June 10, 2021
Statement by Howard A. Learner, Executive Director
“We welcome the Biden Environmental Protection Agency initiating the process of undoing the damaging Navigable Waters Protection Rule the Trump administration finalized last year.
Safe clean water for all depends on protecting backyard brooks, community creeks and tributary streams that feed into the Great Lakes and other important Midwest waterways. We also need to protect wetlands that act as buffers to flooding in the Mississippi River and elsewhere. Wetlands, in particular, are important buffers to the Midwest’s waterways – including the Mississippi River – because they absorb rainfall and snowmelt that could flood adjacent communities.
“EPA needs to act swiftly to put an end to the misguided Trump-era rule and begin the process of replacing it with a rule that ensures our Great Lakes, Mississippi River, lakes, streams, and wetlands are protected. Leaving a rule in place that ignores science is a threat to clean water in the Midwest and everywhere.
“ELPC opposed the Trump EPA’s misguided and narrowed definition of waterways protected by the Clean Water Act. Now we’ll engage once again in the Biden EPA’s efforts to develop a that protects safe clean drinking water for all, public health, and fish and wildlife habitats.”