New rules make it harder to eliminate small wetlands. (Image source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.) |
March 2000
Washington, D.C.
In early March, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to stiffen wetland protection regulations. Despite rules that have existed for decades, wetlands continue to disappear under housing developments, shopping malls, and office complexes at rates as high as 100,000 acres per year.
Under previous rules, developers had to get a permit to drain or fill wetlands larger than 10 acres (a number that was recently reduced to 3 acres). There has also been a fast-track "nation-wide" permit system allowing many projects to be built without individual wetland destruction permits. The streamlined rules have allowed development and drainage to proceed quickly. The new rules, expected to take effect in June 2000, require that developers file individual permits to fill wetlands as small as half an acre.
The rule change came in response to a lawsuit from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which argued that lax permit regulations were encouraging the destruction of wetlands, rather than defending the federal mandate of "no net loss" of wetlands. The no net loss policy has been in effect since the Bush administration.
Wetlands are an important conservation concern for several reasons: They provide habitat for an extraordinary diversity of wildlife; they help reduce flooding by storing rainwater and snowmelt; and they help filter nutrients and pollutants from water systems. Wetlands are frequently drained and filled for development because they are flat and are often the last undeveloped areas on the margins of cities, where drier areas were built up first. Developers charge that the new regulations will slow development. Environmentalists are pleased that development will be slowed. Developers also calculate that the regulations will cost as much as $300 million per year in lost economic growth; Army Corps cost calculations are less than 1/10 that value, about $26 million per year. However, economic benefits of flood control, pollution control, and habitat mitigation are likely to equal the costs of deferred land sales and development.
To learn more, see these related websites:
Army Corps of EngineersÑtechnical and biological resources regarding wetlands
Army Corps of Engineers Wetlands Research Program
To read more, see:
Environmental Science, A Global Concern, Cunningham and Saigo, 6th ed.
Wetland definition and wetland destruction, pp. 346-47
Wetlands: values and preservation, pp. 346-48
Wetland reserve program, p. 347
Environmental Science, A Study of Interrelationships, Enger and Smith, 7th ed.
Wetlands: description and ecological importance, p. 222
Wetland preservation, pp. 297-9
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