Free Republic

What the mainstream media won't show you: The Border Wall IS Being Built... video at link Looks like a construction project of a tall steel slatted fence in progress somewhere on the border. Posted as a separate thread for Hoosiermama.

The Trump administration is poised to withdraw federal protections for countless waterways and wetlands across the country, making good on President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to weaken landmark water rules long resented by some developers, farmers and oil, gas and mining executives. Environmental groups said the Trump administration proposal would have a sweeping impact on how the country safeguards the nation’s waterways, scaling back not just a 2015 Obama administration interpretation of federal jurisdiction over the nation’s waters, but also how federal agencies enforce the 1972 Clean Water Act. […] The changes would affect what waterways and wetlands fall under...

Aerial picture of the Soo Locks and International Bridge at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Photo Credit: Creative Commons The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proceeding with plans to build a new Soo Lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan more than three decades after a new lock was first authorized. The construction of a second Poe-size lock large enough to accommodate the largest ships servicing the Great Lakes region is one of the largest Great Lakes infrastructure projects in a generation. The green-lighting of the project came last week in the form of an announcement that the Corps has formally...

In an interview published Friday, President Donald Trump revealed he is mulling plans to use the military to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Traveling from Billings, Montana to Fargo, North Dakota aboard Air Force One, President Trump told the Daily Mail he possesses “two options,” when it comes to building the border wall: “We have military, we have homeland security,” he said. Of the two, the president said he prefers Congress approve the approximately $25 billion in spending that he’s seeking for the wall and have Department of Homeland Security undertake the project. “Politically speaking, I’d rather get...

A federal judge ruled last week that a federal agency's actions to improve habitats for endangered species along the Missouri River exacerbated floods, causing damage to local farmers whose land was temporarily inundated. Although this was only the first part of a multiphase case, if the ruling is upheld it could undermine future river restoration efforts nationwide and stymie enforcement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by forcing the government to pay damages to any landowner affected by environmental restoration activities. Historically, the Missouri River, known as "the Big Muddy," followed a meandering, braided path and flooded annually, says Robert...

Twenty-five years ago, Fort Bend County's assistant engineer emerged from a meeting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He had new information, and he was worried. Charles Glen Crocker, then 38, had learned that the footprint for Barker Reservoir was bigger than the land owned by the government, placing future homeowners in the Cinco Ranch and Kelliwood subdivisions within what engineers called "flood pools." The reservoir, dry much of the time, could fill during a major rainstorm and spread into the homes of unsuspecting residents. His resulting letter, written on July 6, 1992, was a warning to county officials:...

It has been seven months since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to settle the two Second Amendment cases before the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, respectively.The Ninth Circuit case, Elizabeth Nesbitt, et al v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, et al, was sent to mediation, for settlement on March 3rd.From the washingtonpost.com: The 9th Circuit case was ready for oral argument on March 6. But on March 2, the Corps filed a request to remove the oral argument from the calendar and to put the case into mediation. The motion explained: “The Army Corps of Engineers is reconsidering...

<p>The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a court filing it will grant Energy Transfer Partners LP the easement it needs to finish the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline.</p> <p>The company needs the easement to complete work under Lake Oahe, following President Donald Trump’s memorandum that advised expediting review of the project. Trump took office promising to favor oil and natural gas developments as well as support new infrastructure, which has included reviving TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline.</p>

The public land where hundreds of protesters have been camping out as they protest construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline will be closed on December 5th. That announcement was made in a letter sent by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe on Friday. The Associated Press reports: The letter, provided by the tribe, says: “To be clear, this means that no member of the general public, to include Dakota Access pipeline protesters, can be on these Corps lands.” It says anyone on land north of the river after Dec. 5 will be trespassing and...

I went to our yearly HOA meeting last night. Some consultant with GBM Associates in Bryant, AR said that he is proposing a "Neighborhood mitigation bank" where we buy "credits" for letting the Corps of Engineers (COE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) get deeded our "wetlands", which are really 2 creeks, and dry tributaries. The consultant was honest. He said, no federal law dictates it, just a 1983 guidance. NO promises of making money, no guarantees that COE/EPA will do anything. Fines are possibe, like if my kid catches crawfish, or throws rocks in the lake/stream. Anyways, my wife and...

