Law for Sustainability
Wetland adjoining a stream and wetland not adjoining a stream. The former gets protection and the latter is not deserving.
I include stories from my career in my lectures on environmental law, and the other day I found myself describing the first project I did in my new job with the Commonwealth’s Office of Safe Waste Management back in the late 1980’s. The students all have phone cameras but back then you took your negatives to these little photobooth stores and camera shops, or you had a smelly dark room in your basement. The project was about not pouring photographic chemicals down the drain. They contain silver – and hundreds of thousands of dollars was being poured into Boston Harbor every year. At one event, a speaker gave away quarters to represent the money you get when you recover the waste instead. That makes the picture clearer. It is one thing to tell your audience that silver is toxic to aquatic organisms and we need those organisms to break down wastes at the sewage treatment plant, and they shouldn’t be poisoning receiving waters either, but a coin to put in your pocket focuses attention, helping to foster clarity.
I hope people have gotten a clear picture of what this court has been doing and just did with respect to our environmental laws. I fear that May 25th’s Sackett v. EPA could be like a blank sheet of undeveloped photographic paper to some people. What happened? It was a unanimous opinion and EPA lost! There are complexities here but as we apply what we know about what the law should be, a clear picture emerges from the mix.
The majority added words to the Clean Water Act that aren’t there.
I hope people have gotten a clear picture of what this court has been doing and just did with respect to our environmental laws. I fear that May 25th’s Sackett v. EPA could be like a blank sheet of undeveloped photographic paper to some people. What happened? It was a unanimous opinion and EPA lost! There are complexities here but as we apply what we know about what the law should be, a clear picture emerges from the mix.
The majority added words to the Clean Water Act that aren’t there.