Scott Pruitt Proposes Gutting Clean Water Act, Threatening Drinking Water of 117m Americans.
(EnviroNews USA Headline News News) — Washington D.C. — On June 27, 2017, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt released a proposal to dismantle the Clean Water Rule (The Rule), also known as the “Waters of the United States (WOTUS).” Pruitt is following up on President Trump’s February Executive Order to formally reconsider the 2015 Obama-era version of The Rule.
“This proposal strikes directly at public health.
Clean water is too important for that.
The map is based on the 2009 EPA “Geographic Information Systems Analysis of the Surface Drinking Water Provided by Intermittent, Ephemeral and Headwater Streams in the U.S.” Readers may click on the image below to link to the interactive EPA map and find out if your drinking water is at risk.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) used the same data to create another detailed and interactive map, which focuses specifically on the 72 million Americans who depend on drinking water from small streams.
When signing the Order, Trump called The Rule “a massive power grab” that put people out of work.
He also said “the EPA decided that navigable waters can mean nearly every puddle or every ditch on a farmer’s land, or any place else that they decide.” Pruitt’s proposal describes a two-step revision process and states: Proposing to re-codify the regulations that existed before the 2015 Clean Water Rule will provide continuity and certainty for regulated entities, states, agency staff and the public.
Kierán Suckling, Executive Director of the Center for Biological Diversity, shared this opinion on the proposal to roll back U.S. water pollution regulations: Scott Pruitt is smashing everything he touches at the EPA.
From vernal pools in California to prairie pothole ponds in the Midwest, small wetlands provide essential habitat to hundreds of endangered species, birds and migrating wildlife.