11/09/2026
Register for Our Waters, Our Vote --- Water Summit 2026
https://swflwatersummit2026.eventbrite.com
co-hosts League of Women Voters of Lee County & Sierra Club Calusa Group
Royal Gardner, speaker at the Our Waters, Our Vote Water Summit this Saturday September 19th was quoted in this Wall Street Journal Article about changes that loosen protections for what are considered WOTUS ("Waters of the United States"):
That “would be a dramatic departure from the customary understanding of ‘waters of the United States,’” said Royal Gardner, a professor at Stetson University who has written a history of this debate. The Natural Resources Defense Council says 94% of the nation’s wetlands and three-quarters of streams would lose federal oversight.
Full Article
In 1972, the Clean Water Act banned the release of pollutants into the “waters of the United States” without a federal permit. Ever since, lawyers for industrial interests and environmental groups have debated exactly how watery some swamp or creek must be to qualify for protection.
Those who navigate this quagmire have an acronym for the elusive term at its center: WOTUS. Now, the Trump administration is wading in, pushing for a narrow definition. If it succeeds, the upshot would be speedier development for many energy projects, farms and other infrastructure, and less federal protection for the environment.
“We are overhauling sclerotic government overreach to remove friction from our economy,” Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said in a press release unveiling the proposal last week.
The Army Corps of Engineers implements the regulation with the Environmental Protection Agency. One key change they proposed would largely restrict federal protections to bodies of water that remain year-round under normal conditions, aside from a 30-day interruption.
That “would be a dramatic departure from the customary understanding of ‘waters of the United States,’” said Royal Gardner, a professor at Stetson University who has written a history of this debate. The Natural Resources Defense Council says 94% of the nation’s wetlands and three-quarters of streams would lose federal oversight.
The new definition goes beyond the request of the oil industry, whose pipelines and oil wells run into Clean Water Act permitting issues. The American Petroleum Institute, in a January comment letter, suggested that waterways with a mere 90 days of flow should be entitled to federal protection.
The proposal seeks to bring the EPA into line with a crucial 2023 Supreme Court decision that crimped the agency’s authority. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said the EPA can legally regulate only “relatively permanent” bodies of water.
Alito left agencies to turn the ambiguous phrasing into regulation. The Trump EPA’s first proposal, which was released in November and attracted 220,000 public comments, defined “relatively permanent” to mean flowing in the wet season. That was widely deemed confusing.
Looser rules could have a big impact in arid Western states. In Arizona, streams are mostly dry, and the state has many water-intensive mining projects, each with systems for draining stormwater and disposing of water used in minerals processing.
Arizona accounts for roughly 70% of U.S. copper output. The top producer, Freeport-McMoRan, which is developing more projects as copper demand soars, warned in 2022, before the Supreme Court ruling, against applying federal regulations to “arid ephemeral drainages.” A spokeswoman for the company said it hasn’t examined the latest proposal but supports environmental protections and state regulations.
n 2022, the American Exploration & Mining Association said getting permits takes up to 10 years, undermining projects’ economics and impeding the supply of clean-energy minerals.
“Time is money for these companies,” said Larry Liebesman, a lawyer at Dawson & Associates, a firm that advises on environmental permitting. He said the latest definition, if approved, would spell fewer reviews under the Clean Water Act and regulations that can be triggered by it, such as the Endangered Species Act.
The wrangle still isn’t over. There will be a 30-day comment period. But the waters of the United States could soon be less expansive than they used to be.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/the-waters-of-the-united-states-are-about-to-legally-dry-up/ar-AA2bXs5b
Plus: Monster floods threaten Nepal’s hydropower bet, a trio of Pacific hurricanes and what’s really powering China’s EV boom.
