/conservation/public-policy/nawca

NAWCA funding for FY2017

NAWCA Overview

The North American Wetlands Conservation Act conserves North America's waterfowl, fish and wildlife resources while producing a variety of environmental and economic benefits. Its success is driven by partnerships involving federal, state and local governments; nonprofit organizations like DU and community groups. Every federal dollar provided by NAWCA must be matched by at least one dollar from non-federal sources. Because the program is so effective, NAWCA funds are usually doubled or tripled on the local level. More than $1 billion in federal grants has been allocated for NAWCA projects – a figure that has leveraged an additional $3 billion from matching and non-matching funds. Since its inception, more than 2,553 NAWCA projects have contributed to the conservation of almost 30.7 million acres of habitat across North America.

NAWCA's History

NAWCA was enacted in 1989 and provides federal cost-share funding to support the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. NAWCA is a non-regulatory, incentive-based, voluntary wildlife conservation program.

NAWCA stimulates public-private partnerships to protect, restore, and manage wetland habitats for a diversity of migratory birds and other wildlife. NAWCA partnership grants play an important role in meeting the DU mission, from restoring wetlands that have been altered, and enhancing water availability, to reducing soil erosion and the likelihood of floods. In addition, many projects provide outstanding recreational opportunities, from bird watching to hunting.

NAWCA provides challenge grants for wetlands conservation projects in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Every $1 of federal money allotted to NAWCA must be matched by $1 or more from non-federal sources like Ducks Unlimited, or state fish and wildlife agencies. Because this program is so effective, funds are often doubled or tripled at the local level.

In Washington, D.C., the Ducks Unlimited Governmental Affairs staff works with Congress in support of annual funding for NAWCA so we can keep building on the Act's waterfowl conservation success.

To date, NAWCA has helped fund more than 2,553 projects on almost 30.7 million acres in all 50 states, areas of Canada and areas of Mexico. More than 5,000 partners, including private landowners, industry and state governments have worked together to conserve wildlife habitat through NAWCA grants. Learn about NAWCA in your state.

Other resources:

NAWCA fact sheet (PDF)

NAWCA application materials

NAWCA State Fact Sheet

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