Water area in square miles
Water area by percentage
Posted on 06/11/2012 11:56:23 AM PDT by lowbridge
Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways.
These temporary water sources are often created by rain or snowmelt, and would make it harder for private property owners to build in their own backyards, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities on their own land, lawmakers say.
“Never in the history of the CWA has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as ‘waters of the United States,’” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking committee member, and Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
“This is without a doubt an expansion of federal jurisdiction,” the lawmakers said in a May 31 letter to House colleagues.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
When my computer goes wacko, I reboot it.
The only solution is to dispand the EPA. I’m not holding my breath that the spineless twins McConnell and Boner have the will to do that.
No doubt the US central government is on a quest to destroy both our constitutional rights and property rights. The better to control us.
Good point. Although lots of other homes don’t have ditches. I wonder if at some time in years long gone if the spring didn’t produce more water. Our yard, “upstream” of the spring, never had a ditch.
Several of the worst busybody, socialist NIMBYs in my area are living with “water rights” on a creek that flows down from the nearby mountains. Every one of them has been or is government-employed and complaining against every private sector family that they know of.
If you know similar commies with a similar situation, make sure that they are dealt with by their beloved EPA first. Chaos and starvation for the beast—not us. It’s time to go on the offensive.
EPA deserves to be 100% dismantled forever. It’s just a front for taking away regular citizens freedoms and liberty.
Florida is getting the EPA’s California treatment!
"When they came for the shoreline property, I didn't stand up because I live inland. When they came for the wells, I didn't act because I have muni district water" - ...and so on. Now they are coming for everyone.
The time to get people to understand how vulnerable every citizen is is running out fast.
I deal with the EPA and the Department of Ecology in my business as well as being part of an active property rights group. Believe me----
THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT HAS VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH THE ENVIRONMENT!
Uh, it's in the first chapter of the book I published eleven years ago. In that same book, I also warned about regulation of seasonal Class 3 Riparian Areas when the NRCD instituted lawsuits in all 50 states to establish TMDL regulations for non-point "pollution" sources. At the time it was for nitrate, but I wrote that it would soon be about silt.
Mud.
Wherever there is dirt and water, there is mud. Whenever you mix mud and water, you get suspended silt. Mud is a nonpoint source of silt. Silt is found everywhere there is dirt, which is everywhere. If you want to control the use of dirt, just call it a pollutant! It isn’t clean water any more, it’s dirty. People don’t want dirty water. They want clean water. Just ask them.
To determine culpability for a source of silt is even harder than for nitrate. Nonpoint mud is a much harder sell for an initial action in nonpoint pollution enforcement than human feces. Natural causes of silt in the County of Santa Cruz vastly outweigh human contributions. Sources of silt vary by location and degree every year. To assign individual causes is highly subjective…
The State Water Resources Control Board employs five specialists assigned to institute nonpoint TMDL standards in the Central Coast Region. At the time of this writing, one third of the TMDL documents on their web site deal with the San Lorenzo River Watershed. Why are they focusing upon such a small community as the San Lorenzo Valley, in a County with timber practices touted as some of the finest in the world?
Santa Cruz County is a perfect test environment for enforcement of TMDL upon sources of nonpoint silt. It is one of the few places in the world with both nonpoint nitrate problems from urban and agricultural sources and silt problems involving a rural/suburban forest, coho salmon, and timber harvesting. It also has an entrenched activist bureaucracy, a thoroughly proven political machine, and a university activist community with which to supply the “experts” to make it all happen.
Few, even on this forum, paid any attention. 'Oh, that's just a local issue in loony Santa Cruz.' Yeah, right.
When will we finally come to a day when government employees are fearful? When will some / any figure out that they are being paid for nothing and it can’t last? When will some / any figure out that they have become enemies of the people and that the people will not tolerate it?
Armed EPA?
EPA's new motto: All your a--holes are belong to us :-)
It was about the time Santa Cruz Co had spent untold dollars on a bike path to link Santa Cruz to points south and after it was almost complete from two sides a gaggle of greenies stopped it from crossing about 150 feet of a canyon in Soquel because of some weeds or flies.
Have you ever run across Michael Shaw, by chance?
I thought Indiana was where the DNR were outlawing the keeping of certain breeds of hogs (based on appearance) on farms under some sort of “feral hog” law...
Michael Shaw does a lot of valuable work to complain about the Agenda 21 and educate people to the threat it portends. He has put a fair bit of money and time into it, printed pamphlets, distributed video, and the like. He has supported important lawsuits financially. Yet typical of Randians, he has no concept for practical means in free markets to deal with the problems arising out of modern scale, transportation, and chemistry. He babbles about liberty, but in my opinion, he doesn't understand the HOW when it comes to addressing real problems with some uses of private property arising out of changes due to modern technology. There are real problems with the common law foundation of our legal system and its lack of correspondence to physical reality that he just doesn't seem to grasp.
Michael indirectly got me involved in the Santa Cruz County Local Agenda 21 Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management Roundtable. On the committee, he showed up for a few early meetings, did no work, and contributed little in the way of ideas (I negotiated and wrote the draft). He hung around long enough to make sure "program h" was in the document, thus getting into an ordinance language stating that he could develop his property. That done, he was not to be seen again. When the final battle came over a year later and the "central committee" (IOW Jeannie Nordland and crew) forced a completely rewritten and fraudulent document down our throats, he was strangely absent. When I called him on it over the phone, he said, "you're doing a really good job."
I have more to say on that and more as a personal matter, but I'd rather say it to his face with independent witnesses present.
Haven’t you heard? Nobody has to “show up”. They just fly the drone over the farm then send him a summons in the mail. If the farmer doesn’t show up in court he loses his farm or at least pays a big fine.
This not only “ditch” take over. This is “Front and Back Yard” take over.
Maybe this is the “third” think Perry couldn’t remember.
It appears there really is an Agenda 21.
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