122702 Bush Administration's New Wetlands ct

December 27, 2002

Bush Administration's New Wetlands Mitigation Guidance Has Positive Aspects, but Lacks Specific Safeguards Now

"The Bush administration has taken a positive step to improve federal wetlands mitigation policies, but safeguards that are needed now are still not in place," Julie Sibbing, wetlands policy specialist at the National Wildlife Federation, said here today. Sibbing's comments came in response to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers release a new Mitigation Action Plan, an interagency process to develop improved policies governing how developers must replace, or mitigate for the wetlands they destroy. According to EPA and the Corps, the 17-point guidance letter emphasizes the quality of wetlands created to mitigate for wetlands lost to development. "Mitigation certainly should result in the creation of real wetlands," Sibbing said. "But that alone is not enough. At an absolute minimum, we need a no net loss of wetlands policy that replaces wetlands lost to development on an acre by acre basis. The new guidelines fall short of that benchmark."

Across America, wetlands replenish water supply, filter pollution, control floods, provide critical habitat for a variety of wildlife species and provide a host of recreational activities such as hunting, canoeing and bird watching. Thanks to the Clean Water Act and federal policies that require developers to compensate for the wetlands they destroy, wetland losses have slowed tremendously in the past 30 years. In the 1970s, the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that the nation lost about 290,000 acres of wetlands each year. In 1990, that number dropped to only an estimate of 58,000 acres per year. However, all indications are that the quality of the remaining wetlands is declining significantly. Additionally, efforts to restore formerly drained wetlands have a failure rate of up to 80 percent, according to top wetland scientists. Learn more about wetlands at NWF's Wetlands program.
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