Protect the Clean Water Rule.
Delaware’s freshwater and saltwater resources are a substantial economic engine that contributes $7 billion to the regional economy and supports 70,000 jobs with over $2 billion in wages.
Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule that would rescind the Clean Water Rule to redefine the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) as protected by the Clean Water Act.
In Delaware, this Clean Water Rule rollback would leave 1,100 miles (25 percent) of streams and 193,500 acres (32 percent) of freshwater wetlands, vulnerable to fill and pollution.
These are the same waters in the Diamond State that support an $8 billion agricultural economy, with the most productive lima bean-growing county in the U.S. and a $2 billion tourism economy with the cleanest beaches in the nation.
Large navigable waters such as the Delaware River, the Brandywine and Inland Bays have always been protected by the Clean Water Act.
And, of course, it’s not appropriate for the WOTUS rule to regulate about 200 miles of manmade ditches, swales and ponds that flow through Delaware.
But what about the smaller navigable streams, the tributaries that flow from the headwaters down into the larger streams?
How will the large interstate rivers such as the Brandywine be protected in Delaware if the small headwater streams upstream in Pennsylvania are left unprotected by the federal government?
The repeal of the WOTUS rule would leave 1,000 miles of the most beautiful small streams and 30 percent of our productive freshwater wetlands unprotected in Delaware, the same waterways that feed the First State’s $500 million drinking water supply.