EPA and your home made pond

[rambler]

EPA has proposed a new version of their rules and regulations of wetlands and rivers and such last fall.

The old rule was they were in control of navigable waters - something a boat can go on.

Their new way of thinking is they should be in charge of any waters of the USA.

This includes man made ditches and ponds. Of any size. And they don't have to really run water, they can be intermittent. Like in Texas a dry stream bed that might run water once every 10 years?

This most certainly includes a pond you make on your homestead.

They get to rule how you deal with that pond, and 300 feet around it.

http://www.bna.com/epa-corps-propose-n17179879956/

They are writing their new rules right now, and will publish them for comment this spring.

Once it falls into place, they can then over the following years add more and more rules to the waters they control. No livestock, no buildings, no septics, and so on.

Do you want the EPA in Washington to be writing rules that tell you what you can do within 300 feet of any pond, ditch, ravine on your property?

This is a serious topic, it is going to affect anyone who owns property.

It is a big deal.

To agriculture, to business, to anyone owning property. We all have access to some sort of ditch or streamed or a pond within 300 feet.

Whether we need more or less regulation of our waterways, how many of us are comfortable with EPA in Washington, D.C. Telling us what those rules should be in our local area?

When this comes up this spring, we need to write letters, get involved.

Just wanted to mention it now, while its winter out, and folks can think on it a little bit.

Once passed and set in law - and it doesn't take any congressional action, this is just EPA deciding to rewrite the laws they have on their own - it will be set.

This -does- include that watering hole you dug for your 5 critters.

Be informed. I think this is important to homesteaders. Homesteaders have the want/ need for a natural or man made creek and pond on a homestead.

How much of your property do you want to give up with this?

Paul

[CurtisWilliams]

They want to give the ACOE more jurisdiction? After what happened with the Muddy Mo', I wouldn't let them flush my toilet, let alone micromanage my garden pond.

[I_don't_know]

America, Land of the Free.

[simi-steading]

More like land of the politician to freely do what they want..

[Adisiwaya]

Yuck! Hope this does go into law, that is complete b.s.

[Gravytrain]

Originally Posted by simi-steading

More like land of the politician to freely do what they want..

No, it' much worse than that. The EPA is a collection of unelected bureaucrats. They really answer to no one, and the bureaucracy protects itself.

This is quite evident from the lack of accountability in the IRS scandal. Heads should have rolled, yet no one was so much as disciplined. If their feet are to the fire, they'll plead the fifth and then retire with a full government pension.

[andyd2023]

From the Texas Farm Bureau, they are speaking out on this.
Andrew
"" Quote""
From the Texas Farm Bureau

TFB president testifies on EPA overreach

Thursday, February 06, 2014

A potential rule on creeks and streams could—under the Clean Water Act (CWA)—require farmers to obtain permits necessary to continue to operate. Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke expressed concern before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is overreaching its authority and impacting Texas farmers.
The EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently proposed a rule that defined the waters the groups intend to regulate under the CWA. Through this proposal, the agency implies that nearly all water is connected and EPA has authority to regulate those navigable waters.
“We believe the draft rule fails to comply with important regulatory safeguards and is based on a scientific report that has not had sufficient peer review,” Dierschke said. “The impact of this broad interpretation, if rolled into federal regulation, will mean more permits, additional permit requirements and government and environmental group scrutiny of the things we do in agriculture, and the threat of additional litigation against farmers and ranchers.”
"" End Quote""


Nuff said!
Andrew

[simi-steading]

I have a feeling a lot of other states aren't going to like it either.. It's becoming a lot more common lately that even states are getting tired of what Unkle is trying to take from them..

[Harry Chickpea]

It isn't just the EPA. I just watched a segment online about "single stream waste recycling" being shown to some lawmakers. It suddenly dawned on me that "recycling" is BS in this context, that it is a way of going through every bit of garbage you put out for collection and vetting it for being socially "responsible." Got a used "Playboy" or "Hustler?" I'll guarantee that once the waste stream is imaged like the mail, they will be able to trace it back to you if Playboy possession ever becomes illegal (and it will).

[simi-steading]

Why go through my trash? They've already got all your e-mail contacts, your credit card records, your medical records, your gun permit records, and anything else you might imagine... they know more about me than my trash can tell them..

[CherieOH]

I don't particularly like it, but I can understand the need to control "navigable waters" (creeks, rivers, streams that connect neighboring properties). But a self-contained pond that affects nobody but the landowner of said pond? I can't see them bothering with those....yet.

[Sawmill Jim]

Originally Posted by simi-steading

Why go through my trash? They've already got all your e-mail contacts, your credit card records, your medical records, your gun permit records, and anything else you might imagine... they know more about me than my trash can tell them..

Shucks they may even know some things you done forgot

One these days it is going to take a dose of lead poison to get their attention i'm afraid

[MichaelZ]

Ultimately they will find a way to add new permits (taxes) with this type of law. You can bet on it. And the fees (taxes) will be used to pay the new people (bigger government) needed to manage it all. Yes, this needs to be opposed.

[fishhead]

Maybe they are trying to control the runoff that is destroying the huge area in the Gulf called the "Dead Zone" that is the result of poor land practices upstream.

[big rockpile]

Been fighting for years on our properties because we are in the middle of Large lakes and Rivers because of run off.

big rockpile

[Old Vet]

It may go the way as the Blue Waters act. If enough pressure is brought by congress. It was supposed to go into effect this spring but it is out of the ballpark now.

[Danaus29]

This needs to be defeated. Really really bad and overreaching legislation. Take it from someone who lives in one of those "protected" areas. This can't be allowed to pass. It constitutes a "taking of private land". And forget about being reimbursed for that "taking". You'll be told what you can't do and what you can do will be very little. You will get NOTHING in return for your "contribution to national waterways".

[wr]

This has become a very significant issue in my province for quite some time and the consequences are possibly further reaching than one may expect. As soon as regulations like this are in place, there will become regulations on usage, access and development setback regulations.

[Forerunner]

The power to tax involves the power to destroy.

The power to regulate also involves the power to destroy.

Those who have championed EPA to any degree, especially in their innocent and fledgling state, are about to get what they deserve.
I don't care how cute is a baby crocodile.

When it gets big enough, it will swallow you whole and forget about you.

......and, like Harry said....it's not just EPA.

The above applies to all of civil government.

It was big enough to oppress those whom you felt needed oppressing.

Now it's big enough to oppress you, too.


For over a century, now, chest-thumping, flag-waving "Americans" have been offered and cheerfully accepted socialist and communist policies.

Pay your piper handsomely.




The irony.

[7thswan]

Solzhenitsyn: In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as 'we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology.' The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point."