October 3, 2022

What is navigable water?

There appears to be as much confusion over what is navigable water as there is to what is a female.

The Supreme Court is listening to arguments regarding what waters the Clean Waters Act has jurisdiction over: Sackett v. EPA

The Clean Water Act (CWA), encoded in 33 U.S.C. Chapter 26, controls "navigable waters" which has been interpreted to include wetlands adjacent to navigable waters.

The EPA has now tried to expand their jurisdiction to include any waters that have a "significant nexus" to waters of the United States.  The Biden administration and several justices of SCOTUS appear to be supporting this position and arguing that any water (including ground and subsurface) that has any connection to any navigable waters should fall under the EPA Clean Water Act. 

So, if Biden and several SCOTUS justices have their way, I am potentially exposed to criminal prosecution by the EPA for anything I do in my back yard (2) such as water lawn, backwash pool, fertilize,  that may impact a creek (3) that is in my backyard and is dry unless there's a lot of rain that continues for ~1/4 mile (4) to the East Branch of the DuPage River, a navigable water according to the EPA.



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