09/30/2026
The definition of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) may undergo significant changes, leaving potentially thousands of acres of wetlands in South Carolina and across the country without protections. Your voice is needed to speak up for our waters.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently issued a notice of the proposed rule-making for restricting the definition of WOTUS.
The proposed changes to the definitions of "relatively permanent" waters and "continuous surface connection" are not in alignment with the intent of the Clean Water Act. The changes would exclude wetlands that experience 30 or more consecutive days of "dry spell,” ultimately removing federal protections for seasonal, ephemeral, and intermittent waters. These waters may only exist for a few days to a couple of months per year but dictate a majority of the flow of water in the United States. More than 50% of river water in the contiguous U.S. comes from ephemeral streams. Waters that flow, even seasonally, are too important to remove protections from.
For “continuous surface connection,” the notice would limit protections to wetlands that have an indistinguishable connection to jurisdictional waters where it is hard to identify where the wetland or flow of water stops and federally protected water begins. The change would exclude federal protections to navigable waters, including lakes, rivers, streams, and oceans, yet remove protections for a majority of the waters that flow into them.
We need you to speak up and tell the EPA and the USACE that these changes are not inclusive of the Waters of the United States. This proposal does not reflect the intent of the Clean Water Act and effectively removes protections from the major sources of water in the United States.
