For those not dredging through environmental regulatory language, policy changes, and legislative bills, for those not familiar or formally educated on water resources, water scarcity, and water quality protection, and for those who may think they're unaffected by rural water quality, we need to have some serious discussion.
In today's generally widespread public outcry for equality, firearms control, renewable energy usage, domestic economic improvement, etc., we know that several key factors in each of these categories of legislative restructuring remains common--"definitions".
Definitions bring understanding to a broad or unclear term such that those people who may be impacted would have an easier time distinguishing the critical features of all proposed and existing litigation encapsulated within the topics they are most concerned with to their core. Without terms being clearly defined, how can we expect to reach proper understanding and implementation of any subsequently dependent or directly altered rules and regulations? The truth: you really can't.
With respect to environmental stewardship and responsible emissions controls, confusion and obscurity within a definition can allow for gross misinterpretation of the acceptable measures meant to act as the "barrier" between citizens and corporations and ultimately leads to environmental impacts in our communities and ecosystem. Without scientifically relevant definitions, we are essentially asking non-experts to tell us what "needs" to happen for a regulatory program to be successful for the ecosystem we all depend on (for example, not-so-knowledgeable politicians coupled with biased corporate research agendas) instead of allowing the educationally-backed unbiased determinations of agencies whose sole focus is exactly that--to protect the environment and its inhabitants.
In Missouri, "SB-981" aims to make "The Big Muddy" River even murkier by excluding key components of our watershed from protection by enforceable regulations set forth by MO DNR and the US EPA.
As a republican who feels obligated to choose a side in a political system that vies for two-party showdowns through systematically structured exclusion of other political parties, this puts me in a position of defense against the party I with which I resonate most (i.e. democrats and republicans will for the foreseeable future be the "only two viable parties"--a simple observation I've made since I took an interest in politics from the end of elementary school). Knowingly supporting Rusty Black, a candidate who makes egregious unscientific claims about the influence of temporal and seasonal water bodies on the permanent sources of water such as the groundwater aquifers supporting over 3,000,000 Missourians (think: a population nearly twice the size of Kansas City or St. Louis!) is just inexcusable if you call yourself a "Good Samaritan".
This bill is may be meant to improve economic development as it states; however, this bill is only financially supported by major farming organizations represented by CAFO and Animal Feed Operation Conglomerates such as MO Cattlemen/Pork/Soybean Associations and MO Farm Bureau. Those speaking out in opposition to this bill and with science behind their stance include Missouri Coalition for the Environment, MO River Bird Assn., MO Parks Assn., Conservation Federation of Missouri, Stream Team United, and a handful of other research-backed environmental stewardship organizations. This bill clearly seems to favor less-responsible waste disposal practices from farming organizations in Missouri without meaningful regard to the ecological impacts in all areas of concern. We're all about business in Missouri, but not at the expense of our ecological health.
When it comes to scientific impacts, when it comes to rule-making in congress, when it comes to assessing the environmental damage, something as simple (on paper) and a definition can cause significant future damage to the environment. Just reviewing the impacts of Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFO) and irresponsible farming, the primary concern can be identified as nutrient loss from fertilization practices and waste practices. Key factors of responsible farming that this bill would limit are: (1) Setback zones (elimination of requirements to give a natural distance between the effluent contaminant-filled discharge and the receiving body of water--in this case a channel that may be empty because of seasonal nature of rain conditions, (2) Vegetative buffers (removing the requirement for a vegetation buffer in cases where potential contamination is at a higher concentration than normal, and (3) Phosphorous load assessments (circumventing the need for due diligence to assess the watershed with respect to contaminant runoff during rainfall events). Let's stop and look at an example of some significant environmental damage that has had direct impacts on communities, citizens, and the ecosystem--which, by the way, we are fortunate to be a part of.
A "Brownfield" site is a site that has been determined to be so excessively damaged through pollution that it now falls under the category of eligibility to receive grant funds from the federal government to clean up the pollution disaster. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources officially describes Brownfields as, "The specter of hazardous chemical contamination has contributed to former owners abandoning the property, lending institutions reluctant to provide financing for purchase and redevelopment and developers avoiding the properties. Some of this real estate is located in economically blighted neighborhoods in need of jobs, or in highly desirable redevelopment areas such as waterfronts."
One commonly known local Brownfield is the St. Louis area "Anheuser Busch Automated Bill of Lading" Brownfield. This lot sat on 18 acres and was previous owned by ACF Industries and then Yellow Freight before being purchased by Anheuser Busch (A-B). A-B purchased this property with the knowledge of its Brownfield status and took on the responsibility of cleaning it up. The soil on the property was contaminated by solvents by both previous owners prior to A-B. We thank A-B for being the steward they are!
Now let's pivot back to the definition of "Waters of the State".
Water that ends up in streams, rivers, tributaries, creeks, ponds, lakes, and ultimately all of that water draining to our precious and dwindling drinking water aquifers all passes through the soil (which thankfully removes much pollution through the natural physical filtration that porous media provides as that water passes through) or accumulates pollutants as the water combines and flows toward larger bodies of water. The US National Weather Service specifically states the temporal and seasonal nature of all of the waters of the lower Missouri River Basin as being nearly entirely derived from rainfall events throughout the year, "The lowlands of eastern South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, and western Iowa and Missouri generally receive 20 to 40 inches of precipitation annually. The yearly precipitation in the northern portion of this area is divided between summer rains and winter snow, while the southern portion's annual precipitation is almost entirely rainfall which occurs throughout the year."
This fact alone means we should still care about these temporal and seasonal bodies of water, considering unpredictably seasonal rainfall is the primary source of all of our Missouri River, right?!
Changing the definition of "Waters of the State" not only tacitly promotes less responsible management from corporate enterprises and industries positioned along these seasonal waters, but makes enforcement even tougher with these relaxed limitations. Meanwhile, the US EPA simply cannot afford the resources to aid Missouri in cases where the US EPA would define such water sources as "Navigable Waters of the US". In short, the proposed changes would be detrimental not only to the Missouri citizens directly impacted by proximity to Waters of the State, but citizens who live near major water sources that are ultimately fed by these smaller water bodies along the way. What's more is that new industries would be allowed to create operations within these affected water bodies without employing proper treatment systems--disadvantaging the current corporations that have already invested in keeping our water clean through these necessary water treatment controls.
Unless his stance changes, we urge you to reconsider support for this bill, SB-981, and this candidate in favor of a candidate that will not push for harmful legislation that would not only immediately impact 3,000,000 Missourians and potentially upwards of 10,000,000 US Citizens (within the direct Missouri River Basin alone), but the millions upon millions of Americans living further downstream and outward within the complete Missouri River and Mississippi River watersheds.
We will track this bill as it will surely be revisited multiple times as the impact in Missouri alone is significant. We urge you to use any resources you have to push back against this nonsensical redefinition of something so obviously unscientifically-based. In a world where we do have the data, tools, and methods of accurately recording stream characteristics and ecological dependencies around our aquatic landscapes, we shouldn't be making aggressive changes that "muddy the waters" even if we are talking about "The Big Muddy" River.
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