Tuesday, February 21, 2006

High court weighs river law

The Associated Press

PHOENIX - The U.S. Supreme Court will decide today whether federal regulators overstepped their constitutional bounds by enforcing clean-water laws in areas where there's barely any water to protect.

For Arizona, a ruling either way could carry far-reaching consequences because of the maze of small riverbeds, washes, dry lake beds, stock tanks and seasonal riparian areas that get wet a few times a year, often after a heavy rainstorm.

Under the Clean Water Act, many of those waterways are regulated and require land users to seek permits and submit plans to protect the water from pollution.

Environmental groups, in rare alignment with the Bush administration, say the law works fine, keeping sewage, toxic chemicals and other pollutants from seeping into the nation's water supply.

Two developers in Michigan believe the law goes too far, forcing landowners to spend time and money safeguarding isolated marshes that may never connect to a flowing river or a lake.

They want the court to narrow the scope of the law, a position backed by a coalition of home builders, farmers and Western water providers, including the Central Arizona Project.

"The court, in our view, needs to set some reasonable limits," said Doug Miller, general counsel for the CAP, manager of Arizona's single largest renewable water supply.

The CAP delivers Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson.

The group finds itself at odds with Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who, along with 33 states, wants the law enforced as it has been, with uniform standards that allow states to protect waterways.

The states and environmental groups warn that reversing the law's reach would be like reversing a river's flow.

"Even a 6-year-old can tell you that water flows downhill and if someone is allowed to pollute a small headwaters stream, the folks below are going to know it," said Andrew Fahlund, vice president of protection and restoration for the advocacy group American Rivers.

The court will consider two cases that are similar enough they have been combined into one hearing.

In Rapanos v. the United States, the federal government accused a Michigan developer of filling in 54 acres of wetlands without a clean-water permit.

The Army Corps of Engineers ruled that the wetlands connected to waterways that flow into Lake Huron.

NEXT PAGE» 1, 2