{"id":21409,"date":"2014-09-25T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=21409"},"modified":"2014-09-25T09:45:46","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T14:45:46","slug":"confusion-fueling-oklahoma-outcry-over-epas-waters-of-the-united-states-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/09\/25\/confusion-fueling-oklahoma-outcry-over-epas-waters-of-the-united-states-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Confusion Fueling Oklahoma Outcry Over EPA’s ‘Waters of the United States’ Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"20140923-mason<\/p>\n

Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Mason Bolay climbs into the cab of a tractor on his family's farm near Perry, Okla.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Oklahoma Congressman Jim Bridenstine calls it a power grab<\/a> by an imperial president. U.S. Representative Frank Lucas says it would trigger<\/a> an onslaught of additional red tape for famers and ranchers in Oklahoma.<\/p>

That kind of hyperbole is expected anytime President Barack Obama\u2019s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does, well, anything. But the changes being proposed<\/a> to the way bodies of water are classified are<\/em>\u00a0confusing.
\nhttps:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/09\/STORY-9-24-WOTUS.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/p>

The so-called \u2018Waters of the United States\u2019 designation is the federal government\u2019s attempt to define which bodies of water<\/a> qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act. The EPA is trying to tweak that definition. And it\u2019s got farmers like Mason Bolay worried.<\/p>

\u201cMy great, great grandpa made the land run in 1893 and we still farm the same farm they originally staked about five miles south of here,\u201d Bolay says as he gestures toward a dry streambed at the bottom of a hill behind his house. \u201cWe\u2019re standing here on top of a hill, but yet, there\u2019s a waterway not 20 feet from us that runs water when it rains. It runs into a pond. It then dumps into the terrace that goes down to the next pond that dumps into the creek.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘No Less Fuzzy’<\/h4>

The Bolays have transformed this land over the generations, dug ponds, built barns, fences, houses \u2014 all without federal permission. But Mason thinks the proposed \u2018Waters of the U.S.\u2019 rule could change that.<\/p>\n

\"J.D.<\/p>\n

State of Oklahoma<\/p>\n

J.D. Strong, executive director of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.<\/p>\n<\/div>

When J.D. Strong, director of Oklahoma\u2019s Water Resources Board, reads the proposed rule, he says even dry ditches in Oklahoma could fall under federal control.<\/p>

\u201cIt throws the door open for a lot more features to be considered \u2018waters of the U.S.\u2019 than there were in the mix before,\u201d Strong says. \u201cThey\u2019ve taken an already fuzzy line of jurisdiction and simply moved it from one place to another, but it\u2019s no less fuzzy before we started this exercise.\u201d<\/p>

It\u2019s never been entirely clear which waterways are \u2018waters of the U.S.\u2019 and get Clean Water Act protections. The current definition includes any waterway that, if polluted, would have a negative impact on interstate commerce. That includes:<\/p>

\u201cAll the major rivers and streams, the significant ones, ones that are flowing pretty much year around and those sorts of things,\u201d Strong says. \u201cThose are clearly jurisdictional waters of the U.S., because they\u2019re either traditionally navigable waters, or they\u2019re significantly connected to those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interconnected<\/h4>

But U.S. Supreme Court justices in 2001 and 2006<\/a> said that\u2019s not a good enough test. That\u2019s why the EPA is proposing a new one.<\/p>

\u201cThe court said, \u2018No, you should be looking at the relationship of waters to each other\u2019, and to make a determination of whether the pollution or destruction of upstream waters would have an adverse effect on downstream waters,\u201d Ken Kopocis with the EPA\u2019s Water Office says.<\/p>

Kopocis says the new rules take into account the interconnected nature of waterways. He says, for example, you can\u2019t protect water in a river without fixing the pollution that comes in from its tributaries or adjacent wetlands.<\/p>

\u201cSo there are two questions that need to be asked,\u201d Kopocis says. \u201cAre they related and connected to each other? And then secondly, would the pollution of the upstream water body effect \u2014 significantly affect the downstream water body?\u201d<\/p>

But EPA officials say farmers\u2019 fears are unfounded and that the proposed rule actually includes fewer waterways than were covered prior to the Supreme Court rulings. For example, Kopocis says tributaries have always been covered by the Clean Water Act, that fact just hasn\u2019t ever been spelled out in the rules.<\/p>

\u201cPeople are now wondering, \u2018Oh, if the words are going to change, is it going to substantially change the meaning.\u2019 And we actually \u2014 we don\u2019t see it that way,\u201d Kopocis says.<\/p>

The public comment<\/a> period ends on October 20. Kopocis expects the new EPA rule to be finalized next spring. And if history is any guide<\/a>, Oklahoma and other states will likely sue to block it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The changes being proposed to the way bodies of water are classified are confusing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":21410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[313,499,314,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21409"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21442,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409\/revisions\/21442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}