BY TAMMIE SLOUP
The proposed "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule threatens to impede farmers’ ability to provide safe, affordable, and abundant food, fuel, and fiber. In a seven-page letter about the proposed regulation's impact on farmers, Illinois Farm Bureau explained why.
"The concerns that farmers and ranchers have are not hyperbole nor are they isolated occurrences," President Richard Guebert Jr. wrote in the filing to the U.S. Environmental Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "They are lived experiences illustrating the pitfalls of returning to an overly expansive definition of 'waters of the United States' and, specifically, an outsized view of what it means for a water to have a 'significant nexus.'”
The definition of WOTUS is critically important to farmers across Illinois, and more than 2,000 Illinois farmers filed comments expressing their concerns regarding the proposed rule.
The proposed regulation would repeal the 2020 Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR), re-establish the definition of WOTUS to what was in place from 1986 to 2015 and broaden the federal government’s authority under the Clean Waters Act (CWA).
"Unfortunately, farmers across Illinois are disappointed by the agencies’ proposed rule. We feel strongly that the (NWPR) was a clear, defensible rule that appropriately balanced the objective, goals, and policies of the CWA," Guebert said.
Farmers’ major concern with the proposed rule stems from changes around ephemeral streams and their adjacent wetlands, which were excluded from the WOTUS definition and government jurisdiction under NWPR.
"Many family and small business farm and ranch owners can ill afford the tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs for federal permitting of ordinary farming activities," the filing states. "Even those who can afford the permitting should not have to wait months, or even years, for a federal permit to plow, plant, fertilize, or carry out any of the other ordinary farming and ranching activities on their lands. Yet this is exactly what could occur should the agencies finalize their proposal."
IFB urged the Biden administration to keep the NWPR in place, and joined the American Farm Bureau Federation in calling on the EPA to pause plans to write a new WOTUS rule after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last month to hear a case that could narrow the CWA.
The 60-day public comment period ended Monday, with more than 22,000 comments filed as of Monday afternoon. It's unclear, especially with the number of comments submitted and pending court case, when the agencies could issue a final rule.
This story was provided by FarmWeekNow.com.