But it will strip away protections of so-called “ephemeral” streams, in which water runs only during or after rainfalls, and of wetlands that are not adjacent to major bodies of water, or connected to such bodies of water by a surface channel of water. Those changes represent a victory for farmers and rural landowners, who lobbied the Trump administration aggressively to make them. “If they can control the water that falls out of the sky, they control the land that it falls on,” he said. Mr. Parrish also said the Obama rule chafed its detractors because of the perception it was written by bureaucrats who did not understand the daily reality of farmers’ livelihoods. Mr. Trump won cheers from rural audiences on the presidential campaign trail when he vowed to roll back the Obama rule.

Source: New York Times December 11, 2018 01:30 UTC