Clean Water

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, in a potentially far-reaching clash between the environment and the rights of property owners, agreed yesterday to consider limiting the federal government's power to protect hundreds of millions of acres of wetlands. After its first private conference led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court said it would hear three cases that ask the justices to cut back on the reach of the Clean Water Act of 1972, the anti-pollution measure that led to the cleanup of streams, rivers and bays around the United States.

NATIONAL Court to review Clean Water Act After its first private conference led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court said it would hear three cases that ask the justices to cut back on the reach of the Clean Water Act of 1972, the anti-pollution measure that led to the cleanup of streams, rivers and bays across the United States. pg 3a WORLD Weather slows rescue efforts Rain and hail slowed rescue efforts in some the areas hardest hit by Saturday's earthquake in south Asia.

UPPER MARLBORO - Near the headquarters of its first official "keeper," the Patuxent River cuts an olive-drab swath through a tumble of branches living and dead. Fred Tutman stood there one recent afternoon on a forlorn truss bridge built during the Patuxent's better days, chatting with a fisherman who told about perch running well as the sun sets. Tutman handed over a card with his name and number. "I'm the Patuxent riverkeeper," he said, urging the fisherman to get in touch if something seemed amiss along the water.

SAN FRANCISCO - A judge has ordered repeal of a federal regulation that has allowed ships to discharge ballast water freely into U.S. harbors and coastal waters. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said last week that the 1972 Clean Water Act prohibits the practice. Government and other reports have identified ballast water as the main source for the spread of invasive foreign species - more than 500 of them - that have been ruining U.S. wetlands and driving out native marine plant and animal life.

A READER of The Sun's front page Monday ("Changes sought to rules on water") might well have wondered what's going on. Here we are, struggling to meet ambitious federal and state goals to restore the Chesapeake Bay, and here is Maryland's Department of the Environment proposing that some parts of the system should be classified too polluted to restore. Is this, as an MDE official told Sun reporter Tom Pelton, "just trying to be practical?" Or is it, as environmentalists protested, throwing in the towel?

The Ehrlich administration is proposing new water-quality standards that would allow the state to classify some Maryland waterways as too polluted to justify the expense of cleaning them up. Officials at the Maryland Department of the Environment say their proposed revision of regulations required by the Clean Water Act is an attempt to strike a balance between environmental goals and the needs of business. "We're not giving up on our waters; we are just trying to be practical," said Richard Eskin, who is the head of regulatory services for the department.

The town of Hampstead will be surveying the 40 to 50 homeowners in a neighborhood just east of town, where the gasoline additive MTBE has shown up in some wells, to determine the level of interest in being annexed and connected to the town water supply. Hampstead Town Manager Ken Decker said letters to the property owners would be going out this week. About 40 people, many of them residents of the Hillcrest Avenue neighborhood, came to an informational meeting Wednesday night at the town hall with representatives of the Maryland Department of the Environment.

The town of Hampstead will be surveying the 40 to 50 homeowners in a neighborhood just east of town, where the gasoline additive MTBE has shown up in some wells, to determine the level of interest in being annexed and connected to the town water supply. Hampstead Town Manager Ken Decker said letters to the property owners would be going out this week. About 40 people, many of them residents of the Hillcrest Avenue neighborhood, came to an informational meeting Wednesday night at the town hall with representatives of the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Sri Lanka's top beer producer built its reputation on its chilled lagers and full-bodied stouts. But soon after last week's catastrophe, when a tsunami struck the nation's coastline, executives at Lion Brewery in Colombo knew that the best way they could offer assistance was to stop brewing beer - and start bottling water. Clean water, they knew, is among the most pressing needs. The giant wave wiped out public water and sanitation systems, contaminated wells and springs, and left millions across South Asia at grave risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

For millions of disaster victims across South Asia, the danger is far from over. Even those who weren't injured face the threat of deadly infectious diseases, which can spread easily in the chaos caused by the earthquake and tsunamis. As relief workers from around the world head toward the stricken coastal regions, experts say, the threat of epidemic grows daily among weakened, often homeless refugees. Most disaster relief specialists agreed that officials should focus first on providing a steady supply of clean water to victims, who are most vulnerable to waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other diarrheal illnesses.