New waters rule may negatively affect farmers

Last Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule the agency says will further protect waters from pollution by extending regulation to include streams, tributaries and wetlands, a rule some say could enforce even stricter regulation against southern Illinois farmers.

In Saline County alone, there are upwards of 2,200 small farms operated by roughly 700 to 1,000 farmers, according to the Farm Service Agency in Harrisburg. Out of those operators, 1,200 to 1,5000 farmers do farming activities along with secondary occupations. Corn is a $30 to $35 million enterprise in Saline County, and soybeans are a $20 million enterprise.

If the new EPA Waters of the US (WOTUS) Clean Water Rule is strictly enforced, it could cause problems for farmers and landowners of southern Illinois, says Gary Ellis, county executive director for the farm service agency in Saline County.

"Saline county is blessed with the best and the worst soil," Ellis said. "Watershed rolling off of sloping grounds, already thin and marginal, makes it very difficult to meet compliance. But the farmers are doing pretty decent as far as trying to keep the waters in place."

Exactly how clean water rules protect streams and wetlands has been unclear since Supreme Court cases passed in 2001 and 2006. After months of accepting letters from the public, the EPA finalized the WOTUS rule, which expands protection from navigable waterways and their tributaries to tributaries that shows features of flowing water.

That means a tributary with a bed, a bank and an ordinary high water mark warrant protection. According to the EPA, tributaries, even small ones, can have a significant impact on downstream waters.

Ditches not connected to streams that flow only when it rains are not affected by the rule. The rule also extends protections to wetlands and waters near rivers and lakes.

In a conference call last Wednesday, members of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the EPA Office of Water said, "We're finalizing a clean water rule to protect the streams and wetlands that one in three Americans rely on for drinking water, and we're doing that without creating any new permitting requirements and maintaining all previous exemptions and exclusions."

But Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert, Jr. expressed concern at the new rule in a conference call Tuesday, citing worries that the rule will unduly punish farmers for standard practices like applying fertilizer.

"We're disappointed in the final WOTUS rule," Guebert said. "It opens a door to agency enforcement lawsuits against farmers and landowners."

The bureau president also questioned the EPA's "unprecedented, unseemly and possibly illegal grassroots campaign to generate hundreds of thousands of public comments in favor of the regulation," adding that the rule could potentially apply to any roadside ditch that farmers can't reasonably control.

Guebert said he encourages farmers and landowners to support a bill (S. 1140) in Congress that would withdraw the rule and force the EPA to start the revision process over again. That bill was introduced in the senate in late April, and is now being considered by the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife.

White House senior advisor Brian Deese said there is no good reason to be opposed to the rule.

"The only people with reason to oppose the rule are polluters who threaten our clean water," Deese said.

A general statement from the Saline and Gallatin Counties Farm Bureau said, "We disagree with that (Deese's statement) because farmers work daily to improve water quality, many believing they should leave the land better than the found it, knowing that it will very possibly be passed down to the next generation."

Also in response to Deese's comment, congressman John Shimkus, R-Illinois, said, "They (the White House) should tell that to the hardworking farmers and struggling small business owners in my district who see right through this EPA power grab."

Shimkus cosponsored and voted in support of two bipartisan bills to stop the rule, and said he would continue to oppose "this erosion of Americans' property rights until the Administration ditches their bad WOTUS rule for good."

"At this point, it seems like they're trying to regulate every drop of water that hits our farmland," the Illinois Farm Bureau president said.