WOTUS controversy: What’s that about?

On February 28, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13778, “Presidential Executive Order on Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ Rule.” While not making any immediate changes to WOTUS, the executive order set in motion a process that included the suspension of the WOTUS changes by EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt in January 2018, and the issuance of a new rule, “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States,’” in December 2018 by Acting EPA head Andrew Wheeler.Due to the ongoing government shutdown, the new rule has not been published in the Federal Register. As a result, the 60-day comment period will not start until official publication, but our readers can download the rule from that site and read the rule for themselves.The gist of the change is that it removes ephemeral streams from the jurisdiction of the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers which is responsible for the navigable waters of the US. Ephemeral streams are generally described as those which are dry most of the year but regularly flow for 7 days or less as the result of heavy rains or snow melt. Most of the areas affected by the inclusion of ephemeral streams are in the arid west.So why might the original WOTUS rule that was made by the Obama era make sense and why might the repeal be a problem?A better solution changing WOTUS may be to require the federal government to map the areas that it determines are in the watershed of ephemeral streams. Then farmers will not be faced the problem of not knowing whether or not they need to apply for a permit before engaging changes to their land.