Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river<\/p>\n
Proud Mary<\/p>\n
Credence Clearwater Revival, 1969<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When the U.S. Supreme Court, now with a largely Trump-appointed conservative majority, overturned the Roe vs. Wade<\/em> precedent, a woman\u2019s right to choose was elevated to the highest level of political debate.\u00a0 Less obvious was a recent decision to grant immunity to the President for most actions taken in office, including attempts to overturn an election, bring rivals to justice, and steal classified documents.<\/p>\n Lower levels of media attention have accompanied yet another decision, Sackett vs. the EPA<\/em>, that effectively stripped Federal protection from much of the 90 million acres of wetlands in the United States. \u00a0People who enjoy hunting and fishing should be outraged. \u00a0We have Trump to thank for all these backward steps for society.<\/p>\n Despite widespread recognition that wetlands are essential for wildlife, carbon storage, and the regulation of flood waters and storm surges that may impact them, the Supreme Court has opened most upland wetlands to development and pollution. Specifically the Court removed protection of what are known as ephemeral wetlands\u2014those that are fed solely by rainfall and flowing only sporadically after rainfall events.\u00a0 Only wetlands that have a continuous surface manifestation are subject to protection.<\/p>\n Seemingly ignorant of Newton\u2019s laws of gravity, the Court overlooks that water flows downhill, so that pollutants dumped into an ephemeral waterway will eventually make their way downslope to wetlands still protected by law.\u00a0 More than half of the riverwater in the continental U.S. is derived from ephemeral streams, which are especially prevalent in the western United States.\u00a0 Indeed, globally, only about 1% of the flow of rivers is derived from groundwater<\/p>\n Environmental science, even well-established concepts, has been politicized.\u00a0 In a few weeks, we will have an opportunity to ensure that no further inroads are made against women\u2019s health and wetland protections.\u00a0 Be part of the solution.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n References<\/p>\n Brinkerhoff, G.B., C.J. Gleason, M.J. Kotcher, D.A. Kysar, and P.A. Raymond. 2024.\u00a0 Ephemeral streamwater contributions to United States drainage networks.\u00a0 Science 384: 1476-1482.<\/p>\n Gold, A.C. 2024.\u00a0 How wet must a wetland be to have federal protection in post-Sackett US?\u00a0 Science 385-1450-1453.<\/p>\n Schlesinger, W.H. and E.S. Bernhardt. 2021.\u00a0 Biogeochemistry: An analysis of global change.\u00a0 Elsevier, NY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than half of the riverwater in the continental U.S. is derived from ephemeral streams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":517,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[86,331,5,100,91,96,363],"tags":[321,322,825,547,824,546],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":["post-2580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-policy","category-environmental-politics","category-faculty","category-lakes-and-streams","category-water","category-water-pollution","category-wetlands","tag-clean-water-act","tag-clean-water-rule","tag-ephemeral-streams","tag-rivers","tag-sackett-vs-epa","tag-streams"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5KxUl-FC","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/517"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2581,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2580\/revisions\/2581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2580"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/citizenscientist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}