(LATimes) - The Obama administration finalized new regulations Wednesday that it says will protect streams, rivers and wetlands that provide drinking water to more than 117 million Americans.

The Clean Water Rule, drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, extends the Clean Water Act’s protections to all tributaries with signs of flowing water. These streams and wetlands can have a crucial effect on the health of downstream waters, agency officials say. For “drinking water to be clean, the streams and wetlands that feed them need to be clean too,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement.

Environmental groups applauded the changes, which have been opposed by farm groups, land developers and others who warned they would extend federal regulations onto inland wetlands and ponds that go well beyond the traditional scope of federal oversight .

“President Obama heeded the call of sound science and public input in finalizing this rule,” Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group, said in a statement.