Wetland
Laws
1. There is no specific national wetland law.
2. Wetlands have been managed under regulations
related to both land use and water quality.
Important Laws
Rivers
and Harbors Act, Section 10, 1899, gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the
responsibility to control dredge and fill operations in “waters of the
Federal
Water Pollution Control Act as amended (Clean Water Act) 1972, 1977, 1982.
Section 404 Dredge and fill permit
(Corps)
Section 208 Areawide
Water Quality Planning (EPA)
Section 303 Water Quality Standards
(EPA)
Section 401 Water Quality
Certification (EPA)
Section 402 National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination
(EPA)
“No
net loss”. Set as a goal by National
Wetlands Policy Forum, 1988. President
Bush directed federal agencies to implement this goal. It was not anticipated that there would be a
complete halt to wetland loss, so restoration and construction was implied.
Clean Water Act Section 404
Program
Primary
vehicle for wetland protection in
An
extension of 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act, it requires anyone dredging or
filling in the “waters of the
Wetlands
are not even mentioned in the original wording, but court interpretations and
later executive orders have required the Corps to assume their protection.
Obtaining
a permit is a complex process (Fig 18-1).
No
dredging or filling can occur if a practicable alternative exists. The sequence of evaluation and the terms of
the permit require the following:
1.
Avoidance (avoid impacts where practicable)
2.
Minimization (minimize the potential impacts to wetlands)
3. Mitigation (provide compensation for any remaining,
unavoidable impacts through the restoration or creation of wetlands.)
The
EPA has veto power over the Corps’ decisions.
Swampbuster
provision of 1985
Food Security Act
Eliminated
the cross purposes of
Federal agencies.
SCS
had been promoting wetland drainage while other agencies were mandated to
protect wetlands. This act withdrew any
Federal support from farmers who filled wetlands. This included all crop subsidies.
Wetland delineation
In
1987, the Corps published a wetland delineation manual requiring that three
mandatory technical criteria be met (wetland soils, hydrology and vegetation)
for declaring a
parcel a wetland.
In
1989, a four agency manual came out that allowed the delineator to infer some
wetland features from others.
Heavy
lobbying resulted in the release of a modified manual in 1991, one that would
have favored the needs of developers and would have resulted in fewer acres of
wetland being delineated. After public
review, it was characterized as “unscientific” and was abandoned. The 1987 manual is the version that is used.
The
NRC study was published in 2001:
“Compensating for Wetland Losses Under the
Clean Water Act”.
It
portrays a less than complementary picture of the effectiveness of the
governmental apparatus for protecting the Nation’s wetlands.