The Clean Water Rule: Responding to the Public, Protecting Public Health

The Clean Water Rule: Responding to the Public, Protecting Public Health

EPA and the Army finalized a rule recently under the Clean Water Act to continue to protect the streams and wetlands we rely on for our health, our economy, and our way of life. One in three Americans get drinking water from streams and wetlands that lacked clear protection from pollution—and this rule helps fix the problem.

In New England, protecting our water is more important than ever, because it will help protect our communities.

With increasingly intense storms and catastrophic flooding, keeping our streams and wetlands healthy is especially critical. With extreme weather expected to intensify with climate change, healthy streams and wetlands help communities adapt by retaining moisture during droughts, absorbing floodwaters and filtering pollution.

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Public input shaped the rule every step of the way. For more than a decade, members of Congress, state and local officials, industry, agriculture, environmental groups, scientists, and the public called on EPA and the Army to clarify which waters are protected under the Clean Water Act, following two Supreme Court rulings that threw protections for 60 percent of our nation’s streams, and millions of acres of wetlands into question. This rule responds to those longstanding requests.

Since proposing the rule last year, EPA and the Army held hundreds of meetings with stakeholders across the country, reviewed over a million public comments, and listened carefully to perspectives from all sides. All of this input shaped and improved the final rule.

Here are a few important things to know about the rule:

Science shows us which waters are most important to protect. We know far more today about how waters connect to each other and how pollution harms our health than we did when the Clean Water Act passed 43 years ago.

In developing the Clean Water Rule, the Agencies reviewed more than 1,200 peer-reviewed, published scientific studies that clearly showed which waters are most important to protect. We know the lakes, rivers, and coastal waters we love can’t be clean unless the streams and wetlands that feed them are clean, too. This rule clarifies the protection of these waters.

Again, public input shaped changes to the final rule. Below are some common questions we heard about what the rule will and won’t do.

The rule will… protect vulnerable streams and wetlands. EPA and the Army are making sure the waters protected under the Clean Water Act are easier for businesses and industry to understand, more predictably determined, and consistent with the law and the latest science.

The rule will not… protect any new types of waters not historically covered under the Clean Water Act. It will not regulate new types of ditches, will not apply to groundwater, and will not change or create any new permitting requirements for agriculture. The Clean Water Rule deals with the pollution and destruction of waterways—not land use or private property rights.

The agencies thank everyone for their input, and believe that together, we’ve achieved a protective, workable final rule. Learn more here.

Curt Spalding is the regional administrator of EPA's New England Office in Boston.