From The Ground Up: Farmers fear financial impact of new Waters of the U.S. rule

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - Farmers are growing concerned with who will control their state’s streams, wetlands and other bodies of water after the new Waters of the U.S. rule goes into effect at the end of the month.

“This is giving someone power to be able to go in and get someone to pay them and say ‘you know what this activity is going to pollute our waters and we can’t allow this happen and we’re going to use this now as a tool that I can go in and stop that progress,’” said Bryan Shaw, who works with water systems.

Farmers and ranchers hope to find a solution that prevents them from possibly losing money rather than a mandatory regulation that some think will have little to no environmental benefit.

“If you can find technologies that will improve the environment but also help the bottom line, those are the things that through the Cooperative Extension and the experiment station, farmers and ranchers over the years have been running to and hungry for,” said Shaw.

The Waters of the U.S. rule will go into effect March 30.

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