How many of you have stood on a small wooden platform in a metro park, gazing down at a few yards of a basic “wetland” created by industry, read the written markers that summarily mention how much we need to “preserve” wetlands for their water cleansing properties, their vital link between our land and water resources, flood prevention, and habitant for a myriad of insects and other creatures, and then resumed your stroll through the park, never thinking of a wetland again?

I would have followed in your footsteps…but I spent about the last five or so years of my legal work at the Ohio EPA, advising the Agency’s water program and working with the regulated community to enforce wetland regulations, including what is called “restoring” a wetland. Because of that background, I spend more time making snarky comments about the company that claims credit for this magnificent wetland our community now has—thanks to their generosity—than the typical park visitor.

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In honor of American Wetlands Month, I’ll share a general summary of information about wetland destruction and restoration under current law, with footnotes and links to the more detailed definitions and summaries, below. It’s important to mention one statistic up front, though: According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, there is a net loss of approximately 60,000 acres of wetlands each year in the U.S.¹

Generally, if a construction project destroys a wetland, the project has to replace it in some fashion. But it is the “exact fashion” of the restoration that causes a problem from the environmentalists’ view. When I worked at the Ohio EPA, I called this required restoration a “fiction” because no restoration can exactly replicate a wetland made by nature. But that is the implication of the rules and what is touted by companies when they debut a brand new “wetland” with the company name emblazoned on a plaque that is often larger than the re-created wetland itself.

The public doesn’t know about the behind-the-scenes arguments company attorney’s make to whittle down the size or type of wetland to save money. Or the amount of wetland acreage destroyed by the company (or government project for that matter), in exchange for, say, an acre or two of wetland that is not the same quality as the wetland cemented over for a Walmart Super Center and its parking lot, or the latest condo complex.

The following readings I‘ve compiled on wetlands should help you better understand the nature of these vital natural resources, why they need to be preserved from destruction in the first instance, and if their destruction can’t be prevented, the preferred ways to re-create each wetland to preserve its unique functions.

— First up is an excellent article from the U.S. EPA, one of five federal agencies that oversees the protection of wetlands, that provides wetland definitions along with their regulation and restoration.

The holistic nature of restoration, including the reintroduction of animals, is important. The objective is to emulate a natural, self-regulating system that is integrated ecologically with the landscape in which it occurs.

https://www.epa.gov/wetlands

— Another piece from the U.S. EPA discusses in more detail the importance of preserving our remaining wetlands and what functions wetlands perform to help humans.

Wetlands within and downstream of urban areas are particularly valuable, counteracting the greatly increased rate and volume of surface- water runoff from pavement and buildings.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-01/documents/wetlands_our_vital_link_between_land_water.pdf

— Here is the 2018, United Nations Climate Change Report, which discusses, in part, the relationship between the loss of wetlands and climate change (Hint: wetlands absorb a lot of carbon).

Wetlands, amongst the world’s most economically valuable ecosystems and essential regulators of the global climate, are disappearing three times faster than forests.

https://unfccc.int/news/wetlands-disappearing-three-times-faster-than-forests

— And finally for this evening, an article from The Wildlife Society, discussing how and why the Biden administration plans to reverse and replace one of former President Trump’s regulations that curtails the protection of wetlands.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers announced initial plans to replace a rule finalized during the Trump administration defining the “waters of the U.S.”—or WOTUS—under the Clean Water Act.

The regulatory definition of “waters of the U.S” determines the scope of Clean Water Act protections for water bodies against pollution discharge. The rule finalized in 2020 restricted the scope of the Clean Water Act by excluding more than 18% of streams and 51% of wetlands countrywide that do not have continuous surface water connections to larger waterways.

https://wildlife.org/administration-to-replace-wetlands-regulations/

Please do share your thoughts on the issue of our disappearing wetlands in the Comment Section below. Have you visited your local parks or other nature preserves and seen an officially designated and preserved wetland up close? Did you know how important wetlands are to the environment and the many ways they help us humans? Let me know!

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