War Over The Wetlands

The shallow depressions that dot the farm fields of North Dakota would hardly + fit most peoples' definition of wetlands. The smallest of these glacier-carved features, known as prairie potholes, are under water for only a few weeks in the spring. During periods of low rainfall, they are almost indistinguishable from any other acreage. But when the frozen ground warms in early spring, the depressions swarm with crustaceans and insects that provide migrating waterfowl with essential protein. The smaller potholes also enable breeding pairs of birds to find the privacy they covet.

Yet seasonal wetlands like the prairie potholes and seemingly dry areas like the edges of lakes and rivers and swamps that are actually waterlogged below ground level are also potential moneymakers for farmers, land developers and oil and gas drillers. Because of pressure from such groups, the Bush Administration has a new policy that endangers these fragile lands. Though the President has not technically violated his 1988 campaign pledge of "No net loss of wetlands," the official definition of a wetland is being narrowed. As much as a third of the 38.4 million hectares (95 million acres) of wetlands in the lower 48 states will be considered wetlands no more and thus will be vulnerable to development. Says Jay Hair, president of the National Wildlife Federation: "The new policy represents a death sentence for much of this critical American resource."

The government action clearly reflects the commonsense -- and incorrect -- notion that wetlands have to be wet. While swamps and marshes are more important, the dryer wetlands have their unique role in the environment. They are natural flood controls, and they also act as filtration systems for water passing through them. Some wetland plants absorb toxic pollutants like heavy metals.

If the Administration is fuzzy about what constitutes a wetland, that is understandable. Before 1989, there was no official definition, and the four agencies that had jurisdiction over wetland development -- the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture -- often disagreed. Says the NWF's Douglas Inkley: "Sometimes the Corps would say one thing to a farmer, and a week later the EPA would come out and say something different."

The confusion was so great that the agencies finally got together in 1989 and wrote a manual, spelling out for the first time what a wetland is: any depression where water accumulates for seven consecutive days during the growing season, where certain water-loving plants are found and where the soil is saturated enough with water that anaerobic bacterial activity can take place. Development in such areas was forbidden without a special exemption. And anyone wanting an exemption from the rules had to prove that there was no practical alternative to wetlands destruction.