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For environmentalists, however, the proposed regulatory change "violates EPA's core mission, which is to protect human health and the environment," said Bart Johnsen-Harris, who is working on water policy at Environment America.
While the Obama rule would have applied federal protections to wetlands that are not adjacent to large bodies of water or are not drained directly through a surface water channel, the new rule remove this protection. According to Mr. Holman, of Southern Environmental Law Center this would potentially open up pollution to millions of acres of intact wetlands. "For wetlands, it's an absolute disaster compared to the Obama plan," he said .Although these wetlands are not physically located near significant water masses they can nevertheless be drained by underground networks, said Mr. Holman.
Removing these protections would still allow pollution to infiltrate into the wider waterways of the country, he said. It would also allow developers to more easily pave such wetlands.
Federal courts had already stopped the application of the rules of the Obama era in 2015 in 28 US states, after their opponents had However, in recent months the rules have come into force in the other 22 states.
Wetland protection policies put in place decades ago by the first presidents Bush, a passionate fisherman, followed his own campaign to save wetlands, saying "all wetlands, no matter how small, should be preserved" and a "no net loss" policy. E.P.A, of Mr. Bush, subsequently weakened this initial policy, but environmentalists credited him with raising the issue.
Fifteen years later, the second President Bush gave a regulatory boost to his father's proposal, implementing an E.P.A. rule requiring stronger protection of wetlands than his father had once envisioned.
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