Abandoning wetlands will multiply disaster

Congress must restore Clean Water Act protections
Last update: November 11, 2005 at 4:52 PM

<snip> It was a narrow and somewhat technical decision, which appeals courts have subsequently refined. But the Bush administration has seized on it to essentially stop protecting wetlands except when the law leaves it no choice.

One GAO study found that Corps headquarters requires its local offices to get its permission for applying wetlands rules in cases where its authority could be questioned, and unofficially discourages them from doing so. The administration has promised a new jurisdictional rule since 2001, but it's still in the talking stages, leaving citizens powerless to challenge the Corps' enforcement decisions. Indeed, there's no real way to gauge the breadth of this new hands-off approach; the GAO found that the Corps records almost nothing about its decisions to decline jurisdiction.

In a separate investigation, requested by Minnesota's Rep. Jim Oberstar, the GAO looked at how thoroughly the Corps is assessing developers' compliance with wetland-replacement rules. No surprise: Corps officials, citing vague and sometimes conflicting requirements from Washington, are requiring only a handful of developers to document these projects, and rarely inspect the results to see if they live up to developers' claims.

The consequences of this abandonment? Not another city-killing hurricane, perhaps, but thousands of little environmental disasters -- local floods, tainted drinking water, vanished wildlife, big repair bills. The solution is so simple: Congress can amend the Clean Water Act to restore the Corps' pre-2001 authority. What is it waiting for?

http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5722248.html

I do property maintenance. Not exactly a glamourous job but neccesary if folks are going to have rental housing that works. Several of the properties I maintain are on sites that used to have vernal pools that were seasonal wetlands with rare species of fairy shrimp.

These properties should have never been built on. The builders put slab foundations on hardpan that does not drain naturally. Any water that lands on this property stays until it evaporates or moves very, very, slowly downgrade.

The buildings on these properties are doomed to rot. The concrete never really dries from the winter rains before the summer irrigation starts. It wicks up into the wood and various fungi take over. There isnt' really enough soil around them to support termites so at least they are spared that. Of course you cannot ever get rid of the pools of water that support mosquito populations. The buildings are ultimately unsustainable on the long term.

Every wetland that is built on requires special care to adjust to the degraded environment. Most times this care is not taken. South of me in Sacremento they have built subdivisions around the airport that are as doomed to flooding as New Orleans was. The people who buy these places are not able to effectively asses the risk even when they are given accurate information (rarely).

Protecting wetlands protects homeowners as well as providing environmental services such as fish, waterfowl and plant habitat.