Water Is A Pollutant?
Posted: December 21, 2012
Meanwhile, far to the north in Alexandria the same day, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Bill Bolling’s internecine bete-noire, was in court dealing with a familiar adversary, the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Cuccinelli and the EPA go back a-ways. Not long after assuming the attorney general’s reins, “The Cooch” joined 14 counterparts in challenging, unsuccessfully, the agency’s specious determination that it could regulate carbon dioxide — i.e., what we humans exhale — as a pollutant. In this latest scrap with the EPA, his bedfellows — the Democrat-dominated Fairfax County Board of Supervisors — are stranger still.
But no stranger than the EPA’s latest power grab masquerading as a ruling. Under the strictures of the Clean Water Act, the agency is essentially trying to declare water — or what the law purports to protect — a pollutant in the case of Accotink Creek.
How did the EPA get here from there? By liberally interpreting provisions governing TDML (Total Maximum Daily Load), which determine how much pollution it will tolerate in a waterway. In this instance, though, the EPA has pegged the water itself as a threat. Translated: There’s too much of it, particularly after it rains.
Thus, the agency has ordered a 50 percent reduction in TMDL not of any pollutants, but of the creek itself. Again, to translate: This means roughly $320 million in compliance costs, to be absorbed by state and local taxpayers. So Mr. Cuccinelli decided to file suit — and an initially reluctant county board joined him.
“When people talk about federal agencies running amok, this is exactly what it looks like,” said Republican Supervisor John Cook. “The EPA’s overreach is so extreme that the Democrats on the board realized that, even in an election year, they had to do this for the county.”
Mr. Cuccinelli and the EPA go back a-ways. Not long after assuming the attorney general’s reins, “The Cooch” joined 14 counterparts in challenging, unsuccessfully, the agency’s specious determination that it could regulate carbon dioxide — i.e., what we humans exhale — as a pollutant. In this latest scrap with the EPA, his bedfellows — the Democrat-dominated Fairfax County Board of Supervisors — are stranger still.
But no stranger than the EPA’s latest power grab masquerading as a ruling. Under the strictures of the Clean Water Act, the agency is essentially trying to declare water — or what the law purports to protect — a pollutant in the case of Accotink Creek.
How did the EPA get here from there? By liberally interpreting provisions governing TDML (Total Maximum Daily Load), which determine how much pollution it will tolerate in a waterway. In this instance, though, the EPA has pegged the water itself as a threat. Translated: There’s too much of it, particularly after it rains.
Thus, the agency has ordered a 50 percent reduction in TMDL not of any pollutants, but of the creek itself. Again, to translate: This means roughly $320 million in compliance costs, to be absorbed by state and local taxpayers. So Mr. Cuccinelli decided to file suit — and an initially reluctant county board joined him.
“When people talk about federal agencies running amok, this is exactly what it looks like,” said Republican Supervisor John Cook. “The EPA’s overreach is so extreme that the Democrats on the board realized that, even in an election year, they had to do this for the county.”