Industry and republicans vs clean water act and America’s wetlands.
“ The proposal from the Trump administration, should it be finalized in the coming months, would deliver a victory to businesses and industries that want to scale back the Clean Water Act of 1972, which Congress passed to protect all “waters of the United States.”
The beneficiaries could be real estate developers eager to build on shorelines, farmers with fields that run along waterways and manufacturers who make petrochemicals in vast factories set on tidal marshes.
“Today’s proposal is going to be met with a lot of relief” from those businesses and landowners, Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator said. But what about the rest of the country?
My colleague Maxine Joselow, a climate policy reporter, covered the announcement of the proposal, which could exclude from federal protection wetlands that sit beside what are known as “intermittent” or “ephemeral” streams. Those are the ones that sit dry for most of the year but fill up after rainfall or snowmelt, providing more than half of the water flowing through most river systems used in our drinking water.
“Wetlands are sort of the unsung heroes of the planet because they store carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change,” Maxine told me. “They also provide food, shelter and breeding grounds for a variety of species, including endangered species like the Florida panther and the whooping crane.” They not only provide drinking water, but they also protect against flooding by absorbing tidal surges during storms.
The environmentalist response
Environmentalists are ripping mad. The proposal could affect up to 55 million acres of wetlands — roughly the area of Utah.
The disagreement comes down to a debate over what constitutes “waters of the United States,” which Maxine told me is known by water policy nerds as WOTUS. The Obama administration widened the scope of the Clean Water Act to protect the headwaters of rivers and smaller streams that aren’t always full of water. (A farmers’ advocacy group ran an ad campaign featuring rubber ducks to protest the E.P.A.’s definition: “If you can’t #FloatUS, it’s not a WOTUS,” the ads declared.) In Trump’s first term, the E.P.A. repealed that rule. Then, a Supreme Court ruling in 2023 made it hard again for Democratic administrations to strengthen the protections.
The case was Sackett v. E.P.A. The Sacketts were an Idaho couple who wanted to build a house near what the E.P.A. said were federally protected wetlands. The Supreme Court ruling said the wetlands were not, in fact, federally protected.
And now many more acres of waterways may not be either. The National Association of Home Builders cheered the possibility, Maxine said. The group’s chairman told her the administration’s proposal would help in “reducing regulatory red tape, cutting permitting costs and lowering the cost of doing business in communities across the country.”
Beyond wetlands
Trump has repeatedly said he wants “clean air and clean water.” But several decisions are expected to have the opposite effect, Maxine said.
Last month, the government said it would open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling. And just last week the administration announced that drilling would also be allowed in a pristine, remote stretch of tundra and wetlands in the northern part of the state that is among the Arctic’s most important wildlife habitats.
Why? Officials say that environmental concerns should not necessarily supersede the needs of the nation’s economy. The decision to drill in Alaska, for instance, would “unlock Alaska’s energy potential, create jobs for North Slope communities and strengthen American energy security,” according to Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior.”
Replies to: Industry and republicans vs clean water act and America’s wetlands.
Says the guy who took a steaming dump in pristine iceberg ice melt.
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One of the problems with the modern environmental movement,
at least in my experience, is that it totally removes humans from the environmental equation. So the environmental math looks at a creek, a wetland, or a woodlot and sees value, and thinks that if a 20 foot setback can protect it, a 100 foot setback can REALLY protect it. So let's REALLY protect it. And that's probably fine in lots of instances, like say remote Wyoming or Alaska.
From a strictly residential perspective though, where these setbacks become problematic is when you are working within urban settlement areas (basically where people are or where they want to be). Developers buy land where people want to live. Duh. And when lots of people want to live in these areas, demand is high, so the land prices are high. So when the developer looks at their lot yields that extra 80 feet of setback around every environmental feature takes away from his developable area, that means he's losing 4-5 housing units per acre (on average) in a low density subdivision. That means all your fixed costs (land, external servicing, road improvements, etc.) get spread over fewer units, increasing the fixed cost burden on each house.
