There’s More Than One Way To Pollute America’s Water

girl running across a small creek followed by friend

When Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was determined to roll back regulations that would keep America’s waterways free of toxic industrial pollution, they faced a dilemma.  Could they get away with simply lifting a ban on known poisons?  Sure, Trump supporters will be thrilled to see another relic of the Obama-era demolished, but won’t everybody else go through the roof?

The decision they made was to change the definition of what qualifies as “waters of the United States,”  and that proved to be so much wiser.  They simply discarded a regulation that had enhanced protections for wetlands and smaller waterways. Now the Trump administration will be able to create its very own definition of which waters merit federal protection, and allow the dumping of toxins into millions of miles of streams that run either continually or seasonally across this vast nation.

From the article linked above: Adding that the EPA has already finalized 46 deregulatory actions under President Trump, (EPA administrator Andrew) Wheeler says the agency has “an additional 45 actions in development.”

If poisoning our water is part of making America great again, these guys are doing a fantastic job.  It’s really no wonder that everybody’s so jazzed about re-election.  Four more years of this, and it will take half a century to clean up our environment again.  Keep America Great.