It all started when two challenges were made against the Clean Water Act, one was in 2001, from a company in Illinois they wanted to fill in some old sand and gravel mining pits. Then in 2006 a Michigan real estate developer who filled wetlands to build a shopping mall. Both of them went to the US Supreme Court and in both cases, the Court decided that the CWA protected only “navigable waters of the United States” not all waters like people were thinking. It does not protect thousands of miles of creeks, springs, isolated wetlands, and other bodies of water that are not navigable. They did not say that the waters shouldn’t be protected they just said that the law did not protect it. They are now trying to rewrite the Clean Water Act so that it protects all waters. People are now saying that it is starting to take over their rights if the act is passed to include all waterways which is good but some people say they won’t support it because they think the government should not be able to take over their private ponds and wetlands.
http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/hunting/2011/01/how-much-our-water-truly-protected
There should be a law that protects waters that are not navigable such as creeks and streams. This is necessary because people should not be able to fill in wetlands to build a mall, as mentioned above. I think navigable and non-navigable waters should be treated seperately to give owners some control over their property. Both navigable and non-navigable waters should be protected by the CWA.
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