随着法规的放松，清洁水保护行业会枯竭吗?

随着法规的放松，清洁水保护行业会枯竭吗?

Many business interests are cheering President Trump's recent rollback of water regulations put in place by the Obama administration. But companies that make money protecting clean water could take a big hit.

特朗普总统最近取消了由奥巴马政府实施的用水规定，许多商业利益团体对此表示欢迎。但那些靠保护清洁水赚钱的公司可能会遭受重创。

The Trump administration is stripping protections for streams that only run after rain and for wetlands that don't have a connection to bigger waterways above ground. Announcing the rule last week at the International Builders' Show in Las Vegas, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said it will "save Americans time and money while accelerating infrastructure projects and economic development."

特朗普政府正在取消对只在雨后流淌的溪流和与地面上更大水道没有连接的湿地的保护。美国环保署署长安德鲁·惠勒上周在拉斯维加斯举行的国际建筑商展上宣布了这项规定，他表示，这将“在加快基础设施项目和经济发展的同时，节省美国人的时间和金钱。”

The EPA says there's no data on exactly how many waterways would be affected, but a leaked presentation by government scientists says more than half of wetlands across the country as well as 18% of streams would not have federal protection.

美国环境保护署表示，目前还没有确切的数据显示有多少水道会受到影响，但政府科学家泄露的一份报告称，全国超过一半的湿地以及18%的溪流将得不到联邦保护。

Those rollbacks could mean less work for folks like Adam Davis, the managing partner at Ecosystem Investment Partners.

对于像生态系统投资伙伴的管理合伙人亚当·戴维斯这样的人来说，这些(规定的)放松意味着更少的工作。

"One of the most gratifying things about the job is seeing nature come back to life," Davis says.

戴维斯说:“这项工作最令人欣慰的事情之一就是看到大自然恢复了生机。”

The country has lost more than half of its wetlands. The Clean Water Act says that when developers fill in protected wetlands, they have to offset that damage by creating more or restoring them somewhere else.

这个国家已经失去了一半以上的湿地。《清洁水法》规定，当开发商填满受保护的湿地时，他们必须通过增加或在其他地方恢复湿地来抵消这种损害。

Davis' company operates "mitigation banks" to help them do that. EIP funds wetland restoration through private investment and then sells credits to developers who impact other, protected waterways.

戴维斯的公司运营着“缓解银行”来帮助他们做到这一点。EIP通过私人投资为湿地修复提供资金，然后向影响其他受保护水道的开发商出售信贷。

Mitigation banks sold about $4.8 billion in credits in 2018. and the industry directly employs more people than the coal, steel or logging industries. Those workers include everyone "from heavy equipment operators to landscape planners and architects," Davis says.

“缓解银行”在2018年出售了约48亿美元的信贷，该行业直接雇佣的员工比煤炭、钢铁或伐木行业更多。戴维斯说，这些工人包括“从重型设备操作员到景观规划师和建筑师”的每一个人。

Before mitigation banks took off, developers often restored their own fragments of wetlands near their sites. But Davis says that by pooling investor money, mitigation banks can take on projects that are huge in scale and geared toward improving entire ecosystems. Plus, he says, they do it faster and cheaper than ever before. About 1.600 mitigation banks across the country have restored more than a million acres of wetlands.

在“缓解银行”开始运作之前，开发商经常在他们的场地附近修复他们自己的湿地碎片。但戴维斯说，通过汇集投资者的资金，“缓解银行”可以承担规模巨大、旨在改善整个生态系统的项目。此外，他说，他们比以前做得更快、更便宜。全国大约有1600个“缓解银行”已经恢复了超过100万英亩的湿地。

"The most exciting thing about this industry is that it fundamentally aligns economics and ecology," Davis says.

戴维斯说:“这个行业最令人兴奋的地方在于，它从根本上把经济和生态联系在了一起。”

But some in the industry worry that the regulatory rollbacks threaten their business. Wendy Weaver — with Montana Aquatic Resources Services, a nonprofit that does wetland mitigation under the Clean Water Act — says the new rule could have huge impacts on her program.

但一些业内人士担心，监管的倒退会威胁到他们的业务。温迪·韦弗是蒙大拿水生资源服务机构的一名工作人员，该机构是根据《清洁水法》对湿地进行减排的非营利组织。她说，新规定可能会对她的项目产生巨大影响。

"That might mean we're still around, and it might mean we're not," Weaver says.

“这可能意味着我们(的行业)还存在，也可能意味着会消失，”韦弗说。