"U.S. EPA plans to repeal and replace the Clean Water Rule with two separate rulemaking processes, an EPA official told the Association of State Wetland Managers yesterday."
"In a rebuke to the Trump administration, the Supreme Court [Monday] decided to continue hearing litigation over the Obama administration's Clean Water Rule."
"A federal appeals court refused Friday (March 3) to revive the east bank levee authority's controversial lawsuit charging oil and gas companies with threatening hurricane levees by digging exploration and production canals through Louisiana's coastal wetlands. It was the latest setback to the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East's four-year effort to make the companies pay for environmental damage inflicted decades ago."
"The Trump administration would slash programs aimed at slowing climate change and improving water safety and air quality, while eliminating thousands of jobs, according to a draft of the Environmental Protection Agency budget proposal obtained by The Associated Press."
"President Trump on Tuesday will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to “review and reconsider” a 2015 rule known as the Waters of the United States rule, according to a senior official, a move that could ultimately make it easier for agricultural and development interests to drain wetlands and small streams."
"Louisiana is losing its coast at a rapid rate because of rising sea levels, development and sinking marshland. Officials are trying to rebuild those marshes and the wetlands, but much of the coast can't be saved."
"The Louisiana coast loses a football field’s worth of land every 38 minutes. This staggering rate of land loss has been brought on by climate change and coastal erosion accelerated by human activities, including water diversion projects and damage done by the oil and gas industry."
"Like many Louisiana coastal residents, the Native Americans of Grand Bayou village have seen the landscape surrounding their community collapse over the past 50 years. The lush, freshwater wetlands and high ground that sustained them for centuries is now a ragged patchwork of crumbling salt marshes and expanding lagoons."
"Detroit, Philadelphia, and Houston are among the places investing in 'green infrastructure' that mimics wetlands. It can be cheaper than the alternative, given the threat posed by climate change."
"The Obama administration on Thursday blocked development of a copper and nickel mine near a popular wilderness area in northern Minnesota, saying the project could poison the vast web of lakes, streams and wetlands that crosshatch the region."
