TO:  Washington State U.S.
Representatives

bcc: Property Rights and Freedom
Foundations

PLEASE
INTERVENE TO THROW BACK THIS ESCALATING ENCROACHMENT BY FEDERAL AND
GLOBAL SPECIAL INTERESTS  UPON OUR STATE LAND AND WATER.

Jack Venrick

Washington State

www.freedomforallseasons.org

Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 4:07 AM

Subject: Federal Government Intends to Over Ride the WRIA Process,
seizing control of every drop of water in Washington State

You
have all seen my previous comments blaming the Federal Government for ruination
of the Washington State Salmon fisheries. The reasons are that the Marine
Mammal Protection Act took the management of these animals out of the State's
hands, with the result that NO ONE manages Marine Mammal population. The same
is true of the Federal Boldt decision. I have no problem with the Point No
Point treaty, or with sharing the resource. The problem was that Boldt over
rode the State of Washington's excellent management of the resource - leaving
it unmanaged. That judge should have been smart enough to stipulate State
management under a directorship that involved the Tribes equally !

Now,
after the years of effort that went into the WRIA process, the federales are
trying to over ride it - OVER RUN it in fact. Having been the victim of this
layered bureaurocracy in dealing with wetland issues, I can tell you that it is
ABSURD and totally wastefull to be forced to work with FIVE government
agencies, to simply build a driveway that fills only 900 sq ft of a class II
wetland. Most of the people in this forum have no idea the expense and
frustration involved in such a thing.

Please
read the following article. My suggestion is that this WRIA committee submit an
emergency request to DOE to intervene in this legeslative process - and tell
the US Congress that WE DO NOT WANT FEDERAL CONTROL!!!!

If
we do not stop this - you with live to witness more gross, stupid and failed
intervention into our lives - all of our lives, and we cannot afford it
financially or emotionally !! LOCAL CONTROL, POWER TO THE PEOPLE............
(please send this on if you agree, and call your Senators and Congress persons)

Ken
Shock http://brinnonprosperity.org

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2009/2009-06-18-094.asp

Senators Move Clean Water Fight Out
of Committee

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

WASHINGTON, DC, June 18, 2009 (ENS) - The Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works approved six water-related bills
today, including the controversial Clean Water Restoration Act, S. 787.

The bill would amend the Clean Water
Act to clarify the jurisdiction of the federal government over waters of the
United States.

Over time, several U.S. Supreme
Court decisions and Bush administration policies have created uncertainty
regarding federal protection for some waters, especially headwater streams and
so-called isolated wetlands. Headwater streams are the small swales, creeks and
streams that are the origin of most rivers.

Committee Chairman Senator Barbara
Boxer of California said, "Today the Environment and Public Works
Committee took historic steps to restore, in a balanced way, the common-sense
Clean Water Act protections that have been in place for decades. We also passed
important measures to ensure our families have clean, safe water, to promote
conservation of migratory birds, and to protect America's beaches, lakes,
rivers, bays and wetlands. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle as these bills are considered by the full Senate.”

The Clean Water Restoration Act
replaces the term "navigable waters" that are subject to the Act with
the term "waters of the United States."

Headwater
stream in Ohio (Photo
courtesy Ohio EPA)

This change in language would bring
under federal protection all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide,
the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their
tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams, including intermittent streams,
mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa
lakes, and natural ponds to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities
affecting them, are subject to the legislative power of Congress.

The bill declares it does not
regulate under the Clean Water Act return flows from irrigated agriculture; or
uncontaminated stormwater runoff from oil, gas, and mining operations.

It does not impose federal
regulation on dredged or fill materials resulting from normal farming, silviculture,
and ranching activities, from upland soil and water conservation practices, or
on activities regulated by the states under a federally approved water quality
program.

Nor does it regulate dredged or fill
materials for the maintenance of currently serviceable structures, the
construction or maintenance of farm or stock ponds, irrigation ditches and
maintenance of drainage ditches, or farm, forest, or temporary roads for moving
mining equipment in accordance with best management practices, or the construction
of temporary sedimentation basins on construction sites for which discharges do
not include placement of fill material into the waters of the United States.

Even so, Senator James
Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works
Committee today called the bill, "a dagger directed right at America's
heartland."

A playa
lake on the High Plains in its wet phase (Photo courtesy USFWS)

"I see this bill as a
significant part of a hostile agenda aimed squarely at rural America,"
Inhofe said. "Allowing EPA and the Corps to exercise unlimited regulatory
authority over all inter- and intrastate water, or virtually anything that is
wet, goes too far and is certainly beyond anything intended by the Clean Water
Act. But, that is what S. 787 does."

Inhofe said the bill,
"vastly expands federal control of private property, despite assurances
contained in S. 787. In fact, the very premise of the bill is to override a
state's fundamental right to oversee waters within its borders and to usurp the
power of land owners to manage their property as they see fit."

Inhofe listed groups that have
expressed concerns with this bill including: The Associated Builders and
Contractors, the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association, the American
Forest and Paper Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National
Association of Home Builders, the National Association of Realtors, the
American Highway Users Alliance, and the American Association of Airport
Executives.

Inhofe says he and fellow
Republicans intend to fight this bill on the Senate floor.

But environmentalists say this bill
is a major step in the right direction after Supreme Court decisions in 2001
and in 2006 and subsequent directives from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have confused which waters are
protected under the Clean Water Act and which are not.

Chris DeScherer of the Southern
Environmental Law Center said the court and agencies, hinging their rationale
on the term “navigable,” have muddied the scope of protections for
so-called “isolated” wetlands and headwater streams that are
"ephemeral or intermittent."

The
McGarity Wetland Preserve along the Alcovy River near Covington,
Georgia. (Photo courtesy Odum School of Ecology University of Georgia)

"This bill is critical to
protecting drinking water, wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, and any
number of community economies in the South," DeScherer said today.

Virtually all U.S. waters were once
protected, but the current approach is to make determinations on a case-by-case
basis, which creates uncertainty for all interests, including developers and
others in the regulated community as each Corps district is applying its own
criteria for determining what waters are and are not covered.

DeScherer says regulating the
nation's water resources in this piecemeal fashion disregards the
interconnectedness of our watersheds upon which clean, healthy water relies.

The impacts of confusing
jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act protections has taken an especially heavy
toll in the water-rich South, where clean, plentiful water is directly related
to the health of a web of tributaries and wetlands, DeScherer said, adding
that, "These smaller waters are considered the first-responders to
controlling pollution and floods."

"Although SELC and many others
have fought hard to protect these waters, I can't tell you how many wetlands or
small streams may have been lost forever because of misinterpretation of the
Clean Water Act," he said.

"Our most cherished iconic waterways,
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, can only be as healthy as the streams
and wetlands that feed and clean them," said Max Muller, program director
at Environment Illinois.

The U.S. EPA estimates that over
half of Illinois streams are headwater or seasonal, the types of streams most
in danger. At least 800 polluting facilities located on at-risk streams have
their discharges limited by Clean Water Act permits, permits that Muller
worries may no longer be required if this legislation is not enacted. He cites
EPA data indicating that more than 1.6 million Illinois residents receive
drinking water from supplies fed at least in part by these streams.

Other bills approved by the
committee today are mainly to reauthorize or continue existing legislation.
They include:

S.
878, Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act of 2009 (formerly
known as the Beach Protection Act)

S.
937, Sewage Overflow Community Right-to-Know Act

S.
690, Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act Reauthorization

S.
479, Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Continuing
Authorization Act

S.
933, Contaminated Sediment Remediation Reauthorization Act (Great Lakes
Legacy Act)