Press Release, February 8, 2022| February 8, 2022
After Trump’s departure, SELC seeks protections of streams, wetlands, and lakes.
WASHINGTONThe Southern Environmental Law Center submitted today comments to the Environmental Protection Agency. These comments were also signed by 90 other organizations. They urged the Biden administration not to finalize rulemaking that would protect streams and wetlands that millions of people depend on for their livelihoods, swimming, fishing, boating, drinking, and water.
In its comments, SELC asks EPA to clarify protections for public lakes used by industry for coolingincluding Lake Keowee, a drinking water reservoir for almost 400,000 people in South Carolina–after the Trump administration removed federal clean water protections from such lakes and made them and people who rely on them vulnerable to pollution. SELC also asked EPA to quickly issue a second rulemaking to provide stronger clean water protections for families across the country.
It is a common-sense step to restore federal clean waters protections that have existed for 50 years to America’s streams, lakes, wetlands, and other waterbodies that are vital to the health and well-being of our communities and families, stated Kelly Moser, senior lawyer and leader of the Clean Water Defense Initiative at Southern Environmental Law Center. Waters we all depend on, including drinking water reservoirs, streams which flow into our rivers, as well as wetlands that protect from flooding, require stronger protections from pollution and destruction than the previous administration illegally attempted.
Trump administration removed Clean Water Act protections from many streams, lakes, wetlands. This has left millions of stream miles, and millions upon millions of acres, of wetlands without safeguards that were in place for decades by every other administration. This has put communities and water supplies in danger. The prior administration had removed protections from wetlands like the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge which is located in the path for a proposed Georgia mine, and about 200 acres of wetlands which absorb floodwaters in flood-prone areas near the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. Many Southern communities are protected from flooding and increased rainfall due to climate change.
Out of the more than 9,399 jurisdictional determinations since the prior administrations rule took place in June 2020, at most 7,064 made streams, wetlands or other aquatic resources vulnerable and polluted by industry for development and mining discharges. The rules’ devastating effects on the waterways of the United States can be seen in a sample of 563. 563 of the 563 determinations less than 6% were issued resulted in 11,192 acres of wetlands being exempted from Clean Water Act protections.
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The Southern Environmental Law Center, rooted in South Carolina, is one of the most powerful environmental defenders in the country. The SELC has a long track record of tackling environmental issues in court, government, and communities to protect air, water and climate as well as wildlife, lands and people. The non-profit organization is nonpartisan and has 170 staff, including 90 attorneys. It is headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., and has offices in Asheville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Chapel Hill, Charleston, Nashville, Richmond, Washington, D.C. southernenvironment.org