The Trump Administration has moved to overhaul portions of the Clean Water Act (CWA), including making exemptions for certain construction within federally designated wetlands.
The American Road & Transportation Builder Association (ARTBA) is in support of such changes, with their Vice Chairman David Harwood recently arguing that man-made, roadside ditches provide critical surface drainage support and should be allowed free of federal interference. Likewise, the Administration argues changes will reduce delays to important transportation projects.
“The association’s membership is encouraged by the administration’s statement that most transportation ditches would not be covered under the new WOTUS (Waters of the United States) rule,” Harwood said in an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hearing. “Prior to the revised rule, virtually any ditch with standing water could have been covered by EPA and Corps jurisdiction. While federal environmental regulation should be applied when a clear need is demonstrated, regulating all roadside ditches fails to meet this threshold.”
The EPA, together with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is debating how to define WOTUS going forward. ARTBA, which represents the U.S. transportation construction agency, has critiqued prior federal policy on the issue as overly broad. They have taken those complaints to federal court.
“The primary purpose of ditches is to help ensure safety by capturing and dispersing water which would otherwise flood roadways, and they only have water present during and after rainfall,” Harwood said. “By contrast, traditional wetlands are not typically man-made nor do they fulfill a specific safety function. As such, roadside ditches are not, and should not be regulated as, traditional jurisdictional wetlands because the only time they contain water is when they are fulfilling their intended purpose.”