Wetlands

Challenge:

Our nation's wetlands are vitally important. They protect our homes and other property by controlling floods and buffering erosion. They maintain and enhance water quality by filtering pollution and sediment. They provide critical habitat to fish and wildlife and hunting and fishing opportunities for sportsmen and women.

Unfortunately, America loses an average of 80,000 acres of natural wetlands a year to draining and development projects. This trend will continue and likely accelerate due to weakened federal protections for wetlands under the Clean Water Act. In recent years, Supreme Court decisions have stripped federal protections for geographically isolated wetlands and intermittent ephemeral streams. As a result, it is now easier for wetlands and other waters to be polluted, drained, filled in and paved over.

Click here to download a Fact Sheet on this issue.

Strategy:

The TRCP is organizing the "We Are Wetlands" campaign with the long-term strategy of educating the general public about the importance of wetlands and their societal benefits. The Working Group on Wetlands is a gathering of representatives from the leading sportsmen and conservation organizations from around the country with the broadly defined goal of collaborating to promote wetlands protections on Capitol Hill and the general public. The TRCP is deeply involved in organizing the group's efforts. Find out more about the "We Are Wetlands" campaign.

Action:

On April 2, 2009, the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787), was reintroduced in the 111th Congress. This bill will restore federal clean water and wetlands protections to the level that was originally intended in the Clean Water Act and clarify agency jurisdiction on which wetland areas to protect and slow the current trend of wetland loss in America. The TRCP and members of the Working Group on Wetlands laud the action last June by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in finding important compromises that allowed them to pass a new bill out of committee.

On March 23, 2010, the TRCP announced the results of its very successful We Are Wetlands petition drive. More than 90,000 Americans signed the petition supporting restoration of federal protections for wetlands and clean water and affirming the crucial role wetland ecosystems play in our lives. The petition far exceeded its goal of 80,000 names – one for each acre of natural wetlands that our country loses each year – and calls for a legislative fix that restores the integrity of the Clean Water Act. View the petition and the list of signatures.

After many months, leaders in the House of Representatives heard our call and introduced a new bill of their own. On April 21, 2010, Chairman Jim Oberstar of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee introduced a new bill, the America's Commitment to Clean Water Act (H.R. 5088). This bill represents a new effort towards restoring critical protections that have been lost and address many of the concerns raised by opponents of previous legislation.

Specifically, this bill includes:

provisions that reinforce that the bill’s purpose simply is to restore Clean Water Act protections to waters protected prior to the SWANCC decision;
a more specific definition of “waters of the United States” that closely follows the definition the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers have used for decades;
new exemptions for prior converted cropland and certain waste treatment systems;
specific references to Congress’s constitutional authority to conserve and restore the nation’s waters.

We look forward to working with our coalition of sportsmen and conservation organizations to quickly advance this bill through the committee process and onto the House floor before time runs out on this Congress!

For more information on the TRCP's wetlands initiative, contact Geoff Mullins, director of policy initiatives and communications. For media inquiries contact Katie McKalip, associate director for communications.