Judge Ditches Trump's Dirty Water Rule

Today, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona said Trump's Navigable Waters Protection Rule must be vacated because the rule contains serious errors and has the potential to cause significant harm to the Nation's Waters if left in place while the Biden administration works on revisions to the rule. It represents the culmination of a lawsuit brought by six federally recognized Indian tribes, who are represented by Earthjustice and sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers for passing a rule that eliminated Clean Water Act protections for thousands of waterbodies by redefining them as not "waters of the U.S."

Thanks to this lawsuit and the Court's ruling, the country will now return to water protections that were in place for years starting in 1986, wiping the Trump Dirty Water Rule off the books. This outcome ensures Clean Water Act protections are in effect while the Biden administration works to develop a new rule. The Dirty Water Rule was particularly damaging for waters throughout the West, Southwest and Great Lakes. The six tribes and their members have been disproportionately harmed by the rule as their livelihoods and culture were put at risk when the Dirty Water Rule eliminated protection for thousands of wetlands, headwater streams, and desert washes.

"The court recognized that the serious legal and scientific errors of the Dirty Water Rule were causing irreparable damage to our nation's waters and would continue to do so unless that Rule was vacated," said Janette Brimmer, Earthjustice attorney. "This sensible ruling allows the Clean Water Act to continue to protect all of our waters while the Biden administration develops a replacement rule."

For Tribes, just like for every living being on the planet, water is life and has been so since time immemorial. The Trump administration, however, wholly disregarded that when it put industry profit over people by rolling back Clean Water Act protections. Even though the Biden administration has initiated the process to repeal the Trump Dirty Water Rule, it continues to apply the rule in the meantime, exacerbating the harms to Tribes.

In court filings, the federal government acknowledged that the Dirty Water Rule completely disregarded decades of the best science and neglected to assess the impacts the rule had on downstream communities. EPA's own science advisors said Trump's rule threatened to weaken protection of the nation's waters by disregarding the established connectivity of ephemeral wetlands and small streams to downstream rivers and lakes.

Earthjustice is representing the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Tohono O'odham Nation, Quinault Indian Nation, Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Learn more about how the Dirty Water Rule gutted protections and some of the watersheds it put at risk.

Quotes from our clients:

"Small headwater streams are fundamental to the protection and restoration of salmon and our way of life," said Guy Capoeman, president of the Quinault Indian Nation. "Today's ruling will protect all waters on which the Quinault people rely."