U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson last week issued a temporary injunction requested by North Dakota and 12 other states to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers from regulating some small streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act.

The 13 states said in court documents filed Tuesday that it wouldn’t make sense to have a different set of rules apply to some states that may share drainages in the same watershed. It posted an early copy on its website Wednesday. Moolenaar, who serves on the House Ag Committee, tells Brownfield the Clean Water Rule creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty in states that are now under the new regulations including Michigan.

If the state of Washington submits final criteria to EPA for approval under the CWA before the Agency finalizes the federal human health water quality criteria, EPA will review and act upon the state’s submission in a timely manner and prior to any final action on the federal criteria.

The EPA is proposing to dramatically raise the fish consumption rate to 175 grams a day – similar to what Inslee had proposed a year ago.

The EPA can also withhold funding from the state’s water programs until the rules are withdrawn. Tribes and environmental groups had pushed to retain the current protections. The cancer risk level remains at the now established 10, or one-in-one-million benchmark. The national standard is 22 grams a day. Hopefully DEP will get the message and pull these rules down. In that case the state ultimately submitted its own, she said.