Feds Sued Over Massive Water-Rule Power Grab -Claiming Control Over 'Every Pond, Stream & Ditch' in Country

by Bob Unruh 

A massive new power grab by bureaucrats in Washington that would give them control of “practically every pond, stream and ditch in the country” and the lands where they are is being challenged in court by a legal team that already has taken on – and defeated – federal efforts to run roughshod over Americans with water rules.

The newest fight is against the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and others for their announcement, at the end of June, to vastly expand the jurisdictional term “waters of the United States” under the clean Water Act.

A lawsuit was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation because, as its principal attorney, M. Reed Hopper, explained, “This new regulation is an open-ended license for federal bureaucrats to assert control over nearly all of the nation’s water, and much of the property, from coast to coast.”

Have a retention pond in a park? Could be subject the new regulation. A low area where rain runoff from your neighborhood drains? Same thing. Isolated puddles in a cow pasture? Look out.

In fact, Hopper said, “Under its vague and limitless terms, the only waters that are clearly not subject to federal regulatory power are a few that are expressly excluded in the Clean Water Act, including artificial reflective pools, ornamental waters, some ground water, and gullies.”

Plaintiffs include the Washington Cattlemen’s Association, California Cattlemen’s Association, New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, New Mexico Wool Growers Inc., New Mexico Federal Lands Council, Duarte Nursery Inc., Pierce Investment Co.’ LPF Properties and Hawks Co.

Judge Andrew Napolitano is issuing his warning, in “It Is Dangerous To Be Right When The Government Is Wrong.”

The case was filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.

The Sacramento-based legal team said the Washington rule “could bring virtually all the nation’s water and much of the land under direct federal regulatory control” because “it sets no limit on the CWA’s reach.”

It explicitly expands federal control to waters that the U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled “off-limits,” the team said.

The Clean Water Act, originally designated to protect “navigable” waters such as rivers, lakes and oceans, would now include “tributaries” no matter how small or remote, “neighboring” water without any connections, and “even isolated waters that the Supreme Court has held to be beyond CWA coverage.”

“In short, the administration is engaged in a sweeping power grab,” Hopper said. “Property owners around the country will be faced with the prospect of being micro-managed by federal bureaucrats. This turns our federal system on its head. Under our constitutional framework, the states and localities are charged with the primary role in land use regulation and local water-quality protection.

“The Obama administration’s sweeping new rule usurps the authority and responsibility of the states, and empowers bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., to act as zoning and land use czars for the entire nation.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/feds-sued-over-massive-water-rule-power-grab/#MLU0EGjQSjfJFdhO.99