War Over The Wetlands

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK.

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.

Now the Administration has proposed a new manual that relaxes the rules. It designates as wetlands areas having 15 consecutive days of inundation during a growing season or 21 days in which the soil is saturated with water up to the surface. Moreover it redefines the growing season to be shorter and reduces the variety of plants that qualify an area as a wetland. The provision requiring proof of no viable alternative to filling in a wetland will apply only to "highly valuable" areas -- the top rung on a new classification ladder to be worked out over the next year by a federal panel.

Perhaps the most controversial change is the decision to permit more extensive "mitigation banking," which requires landowners to restore lost wetlands or create new ones in exchange for destroying an existing site. Critics charge that there is no scientific body of evidence to prove that man- made wetlands are a substitute for the real thing.

Still, the outcome could have been worse. EPA chief William Reilly, who was in charge of rewriting the manual, tried to ease the existing guidelines as little as possible. But he had to win the approval of probusiness presidential advisers. The resulting compromise may not please environmentalists, but it may derail a bill moving through Congress that would have been even more damaging to wetlands.

The manual will not become official until after a 60-day period of public comment and a subsequent EPA review, and environmental groups are gearing up to comment loudly. So are those who want to profit from the wetlands. Says Mark Maslyn of the American Farm Bureau Federation: "The new rules bring some common sense back to wetlands policy." But common sense may not be the best guide in a debate that hinges on scientific questions. As with so many other resources, America's marginal wetlands may not be fully appreciated until they are gone.

With reporting by Jerome Cramer/Washington and J. Madeleine Nash/Bottineau, N. Dak.