Cargill Ponds EPA Decision Under Fire For Clean Water Exemption

NEWARK, CA -- U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, took to the House floor Tuesday morning, "outraged but not surprised" by the latest Trump administration antics that pit environmentalists against corporate interests wanting to develop in her jurisdiction.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled Monday that the 1,270 acres of land where the Cargill salt ponds are located are not governed by the Clean Water Act mandate. The decision paves the way for development or other means of accruing wealth by Cargill, the Minnesota-based property owner that distributes salt. Repeated phone calls to the company were unreturned.
Speier used a snarky tone at giving the Trump administration a pass for failing to recognize any body of water as "a murky swamp" and further pledged to fight.

"I am not willing to let this happen. This administration has completely hijacked the jurisdictional process away from experts on the ground putting politics ahead of science," Speier said in testimony aired Tuesday morning on CSPAN. She noted Trump "trampled on evidence" gathered by the state's own EPA Region 9 office that handles the San Francisco Bay.

Speier pointed out how the land encompasses part of the navigable waters of the bay.

To the lawmaker and environmentalists, the reversal of the state EPA region's 2016 finding threatens bay water quality, weakens the Clean Water Act and hurts the wetlands where fish and wildlife habitat abound.

"The companies have been busy lobbying federal agencies to exempt the below-sea-level ponds from important environmental regulations that protect the bay from being filled," a blog by Save the Bay indicated.

The environmental advocacy group's spokesman, David Lewis, pointed out how Cargill and its Arizona developer colluded with the Trump administration in placing environmental protections on notice.

"They are embracing and abetting the Trump administration's attack on the Clean Water Act and gutting of pollution regulations and enforcement. But that agenda is strongly opposed in the Bay Area and California," Lewis said.

Redwood City zoning and land use designations prohibit development on those ponds.

Where the city stands on the matter remains to be seen as that local administration offered no comment, in particular to the question of how the project may liquify in the threat of an earthquake in the seismically-prone Bay Area.

For years, the state has stayed steadfastly on record opposing the Trump administration's efforts to weaken the Clean Water Act. Enacted in 1972 and amended five years later, the Clean Water Act represents the primary federal law mandating efforts to avert and negate water pollution.

Still, the U.S. EPA's Washington, D.C. office said it followed the law in citing a "special case" provision that ultimately allowed the federal government to exercise its authority to make the jurisdictional determination. The EPA's national office was satisfied with a response from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over development rights.

"In making its determination, the EPA relied on the agency's and the Corps' long-recognized legal interpretation that (the Clean Water Act) jurisdiction does not apply to waters that were legally converted to dry land by permit or prior to the passage of the (Act)," a U.S. E.P.A. spokesman told Patch. "After careful legal consideration and review, the EPA has found that the Redwood City Salt Plant site does not include waters of the United States because the site was converted to fast (salt farm) land long before the (Clean Water Act) was enacted.

More information may be obtained here https://www.epa.gov/cwa-404/2019-redwood-city-salt-plant-jurisdictional-determination.