Press Releases

Today, U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, sent a letter – cosigned by 7 House colleagues – to President Barack Obama urging him to continue to act to protect tributary streams and wetlands in the Chesapeake watershed and across the nation by expediting the finalization of the EPA’s recent “waters of the US” rule.

In March, the EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers publicly issued the proposed “waters of the US” rule to clarify what is covered by the Clean Water Act.  The proposed rule provides needed certainty with respect to the waters covered by the Act’s pollution prevention and cleanup programs, and will protect those waters that the science shows have important effects on downstream areas and the Chesapeake Bay.

“We must restore safeguards to protect the Chesapeake Bay and our constituents in the mid-Atlantic watersheds,” said Cartwright.  “The Bay is an economic engine for our region, with an estimated value in the tens of billions of dollars range, based on the fishing and shipping industries, real estate, recreation, and tourism.”

Prior to the issuance of the new rule, Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 called into question the status of upstream tributaries and wetlands and jeopardized critical water resources and fish and wildlife habitat.  Legal uncertainty about what the law protects has denied pollution protections under the Act to approximately 20 percent of the 110 million acres of wetlands in the continental U.S.

Specifically, many of these wetlands and streams are critical to the health of the Bay, filtering out excessive nutrients which have already created dead zones, replenishing groundwater, and reducing the risk of flood.

The rule has now entered a period of public comment.

You can view a copy of the letter by clicking here.