{"id":94573,"date":"2020-01-27T13:05:40","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T21:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=94573"},"modified":"2020-01-27T13:05:40","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T21:05:40","slug":"epa-announces-final-wotus-navigable-waters-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=94573","title":{"rendered":"EPA Announces Final WOTUS Navigable Waters Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released the final Navigable Waters Protection Rule to define \u201cWaters of the United States\u201d (WOTUS).\u00a0 This rule has been an ongoing effort to reverse the previous WOTUS rule adopted in 2012, which RCRC opposed as a jurisdictional overreach, and inappropriate expansion of federal authority over bodies of water not previously controlled by the federal government.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-94574\" src=\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"327\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium.jpg 900w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium-768x469.jpg 768w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium-86x54.jpg 86w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium-122x74.jpg 122w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium-570x348.jpg 570w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium-120x74.jpg 120w, https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium-701x428.jpg 701w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 327px) 100vw, 327px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The expansion of federal authority over these waters could have resulted in delays in important local public works projects such as maintenance of flood conveyances that could ultimately endanger public safety.<\/p>\n<p>The new rule provides clear guidance on what is and is not a navigable water of the United States, and excludes such things as ditches and wastewater treatment systems\u2014waterways that were vaguely included in the previous WOTUS rule.\u00a0 Thursday\u2019s announcement helps ensure that local governments will be able to continue providing public health and safety services such as maintaining vital flood conveyances and storm drainage systems without an extra layer of bureaucracy that ultimately does little to protect the nation\u2019s waterways.<\/p>\n<p>The pre-publication version of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule can be accessed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/nwpr\/navigable-waters-protection-rule-step-two-revise\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released the final Navigable Waters Protection Rule to define \u201cWaters of the United States\u201d (WOTUS).\u00a0 This rule has been an ongoing effort to reverse the previous WOTUS rule adopted in 2012, which RCRC opposed as a jurisdictional overreach, and inappropriate expansion of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/EPA-seal-medium.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/94574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}