Rewrite of the rule clarifying the geographic scope of the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule is occurring at a "fast pace," the top water official at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said March 21."We will be on a fast pace to get something done," Benita Best-Wong, EPA acting deputy assistant administrator for water, told participants at the two-day National Water Policy Fly-In in Washington. Best-Wong stopped short of providing a timeline.The WOTUS rule took effect in late August, but was in effect for barely a month before it was stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that began reviewing the legality of the rule. The Trump administration is wants to withdraw from all judicial challenges to WOTUS. This includes the pending petition before the U.S. Supreme Court over the question of which court is best suited to hear challenges to the water rule.Regarding the rule's rewrite, Best-Wong said the agencies — the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — are carefully following the direction they received in the executive order to consider the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's plurality opinion. In the 4--4--1 decision delivered in Rapanos, Scalia sought to establish that jurisdiction over wetlands and streams should depend on the presence of waters that continuously flow to relatively permanent bodies of water "as opposed to ordinarily dry channels through which water occasionally or intermittently flows."That means streams that are dry part of the time or flow only occasionally, including dry arroyos found in the Southwest, are out. Also out are wetlands that have no visible continuous surface flow to navigable waters, such as prairie potholes, playa lakes and vernal pools.