Compromise unlikely on farm pond issue

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Aug 3, 2000 by Capital-Journal

Sierra Club has said it will sue to get regulations enforced quickly.

JIM SUBER

The view from RR 8

Confusion reigns and rains. That much was clear the other day following a meeting in Washington among ranking Environmental Protection Agency officials, three members of the Kansas congressional delegation and state environmental leaders about the flap on regulating farm ponds and some city sewer systems under the Clean Water Act.

And, despite assurances that the EPA didn't really mean the rules extend to excavated farm ponds unless they are thrown up across a ravine or streambed that sometimes carries water or are fed by springs, and that there is little way to enforce such, the EPA did tell Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., that it expects a second lawsuit from the Sierra Club soon to force implementation of its rules.

That could render attempts by the EPA to understand Kansas' extensive water quality efforts as not worth undertaking. Kansas officials already feel picked on, given that they have designated 130,000 miles of streams for compliance with federal standards. That compares with only 50,000 miles in Missouri.

The EPA told the delegation, though, that Kansas was the only state that prohibited authorities from entering private property to ensure water quality. However, the congressmen said state laws cover enforcement. The EPA says it will send top officials to Kansas to visit with leaders and concerned groups.

The contingent will arrive ahead of the public hearings now set for sometime in September at Topeka and Dodge City. Earlier the EPA gave less than four weeks from its initial July 3 announcement of a public hearing in Topeka. A letter from Roberts to EPA chief Carol Browner sparked an extension and a second hearing place, and an Oct. 16 comment deadline.

But now that the Sierra Club has told the EPA it is going to sue to force rapid implementation of the standards its earlier lawsuit against the agency forced, the climate --- or even room --- for any compromise seems poor.

Such waste of the room for compromise irritated Roberts, who predicted that the issue would wind up in the courts from both sides, after stating he felt there is room to compromise. It should be increasingly clear that the environmentalists don't want the people or their elected representatives involved in setting and implementing environmental law.

One reporter said the Sierra Club was trying to force the EPA to follow through on standards set by the CWA 30 years ago, and that politicians approved it then and knew what they were approving. All else is so much foot-dragging.

Veteran political watchers tell me that the whole ordeal is part of the Clinton administration's effort to leave an environmental heritage.

Kansans were told late last week in Washington that legislation will attempt to delay the implementation a year, but won't change the rules.

Denigrating agricultural producers for crying foul on the farm pond issue isn't winning new friends for the Sierra Club. Foot- dragging, as environmentalists claimed farmers and ranchers are doing, is a ridiculous charge. End-running would be more like it, by the Sierra Club and EPA. But hear this: 1st District Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, said there was still serious legal debate whether the CWA even applied to non-point pollution, which is the type involved here.

No one with one part per billion of honesty who knew the Kansas legislature or Congress 30 years ago is going to believe either body's members as majorities condoned regulators traipsing onto private property to inspect ponds, I will say.

For the Sierra Club to suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest because it ignores the context and fiber of the people of the times. Private property rights were held almost sacred in public discussions of the time.

EPA officials now admit there is no way they can afford to inspect every pond. But it is horrible policy to have a law that authorities say they won't enforce. And it smacks of having one's cake while eating it, too. Later, with an enabling law, officials will be able to violate the spirit of private property rights with impunity by simply invoking water quality questions. The rights of individuals have taken another severe beating in this episode.

No one wants to be seen as anti-environment. The environment has become the national church. Worship at its altar or off with your head. This social mandate crowds out honest governing of it. We must resort to winking, nodding off in church (ignoring some of the message), deflection of responsibilities and demanding more money in the collection plate to run the church.

I asked Roberts to clarify the ponds issue. His answer I caught on tape: "Well, basically, they tried to define a farm pond that had been excavated and then naturally fill up with water, but then they went on to say if a farm pond was fed by a spring or stream it would fit into that category (subject to regulation). Well, you know that in central or eastern Kansas where we do have considerably more moisture and the terrain is such that almost every farm pond is fed by a spring or stream. I'm afraid they would be designated.