Love That Dirty Water

This is all absurd fiction, clearly intended to elicit sportsman paranoia. First, it is based on the unwarranted assumption that the Clean Water Restoration Act (and in this case Remington and the center are talking about the version that died in the 110th Congress and will likely have been reintroduced in identical form by the time you read this) would somehow bring “enhanced scrutiny.” Second, the bill stipulates that any activity that didn’t require a permit before the 2001 SWANCC decision (such as lead terminal tackle or incidental pollution from recreational boats) won’t require one in the future.

• “In addition to expanding the federal government’s jurisdiction, [the Clean Water Restoration Act] eliminates permitting exemptions for agriculture, ranching, wildlife management and forestry.” Another brazen untruth. The bill plainly states that these exemptions stand.
  “Something as simple as constructing a duck blind on private land on or near these prime hunting waters could require hunters to submit to a costly and time-consuming permitting process. As a consequence, driving posts into water and mud near a prairie pothole for construction of a duck blind could constitute discharging dredged or fill material into the ‘waters of the United States.’”

False. Again, any activity that didn’t require a permit before the 2001 SWANCC decision (and duck blinds did not) will not require one in the future. And if the Clean Water Restoration Act would be such a burden on duck hunters, how is it Ducks Unlimited’s executive vice president, Don Young, offers this: “We are pleased that Congressman Oberstar has introduced a bill that will clarify Congress’ intent to protect significant wetland areas including geographically isolated wetlands such as the prairie potholes….This is so vital, so consistent to what Ducks Unlimited is about, that we need to take a stand now or the future of ducks and duck hunting is very much in jeopardy.”

The center and other polluter fronts keep citing the alleged victimization of Ocie Mills and his son Corey of Navarre, Florida, by the Clean Water Act before the Bush administration supposedly fixed it. According to the center, Ocie and Corey “were convicted of filling a ‘wetland’ after placing clean fill dirt on mostly dry land. They ended up serving 21 months in prison.”

The real story is less heart-rending. The Millses—well-known property-rights activists who sought to challenge federal authority to regulate pollution—purchased the land at a bargain-basement price because it had a wetlands restriction on it. Then, defying repeated warnings by the Corps and two cease-and-desist orders, they proceeded to fill very wet sections. After their conviction by jury in 1989, their sentence was reaffirmed on appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

Among the countless property-rights outfits recycling the above untruths is Voices From the Rural American West. Apparently it picked up most of them from Tom Remington who, as the group proudly proclaims on its Web site, endorses it as “fabulous…one more voice of reason and sanity.”

Then there are sportsmen’s organizations like the 325,000-member Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council, whose stated mission is to promote “clean water” and “protect and conserve our aquatic resources….”

EPA reports that none of the Great Lakes are “fishable” (meaning you can’t safely eat the fish) and that 84 percent of the “open waters,” traditionally cleaner than shoreline waters, are impaired. So one would assume that an organization committed to “clean water” and “aquatic resources” would be in favor of restoring the Clean Water Act’s extracted teeth. But no. Parroting disinformation disseminated by the center and Remington, the Great Lakes council has identified the bill as a dire threat to sportsmen. Its newsletter even ran a piece entitled “Congress moves to seize control of all U.S. Waters.”

The Texas Wildlife Association exists, it claims, “to serve as an advocate for the benefit of wildlife” and to educate “all persons, especially the youth of Texas, about the conservation, management and enhancement of wildlife and wildlife habitat on private land to ensure the preservation of our cherished rural heritage for future generations.”