Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Who will own our ponds if the EPA gets its way?

The EPA and corps of enginners already officially regulates small streams, tributaries, and wetlands in my state. How is this anything new?

As a fish farmer I have limits on waste discharge from my farm, and I sure can't dig up wetlands.



Sounds like a good thing to me. People discharge raw sewage into the local river and we have feed lots on a few lake inlets. One inlet to a lake that is on the largest undeveloped lake chain in the state sits on top an old landfill. When we get heavy rain that part of the lake turns brown. This is a formerly 93 foot deep lake that supported lake trout, native cisco and smelt. The cisco and smelt are gone.

We have lake residents that seem to need golf course lawns. I wonder what they do to get them?

The State is slow to respond due to the tremendous power of the Farm Bureau and lack of funding. The DNR's hands are tied. Maybe it's time the feds came in and ruffled some feathers.

Maybe your a farmer and want to fertilize the fields next to a pond/ditch or maybe you need to get a bloom started and want to fertilize your pond. How about treating FA or pond weeds with chemicals.

I'm sure the EPA would be happy to give you a permit...or not...for a small fee.

Those of us in the free states are aghast that anyone could see this as a good thing.

I'm not seeing your specific concerns in what I've read.

Mkay......all the afore mentioned chemicals I just mentioned might find there way down a ditch or over a spillway and therefore must be regulated. The government controlling our ponds/lakes and surrounding properties is not ok down here.

Down here? Free states? C'mon now, we're bigger than that.

Honestly, can it really be okay to apply whatever the h*** you want, without any regard to where the runoff ends up? Even in Texas?

It is okay to apply whatever the heck you want, even in Texas, if Texas says so! Texas is a very free state and it is bigger than all of us, a state still full of people who actually like the US Constitution and make people account to it. If some of you want a nanny state, some more laws, great, get the votes and amend the Constitution. Until then, the free states would simply like to follow the current law.

The issue in my mind is who has the burden of proof. Does the land owner have to get permission and then prove what he wants to do will be environmentally OK, or does the government need to prove the landowner broke rules and caused environmental damage. I want to put in another pond, but do not want to jump through silly (and expensive) government hoops to do it. This is the difference between good and bad regulation. Bad regulation is a drain on society.

Absolutely no one is surprised that the Ambassador Of Over Regulation wants.......More Regulation.

I personally feel that there is no "them", there is only "us". All 50 of us. And all 50 of us are free. The "sides" implied or spoken of here in this thread are sides of the same coin. A few would portray a division where none should exist, Texas or no.

I'm both baffled and amused by the idea that some would apparently halt the fire truck en route to the blazing forest, because the vehicle failed to display DOT identification. We, ALL of us, share that forest the same way we share the water. Its protection should fall to all of us in my eyes. Articles, sections, paragraphs, and founding fathers....all of us.

Just to be clear, I still feel that the current regulation will get no traction. That doesn't mean we shouldn't watch that horizon, it means we don't need to scale the mountain to get a better look just yet. Some here are protesting the rule itself, which I understand and appreciate. But some appear to be more concerned with the delivery method rather than the rule itself. This issue has the potential to affect us all, later rather than sooner. And we should be discussing it, and planning for that future. I'm hopeful that productive discourse will continue, but I'm all done with wondering about the firetruck.

If new regulations help to maintain or provide cleaner water for all of us, then yes, you are correct. Federal, state, local....whatever. We share the water. Unless you have excavated your entire property down below the aquifer, and have blocked it off at your property lines to prevent any flowing water, surface and subterranean, by installing the world's biggest pond liner, then the water that is on your property today may well be on your neighbor's tomorrow.

That's how it works. Even in Texas.

My Mother passed away a few yr's back and one of the things I remember her saying to me, when we were at a family member birthday party. She said, "I have never liked authority" She knew me pretty well. I will buck more often than not when it comes to someone or something telling me what I can do or not do. As I have grown older I have become a little more passive, but that Rebel blood still comes out in me to this day. But my age has also made me stand more toward being a constitutionalist. So long live private lands and private waters.

Tracy

We all use the term private water, and understand what it means. But I submit that a more accurate description would be "water located on private land". Land is more or less static....water is not. Private or otherwise, it leaks, drains, flows and otherwise moves.

Even in Texas.

Tbar, that is funny but so true

Tracy

I just saw where a judge blocked it, at least temporarily.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/.../?intcmp=hplnws

Had I just joined the forum this morning, it might be easy to resort to name calling and labeling, or to form opinions about folks unfounded in fact but based solely on emotion. It has been my good fortune however, to rub shoulders with Bob Lusk and highflyer in 100 degree heat in Indiana, drill holes through 12" of ice on a frozen lake in Illinois with Fireishot, and risk being run over with Mike Otto while rescuing a broken down piece of equipment alongside a highway in Nebraska.

To the last man, these individuals carried themselves in the same manner. Extremely knowledgeable, equally willing to share as well as listen, modest, open to ideas other than their own, passionate with their beliefs while extending compassion towards another point of view, and always, always willing to work together. I have never had the pleasure of meeting Dave Davidson, but I feel very confident I would find him to be cut from that same piece of cloth. Texans to the last man.

As I type this, another Texan prepares to walk the new path into the greener woods. From a single photo posted yesterday, I can see peace, determination, dignity, and a smile. When the time arrives for me to walk that same path, I hope I can lace up my boots in a similar fashion.

These six gentlemen define the qualities that come to mind when I think of Texas. Or Indiana. Or our country for that matter. Thankfully I'm aware that all places, have all kinds. I don't have to resort to snap judgements based on incomplete information.

And those six guys from Texas? They aren't wasting time posting to this thread. Which goes to show they are a lot smarter than I am.

I think I will post here. I don't think I'm smarter than anyone else and prove it almost every day. Just ask my Wife.

If government of any kind, at any level, was the answer, Texas City on the Gulf Coast would not be a toxic, pollution ridden, mess. People have been dying for a long time there at much higher rates than anywhere else. And the problem has been traced directly to the chemical companies and their effluents. They spend a lot of $ making sure that they have politician friends on a local, state and national level. A lot of $ to them would be a rounding error for any of us.

But, there is something called pollution credits that can be purchased and traded on the open market that allows this travesty.

I'm an ex lobbyist on the State and Federal level. I have testified in Austin and Washington. And, I've been a "bag man" to assure that I/We had friends. Money talks and it takes surprising little.

If the EPA or any government agency were bribe proof, I might believe in them.

I'll stop here, but over a beer, I could go for hours.

August 28th: ND Federal Judge Halts WOTUS
Federal judge Ralph Erickson granted a temporary injunction to states challenging the implementation of the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers’ “Waters of the United States” rule Thursday. In his opinion, Erickson stated, “On balance, the harms favor the states,” referring to the risk of irreparable cost of being forced to comply with the rule on the state level. He also implied the states will win the suit, saying, "--- it appears likely that the EPA has violated its Congressional grant of Authority.”