The new language in the CWA will give the Feds authority over everything and open a Pandora's box for land owners. Here is the text:
`(24) WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES- The term `waters of the United States' means 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, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.'.
This is what's replacing the term "navigable waters".
This scares me. If you read slowly, you'll see that each and every ditch and puddle in the country - and the lands around them - will be subject to Corps and EPA scrutiny.
Almost every Farm organization, crop organization, producers organization, county organization and landowner association is against this bill. It will pass, however.
NAIS is another problem; google it. If you don't fight it, you will be registering your property and tagging your animals...and will be forced to tell the Feds every time a calf gets out through a fence, or a chicken crosses the road, when you take a lamb for slaughter (or to a show) or run a horse to the Vet.
The concept may be good; Federal execution will be a nightmare. If the Feds and the USDA are behind this (supported by the four major packers in the industry), it cannot be good for the small farmer.
