clean water and flood retention: unconstitutional. who knew?

the supreme court is hearing a case by a michigan developer who claims that the clean water act is unconstitutional. you need to click the "listen" button to get the real meat of the story (my favorite part is where he tries to make the environmental consultant rip up the report stating that he needs to apply for permitting). at first i was surprised that the supreme court even agreed to hear the case; however, the more i think about it, the more i'm betting that it's based on the nebulous terms that define the clean water act itself. the wording of the act states that it applies to "navigable waters of the united states." traditionally, this is interpreted as all waters of the united states, which extends the coverage to wetlands. intuitively, this makes sense: though many wetlands are not 'navigable', if you dump chemical waste into a wetland, you can't act all surprised when it shows up in the nearest river. so wetlands are covered by the clean water act, and based on that, our friend the developer was told that he had to apply for permitting before he could bulldoze his (at least partially) wetland-classified parcel of land. truth be told, the vast majority of wetland-related permit applications are granted either entirely or conditionally. but did this guy bother to apply? nope, he just started bulldozing. brilliant.

my worry here is that somehow, someway, the supreme court will rule in this guy's favor. if that happens, wetland protection is going to be in big, big trouble. ugh.

look at that...weeks without a substantial entry, and then i go and get all political and topical on you. i wonder if this will be a hot topic at the meeting i'm speaking at on thursday...