New EPA plan would drastically roll back clean water protections

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Skye Borden

Missoula, MT  — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveils its plan to drastically roll back Clean Water Act protections from vast networks of streams and wetlands in Montana and across the country. Skye Borden, Environment Montana state director, issued the following statement:

“This proposed rule is the most extreme attack on clean water in recent memory. Its an outrageous proposal that upends the core mission of the EPA: protecting human health and the environment.

The health of our waterways depends on the streams that feed them and the wetlands that filter out pollution. By stripping federal protections from streams and wetlands, the rule would put the Yellowstone, Missouri, Clark Fork, and countless other drinking water sources at risk of increased pollution. It defies common sense, sound science and the will of Montanans.

The rule being proposed to today would replace the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which restored federal protections to 109,495 miles of Montana’s streams that feed waterways like the Yellowstone and help provide drinking water to over 234,000 Montanans. More than a thousand scientific studies and a million Americans – including 1,886 Montanans – backed protections for these waterways.

As stewards of our environment, it is our moral obligation to protect Montana’s waters. For the sake of our ecosystems, our way of life, and even our own drinking water, we must stop EPA from opening our waterways to polluters.”

Environment Montana is currently collecting comments to oppose the new rule on their website: http://bit.ly/EMTCleanWater