So what you've got is the environmental lobby saying we need to provide greater environmenal protections (often way more than even the science supports) just because, and then on the other side you've got municipalities and the public clammoring for more affordable (attainable) housing in the communities where they want to live. The environmentalists want the 100 foot setback because they only think of the environment. They aren't wrong. That setback really does do a great job protecting the natural feature. But they have no regard for the impact it has on housing affordability. That's someone else's problem. The human does not factor into their math. And that's wrong. At a time when homes are becoming less affordable we absolutely have to add humans to the environmental math. Most creeks, wetlands, woodlots will survive just fine with reduced setbacks. And those ephemeral streams that environmentalists scream to protect all get replaced by side and rear lot swales. That drain to stormwater management ponds. That discharge to the same downstream watercourses that the original ephemeral stream drain to now. That people want to protect ephemeral streams is just so silly. Their function is replicated in the completed community, on lots we get to sell. We do the science on every project to support this. When you factor in the benefits to housing affordability, it's honestly a no-brainer to reduce environmental setbacks to reasonable buffers.
And before anyone says all of the cost savings ends up in the developer's pocket and not passed on to the consumer, you don't know what you're talking about. The vast majority of home builders don't want to sit on empty lots trying to squeeze another few thousand dollars out of their purchasers. The extra few thousand dollars will get eaten up by the financing costs of a delayed project completion. If builders can move their units by pricing a little lower than then development beside them they will.
Thanks for reading. Hope that made sense.
Or, you’re just talking about profit being greater at the expense of wildlife.
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Nowhere did I say that.
I'm on the front lines of these environmental debates every day. I'm also on the front lines of the housing affordability crises (in my country not the US). On one side I have environmental agencies pushing me farther and farther away from the natural features because they beleive they need to be overprotected which reduces the amount of land left for building houses, and on the other side I've got every other level of government telling me we need to find a way to make housing more affordable. I sit in the middle and just spew facts. If the environmental agencies stick to reasonable setbacks, we can lower the price of a home. It's simple math. 500 homes @ $600K/each is the same revenue as 600 homes at $500K each. The only difference is we've been able to provide homes for 100 more families if we're able to spread our fixed costs over more units. The environment is fully protected with reasonable setbacks backed by science. By the way, I realize the math there is an oversimplification but you get the point.
There are natural features that need to be preserved and protected. No question. No one is looking to pave paradise or kill Bambi. What is questionable though is the extent to which some environmental agencies go to OVER protect natural features way beyond what the science says is required. Ephemeral streams are the textbook example of overprotection. I've got sites where farmers are growing crops in ephemeral streams. It sits dry 11 months out of the year. He fertilizes the crap out of it and harvests his crop every fall. But if we want to build a house on the land, some environmental agency wants me to keep the ephemeral stream and put a 50 foot setback on it to protect it. Why? It doesn't make any sense. As I said before, the function of the ephemeral stream is replicated on the finished lot. There is no need to isolate it like it's performs some holy function that can't be replicated. I'm not talking about continuous stream corridors or floodplains. Those have to be protected. Ephemeral streams do not. I'm sorry. They don't. They aren't fish habitat. They don't offer any sort of wildlife habitat. They don't even have any plants in them, except the crop.
I just want environmental agencies to understand the economic implications of their overprotection. Not their protection, their overprotection.
Over protection is a baloney term. Land is either protected or it’s not. Knowing developers
up close, for them it’s about profit and nothing else.
Yes, there are regulations that don’t apply well to all circumstances but that’s the nature of regulations.
Makes great sense.
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Post a picture of the "wetlands" at issue in Sackett v EPA
It was a gravel filled lot.
Super glad you read the article
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Farmers farm up to the waters edge, the clean water act doesn't prevent this.
If you wanted to do one thing to improve water quality, you would mandate riparian buffers.
It is a tough issue. No one should want helter-skelter development and...
no one should want environmental fanaticism to strangle growth.
Where would NYC be today if our environmental laws were on the books and enforced in the 18th and 19th centuries?
On the other hand, how horribly polluted would our water be without reasonable restrictions on discharges?
Indeed it is a tough issue...for example, after the Fukushima disaster it was found that EPA
standards regarding emergency radiation dose levels were set too low and resulted in ~1,600 fatalities to infirm patients who were unnecessarily evacuated from hospitals and other Care Centers...as a result, those PAG standards were significantly increased by the EPA (which Japan follows)....i.e. allowing higher radiation doses in such cases.
However, under the Trump administration, it's hard to find any EPA regulation not being cut back...much less new ones being implemented...that would be viewed negatively by Industry. There will always be differences of opinion, but right now it seems as though Zeldin would view another "Love Canal" episode as just the "Cost of Doing Business".
We need to learn from past mistakes and for Trump the only 'mistake' is letting concerns for Health and Well-Being get in the way of making money.
then it’s a good thing you didn’t read the article.
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I've followed this issue for years. There are fanatics on both sides.
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