Agriculture Impacted by New Water Rule

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has published the final version of its "Waters of the U.S." rule.

Now agriculture groups are combing through the details in the lengthy and complex document to see if agriculture's concerns were indeed addressed during the comment period.

One group doing that is Farm Bureau. Scott VanderWal farms and raises cattle near Volga, South Dakota and is the president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau. He tells us,

We're working closely with our partners at the American Farm Bureau Federation to analyze what exactly is in this final version of the rule, but I'm not holding out much hope that the EPA listened to what farmers and ranchers had to say about this flawed and over-reaching rule.

Farm Bureau is looking specifically at how the rule treats temporary streams, ditches, small ponds and isolated wetlands. If these are now categorized as "Waters of the U.S." by the federal government, it will have far-reaching consequences for agriculture.