Trey Poirrier and Jerry Gravois stood in waist-deep floodwater near the St. Amant Fire Department Monday morning trying, unsuccessfully, to reach a relative’s waterlogged home. Nearby, caskets were floating around the Methodist church. Volunteer boaters sailed by them with a rescued family of five, including three girls young enough to attend close-by Lake Primary School, also under water. “The pictures and the videos don’t serve it justice until you get out here,” Poirrier remarked. This is South Louisiana in August 2016 — people reduced to pleading for diapers in Central, whole neighborhoods wrecked in Baton Rouge, and most of Denham Springs...

A federal judge on Friday declined to halt the Obama administration's controversial water rule nationwide, rebuffing the request of 13 states that are battling with the Environmental Protection Agency.Judge Ralph Erickson of the North Dakota U.S. District Court ruled that there are “significant prudential reasons to limit the scope” of the injunction he already gave the 13 states last week. Other courts have denied injunctions, he said, and some states want to implement the “Waters of the United States” rule. “On the one hand, there is a desirability for uniformity regarding a national rule with national application,” Erickson wrote. “On...

BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some state waterways. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson of North Dakota issued a temporary injunction against a the rule, which gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers authority to protect some streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday. “The risk of irreparable harm to the states is both imminent and likely,” Judge Erickson said in blocking the rule from taking effect....

The Clean Water Act prohibits certain discharges to “navigable waters” without a federal permit. The Act defines “navigable waters” as “waters of the United States” which the Corps and EPA originally took to mean traditional navigable waters that could be used in interstate commerce. This is important because the Clean Water Act is based on the commerce power. By definition, regulation of waters under the Act must be necessary to and in furtherance of interstate commerce. But it didn’t take long before the agencies started pushing the envelope on federal jurisdiction claiming regulatory authority over wetlands and other nonnavigable waters...

Lawmakers are up in arms over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that they fear could give federal officials expansive new powers over private property and farmland. The EPA is seeking to redefine what bodies of water fall under the agency’s jurisdiction for controlling pollution. The scope of the final Clean Water Act (CWA) rule is of critical importance, as any area covered would require a federal permit for certain activities. The rule is facing a groundswell of opposition from lawmakers, who fear the EPA is engaged in a “land grab” that could stop farmers and others from building fences,...

Today on The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance radio program, we talked about the Recreational Lands Self-Defense Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH) to repeal the gun ban on land controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Gun Owners of America has issued an alert and asks supporters to "Please contact your Representative and urge him or her to cosponsor H.R. 1865, the Recreational Lands Self-Defense Act." Regular readers both here and at my War on Guns blog know I don't ask anyone to do anything I don't do myself. That's one of the...

SIOUX CITY -- When residents of Pierre, Dakota Dunes and other communities along the flooding Missouri River scrambled to protect their towns, many had harsh words for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for managing the river. "The Corps of Engineers has completely and totally let us down," Gary Grittner, a Fort Pierre resident, said. "We, the people of Fort Pierre and Pierre, are paying the price for incompetence on the part of the Corps of Engineers." Severe flooding on the upper Missouri may be a rare event, but harsh criticism of the corps isn't. For decades,...

For a few days this week, supporters of the long-promised and long-delayed Interstate 73 had a victory worth rejoicing. The news that the state Transportation Commission had agreed to build the interchange with Interstate 95 and five miles of I-73 toward U.S. 501 seemed the first step in finally seeing asphalt on the ground in South Carolina after decades of promises and lobbying. But then came the EPA. As reported this week, the road would destroy an unusually large amount of wetlands - about 272 acres - as it cuts through the Pee Dee region of eastern South Carolina. That...

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) - A federal judge is giving the go-ahead to the Army Corps of Engineers' plan to intentionally break a Mississippi River levee in southeastern Missouri. The break could happen as early as this weekend to spare a flood-threatened Illinois town just upriver. Friday's ruling in Cape Girardeau turns back Missouri's bid to block the corps from blasting a hole in the Birds Point levee in Mississippi County, just south of Cairo, Ill. Missouri argued the floodwaters would ruin farmland and damage about 100 homes.

Tiny downstate Cairo, already battling the still-rising Ohio and Mississippi rivers, has been drawn into a controversial flood-relief plan that could put thousands of acres of farmland in neighboring Missouri under water. The plan calls for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to burst a Mississippi River levee to provide relief to little Cairo, population 2,800, as well as relief for a series of pumping stations, flood walls and levees. But the relief action will trigger flooding in southeastern Missouri, as opening the levee will allow water to flow over some 130,000 acres of Missouri land, mostly farms. The state...