Not since the destructive assaults

on the environment during the Reagan Administration have our environmental

protection laws been threatened as severely as they are today.

Almost from the first day of

his term in office, President Bush has made it clear he intended to render

ineffective as many of our environmental protections as possible. Laws

which were crafted by Congress and then completed with thousands of hours

of detailed work to establish implementing regulations are already being

undermined by administrative maneuvering.

The Clean Water Act is one

of the primary environmental laws which protect our fragile environment.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency,

at the behest of the Bush Administration, are proposing new rulemaking

to define "waters of the United States".

The Bush Administration has

taken a very narrow decision by the Supreme Court concerning an issue

in Illinois and is using that to eliminate protection of many isolated

wetland areas and some small streams that do not flow year-round. The

Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that as a result, as much

as 20 percent of the remaining wetlands will lose federal protection.

During the late 1960s and early

'70s, a huge effort was taking place in this country to find a way to

protect our wetlands and small streams. Hundreds of people with a wide

background of expertise worked very hard to create workable regulations

to make implementation of the Clean Water Act possible. Section 404 of

this Act requires a permit to fill in wetlands or small streams.

I was among the group that

worked to establish the Section 404 Regulations and for over 25 years

of my career, I helped with enforcement actions related to that regulation.

The Reagan Administration damaged the process, but the most valuable aspects

survived until now.

Some of you may recall that

a few years ago, Vice President Cheney led a group with a title related

to the environment. That group tried to convince everyone that they had

a new way of operating that would make the environment safer. When asked

who these "environmental experts" on his committee were, he

refused to divulge the information. He says we should just trust him!

The Bush Administration, unable to convince everyone that they loved the

environment, is trying a new tactic.

So here they come again. This

time, they are working through the regulatory agencies (Corps of Engineers

and Environmental Protection Agency) by eliminating much of the budget

for those agencies to enforce the law and by placing environmentally unfriendly

directors in charge of those agencies.

Here in Fayette County, we

saw the result of that scaled-back enforcement when the city of Tyrone

filled wetlands for their new ball fields. Those were small wetlands and

the Corps of Engineers concluded that they didn't warrant protection.

So now they are trying to make it an official position and all of us will

lose.

Most significant to Fayette

County, the surrounding counties as well, is the possible loss of protection

for our small streams.

We obtain most of our drinking

water from the larger rivers and creeks, but these bodies of water will

not continue to flow during low-flow periods of the year if they are not

supported by flow from the hundreds of small streams.

We just completed a plan to

protect the upper portion of the Perry Creek watershed in Fayetteville.

That indicates that locally we have support to provide protection to similar-size

streams. But the new rules will remove much of the enforcement ability

for other areas where there is less support for such protection. I already

mentioned one municipality that seems to think like the Bush Administration.

Is the sky going to fall all

around us as a result of this action? No, this won't be the end of our

environment. However, when we look around us in beautiful Fayette County

and see some really outstanding environmental attributes, the question

is will it be there for our grandchildren? Without a strong Clean Water

Act, I'm not so sure all of it will maintain those values we love so much.

I am president of the Line

Creek Association of Fayette County which is dedicated to maintaining

our strong environmental values. On behalf of this group, I will be submitting

comments to the Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency,

opposing this rulemaking. You can help by making comments as well, or

We can't let this administration

destroy, through their political whims and political obligations, what

so many people created for us.

Contact me at dechase65

@hotmail.com if you want additional information or if you just want to

talk about this issue.

Details of the rulemaking,

as well as copies of public comment to date, can be found on the Environmental

Protection Agency website: www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/swanccnav.html.