United States — Senate Bill 787, the “Clean Water Restoration Act,” was reported by California Sen. Barbara Boxer on Dec. 10 with a number of amendments.

 

The text of the bill states that its purpose is “to reaffirm the original intent of Congress in enacting the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 ... to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the United States” and to clarify which waters are subject to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, also known as the Clean Water Act.

According to bill, the reaffirmation was prompted by two United States Supreme Court decisions, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers and Rapanos v. United States, which are claimed to have undermined the effort to reach the objectives in the Clean Water Act.

The Clean Water Act, enacted in 1972, established a number of minimum water quality standards and protection programs on navigable waters in the United States, and SB 787 aims to strike the word “navigable,” expanding those waters subject to Clean Water Act standards.

In defining “waters of the United States,” SB 787 states that the definition will include “all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate water and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, and natural ponds, all tributaries of any of the above waters, and all impounments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.” 

Also stipulated in the bill is the inclusion of geographically isolated waters, an amendment introduced by Boxer before reporting the bill.

The bill has stirred an uproar in agricultural communities, including those in the Klamath Basin, with the website www.klamathbasincrisis.org posting a call to action for those opposed to the bill’s passage.