S.C. attorney general glad wetlands rule will dry up

COLUMBIA, SC Attorney General Alan Wilson applauded a federal plan Tuesday to roll back a wetlands protection rule that the South Carolina Republican says is cumbersome and unnecessary.

President Donald Trump is proposing to revoke an Obama-era regulation that was intended to clarify federal authority over the protection of small creeks and wetlands, soggy depressions that control flooding, cleanse polluted stormwater and preserve wildlife in states like South Carolina.

On Tuesday, after U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Trump would move to drop the rule, Wilson said the decision is “a victory for common sense.’’ Wilson and other conservative attorneys general had fought the rule in court on property rights grounds

“The EPA’s regulatory filing has a laudable intent of protecting small streams and wetlands from the risk of pollution,’’ Wilson said in a late afternoon statement. “But in fact, it does so through extraordinary means by greatly expanding the already broad definition’’ of what constitutes a wetland or stream.

The Obama rule followed Supreme Court rulings more than a decade ago that many say threw into question which streams and wetlands were protected. Those include small streams and isolated wetlands, which are not directly linked to major water bodies. Other types of wetlands, such as river swamps and salt marshes, already are protected.

Wilson claims ditches could be regulated under the Obama rule, but environmentalists dispute that. According to some estimates, South Carolina has hundreds of thousands of acres of isolated wetlands, many of which can get in the way of development projects.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, which operates in both Carolinas, said the rollback would threaten water quality across the Southeast. The group said creeks in South Carolina that flow into the Reedy River near Greenville and the Congaree River near Columbia are in peril, as are rare Carolina Bay wetlands found almost exclusively in the Carolinas. The group said half of South Carolina’s stream miles could be affected by the Trump rollback.

“EPA’s proposal to rescind the clean water rule calls into question basic protections for many streams and wetlands and jeopardizes clean water for all Americans ‑ and nowhere is that threat greater to the health and well being of our communities than in the South,” said Derb Carter, director of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s North Carolina offices.

“Compared to other regions, Southern states have more miles of streams, more acres of wetlands, and weak and underfunded state water quality programs, making the region especially vulnerable to the loss of federal clean water protections.”

Wilson said a federal appeals court had blocked the 2015 Obama rule. He said the EPA’s intended action, when final, will re-establish rules in place before 2015.

The Washington Post contributed to this story

This story was originally published June 27, 2017 at 6:55 PM with the headline "S.C. attorney general glad wetlands rule will dry up."