The Trump administration has finalized a clean-water rule that it says strikes a balance between protecting the environment and the economy, but critics say the change will put Houstonians at greater risk for flooding and threaten the drinking water for more than 11.5 million Texans.

The rule announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency eliminates Clean Water Act protections for up to half of the nation’s wetlands and one-fifth of the streams across the country under a narrower interpretation of which waterways qualify for federal protection.

“EPA and the Army are providing much needed regulatory certainty and predictability for American farmers, landowners and businesses to support the economy and accelerate critical infrastructure projects,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told a gathering of home builders in Las Vegas.

Court challenges had led to the Obama-era rule being put on hold in Texas and 27 other states. Still, Anna Farrell-Sherman, a clean water associate with Environment Texas, said the return to less-stringent rules will leave waterways from Barton Creek to Galveston Bay vulnerable to pollution and degradation.

More Information What the new rule says: The revised definition identifies four clear categories of waters that are federally regulated under the Clean Water Act: the territorial seas and traditional navigable waters, like the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River; perennial and intermittent tributaries, such as College Creek, which flows to the James River near Williamsburg, Va.; certain lakes, ponds, and impoundments, such as Children’s Lake in Boiling Springs, Pa.; and wetlands that are adjacent to jurisdictional waters. Waters not subject to federal control include those that only contain water in direct response to rainfall; groundwater; many ditches, including most farm and roadside ditches; prior converted cropland; farm and stock watering ponds; and waste treatment systems. Source: Environmental Protection Agency

Read More

“As unprotected wetlands become degraded or paved over, they will no longer help filter out pollution before it reaches our streams, springs, rivers and aquifers,” she said. “Galveston Bay is already facing dangerous oil spills and pollution from industry along the coast; degrading the streams and wetlands around it will only make that problem worse.”

The shift comes five years after the Obama administration expanded federal clean-water protections to smaller streams and wetlands, including intermittent streams and underground water passages. It was a move meant to bring uniformity, but instead led to several lawsuits, including one by Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana along with a coalition of farm and industry groups that called it federal overreach and overly broad.

The Trump administration’s final version — four months after it announced the repeal of the rule — represents a major rollback of the Clean Water Act, enacted in 1972. The change will have a major impact on southwestern states, allowing landowners and developers to potentially dump pollutants, including pesticides and fertilizers, into those waterways or fill in wetlands for construction projects.

The climate here is conducive to having floods followed by droughts, said Farrell-Sherman, which leads to periods of flowing water followed by it drying out. “Just because those streams don’t flow consistently, it doesn’t mean they aren’t real streams we shouldn’t protect,” she said.

The group estimates about 450,000 miles of ephemeral streams across the state could be affected.

Another potentially adverse impact in Texas could be the loss of wetlands, advocates said, which would increase the region’s risk for flooding and hurt wildlife. Under the new rule, wetlands that are not right next to protected waters will also lose federal protection.

“With Texas made up of mostly privately owned land, having rules to require developers to identify and mitigate the destruction of these natural landscapes is critical,” said Jordan Macha, executive director for the Bayou City Waterkeeper. “The removal of basic watershed protections has real potential to cause significant harm to surrounding communities, and those living downstream.”

Expanses of wetlands around Trinity Bay, San Jacinto River's East and West forks, and Cedar Bayou are vulnerable to rapid development, particularly under the administration’s new rule, she said.

Environmental advocates are not alone in their opposition to the new rule. Last month, the EPA Science Advisory Board posted a draft letter saying the revised rule decreased protection for the country’s waters and didn’t support “the objective of restoring and maintaining ‘the chemical, physical and biological integrity’ of these waters.”

The board said it neglected established science, specifically pertaining to the connectivity of ground water to wetlands and adjacent major bodies of water.

“These changes are proposed without fully supportable scientific basis, while potentially introducing substantial new risks to human and environmental health,” they added. The letter was signed by the board’s chair, Michael Honeycutt, who is also Texas’ top toxicologist and known for being industry-friendly.

After September’s announcement that the administration was repealing the rule, several Texas Republicans and industry groups, including builders and farmers, praised the move calling it another success in breaking down Obama’s “misguided regulatory regime” that hurt the state. The new rule is Trump’s latest effort to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, according to a New York Times’ analysis.

“After decades of landowners relying on expensive attorneys to determine what water on their land may or may not fall under federal regulations, our new Navigable Waters Protection Rule strikes the proper balance between Washington and the states in managing land and water resources while protecting our nation’s navigable waters, and it does so within the authority Congress provided,” Wheeler, the EPA head, said at the industry event Thurdsay.

Gary Joiner, a spokesperson for the Texas Farm Bureau, said the new rule provided some regulatory certainty and clarity for farmers and ranchers in Texas, which they had not had under the 2015 rule.

Joiner said that farmers and ranchers, particularly in southeast Texas, had been asking “What does this mean?” and “What if different areas of my property are now impacted by this rule?’

They wondered whether ditches in low water spots on their property were now under jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act and whether practices of applying crop protection chemicals or how land was cultivated was still allowed, he said.

There are about 250,000 farmers and ranchers in the state, according to Joiner, with one in seven workers in Texas employed in the agriculture industry.

“Farm and ranch families live on the land, drink water from wells located there and depend on clean water for growing crops and raising livestock. Clean water is also important for wildlife, which has become a critical part of many modern farming and ranching enterprises,” said Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening. “Managing water use is a process developed by decades of best management practices.”

The new rule is supposed to go into effect 60 days after it’s published in the Federal Register, although expected lawsuits could delay it’s implementation.

Advocates say now is not the time to roll back protections.

Said Macha, “Reducing protections for wetlands is a recipe for disaster when the next Harvey, Imelda, or other heavy rainstorm that has become a regular part of living in this region of Texas, comes our way.”

perla.trevizo@chron.com