Associated PressFriday, June 19, 2009
Chris Wood, Trout Unlimited's national chief operating officer, said Idaho's experience shows that a state roadless policy can work. Not all conservation groups support Idaho's plan, Wood said, but it was developed after a lot of collaboration and has broad public support.
"I don't know of any conservation group that supports the Colorado plan," said Wood, an architect of the 2001 roadless rule while with the Forest Service. Read more
Book Review by Kyle Boelte, High Country News Saturday, 20 June 2009 Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West James Lawrence Powell 304 pages, hardcover: $27.50. University of California, 2008.
At once a suspense thriller, a history in the tradition of Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert, and an informed warning, Dead Pool deserves to be read now, before we make even more mistakes. With both temperatures and the demand for water rising, it's tempting to see dams as a source of salvation. But, argues Powell, dams only increase Westerners' demand for water and, in so doing, make our problems even worse. Read more
By Danielle Leigh - ColoradoConnection.com
"Anything we can do to get that out of the creek and help out water quality because we have a plant habitat and wildlife habitat, fish habitat that depend on good water quality," said Stormwater Enterprise Manager Ken Sampley. Read more
From Coyote Gulch / Durango Telegraph
Churchwell commented that he volunteers out of a sense of obligation both to the Durango community and the Animas watershed. “Those trout keep me sane and our rivers are my ‘church,’” he said. “Healthy rivers are the lifeblood of our communities, and I’m thankful Durango recognizes the value of the Animas to our community.” Read more
david.hendee@owh.com - Omaha World Herald
Hunters and anglers heard the horror stories.No more building duck blinds on private land without a costly and time-consuming permit.
No more firing over or near wetlands, ponds, lakes or rivers because even non-toxic shot would be considered a pollutant.
No more driving all-terrain vehicles to transport gear to off-road hunting or fishing spots without at least a special permit.
Farmers heard that a puddle of rainwater on their land would fall under control of federal bureaucrats.
But these perceived threats by a revitalized federal clean water law to sportsmens' cherished pastimes and farmers' routine farming operations are bogus, say conservationists.....
The Clean Water Act did not apply to gutters, puddles or other insignificant accumulations of water and neither would the new bill. The new act also preserves all existing agricultural exemptions under the law, such as for return flows and construction and maintenance of irrigation ditches and farm ponds. Read more
cbs4.com
Pueblo County's district attorney has written to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers asking them not to issue a permit for the $1.1 billion pipeline. Bill Thiebaut says Colorado Springs Utilities has environmental problems to fix before the utility should be allowed to expand. Read more
Rebecca BoyleFor The [Greeley] Tribune
NISP is intended to capture excess water to which Colorado can lay claim. Detractors say it would do too much harm to the Poudre River; supporters say it would allow thirsty, growing cities another supply of water that could prevent drying up more agricultural land. Read more
The push to set aside nearly 370 square miles as the El Rio Grande del Norte National Conservation Area is part of a new wave of congressional proposals aimed at protecting more than 34 million acres of public land across the West. Read more
Fiver Rivers Chapter website For those of you who haven’t driven over the Animas lately, the Caddis hatch is pretty intense right now. With the runoff finishing early this year, all of our local waters are fishing well right now, so get fishing! Click here to check the flows of local waters.
From Trout Unlimited: June 18, 2009 The United States Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday approved the Clean Water Restoration Act, a move hailed by conservation and sportsmen groups. “This is a great step forward in restoring common sense protection to our nation’s waterways and wildlife habitat,” said Trout Unlimited Chief Operating Officer Chris Wood.
The bill now goes to the full Senate for consideration. CWRA would restore the original intent of the Clean Water Act, which in recent years has been weakened by Supreme Court rulings that distorted the language of the law and drastically reduced its scope. The resulting legal confusion has stripped Clean Water Act protections from some 20 million acres of wetlands and millions of miles of streams.
A number of the bill’s critics claim that it overreaches and vastly expands federal jurisdiction. Ranking Committee Member Sen. James Inhofe, R-OK, declared that rural America should “watch out” for the Clean Water Restoration Act, and called it “the biggest bureaucratic power grab in a generation.”
Critics’ sensationalist claims bear little relation to reality. When given the facts about CWRA, farmers, ranchers, sportsmen and others who care about stewardship of rural America’s land and water are supporting this responsible legislation.
Fact: Senate Environment and Public Works committee members, including Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Chairwoman Barbara Boxer of California, have worked hard in recent weeks to meet the concerns of rural stakeholders about the CWRA. The resulting compromise language has cleared up confusion about the CWRA’s impact on rural areas. As a statement by the Montana Grain Growers Association puts it, “Senator Baucus’ substitute amendment addresses several concerns of production agriculture and makes it explicitly clear that this bill will not expand the scope of jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act beyond the original intent of Congress.”
Fact: Critics portray CWRA as a federal power grab, but the bill merely restores the protections that our nation’s waterways enjoyed for more than a quarter century, before recent misguided Supreme Court rulings stripped protections from millions of miles of streams. A key clarification at the heart of the bill—changing the phrase “navigable waters” to “waters of the United States”—follows the interpretation long used by the Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency for decades.
Fact: The Clean Water Restoration Act would not apply to any water body that was not historically covered under the Clean Water Act for more than 25 years, prior to the 2001 Supreme Court SWAANC decision. The Clean Water Act did not apply to gutters, puddles or other insignificant accumulations of water—and neither would the Clean Water Restoration Act. Moreover, the Clean Water Restoration Act preserves all existing agricultural exemptions under the law, such as for return flows and construction and maintenance of irrigation ditches and farm ponds. “Rural America can live with the Clean Water Restoration Act – because rural America already has lived with and benefited from these protections for decades,” said Melinda Kassen, director of TU’s Western Water Project.
Fact: About 60 percent of America’s streams are intermittent and could lose protection without the CWRA—these same streams are a drinking water source for more than 110 million Americans, in rural and urban areas alike. Hunters, anglers and other outdoors enthusiasts have lined up to support CWRA.
Field and Stream magazine recently called CWRA passage a top legislative priority for sportsmen, citing its protection of “temporary and isolated wetlands, among the most important habitats for waterfowl and a host of other wildlife.”
“The CWRA compromise bill approved Thursday is pragmatic, balanced legislation that protects America’s rivers and streams while preserving existing farm and ranch operations,” said Steve Moyer, vice president of government affairs at Trout Unlimited. “This is a bill that rural America can support.”
A majority of Americans surveyed in a recent Gallup poll indicated that they worry “a great deal” about the water quality of our nation’s streams and rivers. They don’t want to go back to a past when our country’s rivers and streams were dumping grounds for pollution. The CWRA will help ensure that our nation’s rivers and streams remain clean, swimmable and fishable.
For more information: Melinda Kassen, (303) 440-2937, x 100, mkassen@tu.org Bruce Farling, (406) 543-0054, bruce@montanatu.org Steve Moyer, (703) 284-9406, smoyer@tu.org
