Page 36 2023 Fall Farm Outlook Lincoln Daily News Oct 2023 Waters of the United States. For some people, especially farmers and ranchers, this is a source of much grief and anxiety. Why is this? To answer that question, one must understand that Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, is not only another name for waterways in the United States. WOTUS is another name for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corp of Civil Engineers’ Clean Water Act of 1972. The goal of WOTUS is to keep the waterways in the United States clear of pollution and other contaminants. This idea is a great one, as keeping America’s waterways clean is a noble goal. Why is it then, that some people are against WOTUS? The answer lies within its implementation and guidelines. Critics of WOTUS claim one of their biggest gripes with it is the lack of clear language. The Farm Bureau states, “we have fought for clear rules that farmers and ranchers can follow as they work to care for our natural resources.” A lot of wording in WOTUS tends to be quite vague, leading to the potential for mistakes to be made when interpreting how it is to be implemented in day-to-day situations. Most anything that occurs within a WOTUS requires a permit, and these permits can be very expensive and time consuming to get a hold of. Without these permits, however, farmers can be held liable for breaking the Clean Water Act (CWA). “A simple misjudgment by a farmer in determining whether a low spot is or isn’t WOTUS could trigger huge civil fines and even criminal punishment.” A law with repercussions such as these should have clear language so everyone it applies to can be sure they are not breaking it. WOTUS’ final rule may not be final after all One specific issue regarding WOTUS’s vagueness via language comes from its lack of a definition of the word ‘navigable.’ The new WOTUS rules, effective November 27, 2023, still fail to give this term a definition. According to Iowa PBS, “The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture felt the new rules failed to establish clarity for farmers including what is and is not ‘a navigable water’.” Most dictionaries define the term navigable as a waterway that boats and ships can traverse. This definition may sound specific enough, but without a legal definition for this law specifically, there is no way to truly know how the EPA defines ‘navigable,’ and therefore how they determine a ‘navigable waterway.’ To better understand the tense situation around WOTUS, it is important to understand its history and how it got to where it is today. On October 18, 1972, the Clean Water Act was signed into law. According to the EPA’s website, “the CWA aimed to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.” Among the many standards and mandates that 1972’s CWA put into place, one of them set a goal of removing pollutants from “navigable waters” by 1985. Over the following decades, several pieces of legislation were passed amending the CWA. Some of these pieces of legislation included parts addressing state funding for cleaning waterways and cleaning up the Great Lakes. It was in these decades that the CWA faced many legal challenges as well. One of these Continued --
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