This weekend marks one year since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Sackett v. EPA, the worst judicial rollback of environmental protections ever. That ruling said that the federal Clean Water Act does not ordinarily protect wetlands, even though they are critically important by themselves and for the health of all kinds of other waterbodies. The Court also limited the law’s ability to protect many other waters. This post checks in on what many of us in the clean water community, as well as key decision-makers, have done to try and pick up the pieces in the year since Sackett.
Here’s the TL;DR: Because clean water and our freshwater ecosystems are too important to give up on, advocates and leaders have spent the last year fighting nationally and at the state level to safeguard wetlands, streams, and other waters, using whatever tools we can to restore protections and defend these…