The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was initiated to centralize the federal government’s efforts at maintaining air and water quality. Few would argue that there have not been positive, significant and measureable improvements as a result. However, the EPA has followed the pattern of most, if not all, government bureaucracies. When the EPA’s initial mission was accomplished, the agency decided to expand and have a broader reach than originally intended. The result is typical; more people, more money and more regulations. The EPA has now produced a rule that directly affects every American who owns property.

The Clean Water Act was implemented in its modern form in 1972. It gave the EPA jurisdiction over all navigable waters in the United States. There were major improvements in pollution control as a result. However, early last year the EPA proposed a change in the wording of the regulations of the Clean Water Act. The proposal was in the “Water Body Connectivity Report.” This report proposed changing the limiting word “navigable” from “navigable waters of the United States” and replace it with “connectivity of streams and wetlands to downstream waters” as the test for Clean Water Act regulatory authority. Under this “Clean Water Rule” all “tributaries” will be categorically regulated by the federal government. Tributaries — which quite literally mean anything with a bed, banks, and an “ordinary high water mark” — can be placed under federal control.

The change in wording is now contained in a “Waters of the United States” rule, which has been approved and is slated for implementation in August 2015. The “Waters of the United States” rule would allow the federal government to control vast portions of land from areas where water is seasonally found, like ditches, ponds and field waterways, to areas where the flow of water has been altered by the landowners. Thus the EPA could regulate almost any piece of private land where water can conceivably flow. Private land could essentially be controlled so as to be federallyowned land. Federal implementation of regulations typically begins with large stakeholders and eventually effects even the minuscule stakeholder. As it is presently written, every piece of land in the United States has water that at some point enters the “connectivity of streams and wetlands to downstream waters.”

Landowners should be alarmed as this rule would eventually allow a massive federal takeover of private property rights. What are the potential real consequences of allowing this “Waters of the United States” rule to be implemented? The EPA has charged the Army Corps of Engineers to oversee the rule. Once procedures are defined, any landowner will be dealing with the legendary bureaucratic redtape of two government entities, The Army Corps and the EPA. Expensive and lengthy permit requirements are almost certain. Penalties and even incarceration are possible for those who are even unaware of new and complicated regulations.

Twelve states have filed a lawsuit in federal court to have the rule thrown out. These states are mainly western states where large land holdings are common. Maine also has large tracts of land devoted to our paper and lumbering sectors. The potential for federal interference in Maine’s economy is huge. Gov. LePage should move to add Maine to the lawsuit.

The time has come in our country for bureaucracies to shrink. We are already overregulated and are being strangled economically. This new “Waters of the United States” rule takes that to a level where the federal government may intrude into the lives of us all.

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Another View, a Maine Press Association award-winning column, is written on a rotating basis by a member of a group of Midcoast citizens that meet to discuss issues they think are of public interest.