REVEALED: EPA developed secret map to claim oversight of puddles, ponds, and farm runoff

BISMARCK, N.D. — A map developed by the EPA and released to a U.S. House committee investigating controversial proposed water regulations should have citizens concerned, says U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer.

A farm group in North Dakota is calling the maps a “gall darn can of worms.”

“It is certainly alarming the EPA would develop these maps in secret and only release them after being confronted by members of Congress,” Cramer, a Republican, said in a news release accompanying his office’s release of the maps. “The EPA has been hiding information which could upset the public and jeopardize its massive power grab of unprecedented authority over private and public water.”

The maps were released by the EPA to the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, on which Cramer serves. One map shows perennial bodies of water in blue and intermittent bodies of water in yellow. A second regional map including North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah uses blue to show each state’s “wetlands inventory.”

On that map, nearly the entire state of North Dakota is in blue.

Critics of the proposed rule have suggested the EPA intends to use it to expand regulation far beyond permanent bodies of water to lands that hold water only some of the time.

“It doesn’t take much of a leap to conclude these highly detailed maps developed with taxpayer funds are for the purpose of enforcing this rule,” Cramer said.

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