
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 27, 1995                   TAG: 9507270033
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: WILLIAM LEWIS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DEFINING WETLANDS

IN MAY, the House of Representatives passed a bill, H.R. 961, that would revolutionize the federal regulation of wetlands. Although precise estimates are elusive, H.R. 961 would remove probably half of the nation's wetlands from federal regulation. With such a change, the United States would abandon its policy of "no net loss" of wetlands, as declared by both the Bush and Clinton administrations. Suspense is building as the Senate prepares to consider the House's bill.

Wetlands are the main natural means by which surface waters are cleared of excessive sediment, organic matter, nutrients and toxins. Wetlands also offer other benefits, including moderation of flood flows, recharge of groundwater and maintenance of biodiversity.

Protection of wetlands probably would seem as wholesome as motherhood if it were not that, apart from Alaska, more than half of the nation's wetlands are on private lands. Wetland protection is the first instance in which the federal government has broadly regulated an entire class of private lands. Thus the controversy surrounding protection of wetlands is often heated.

The federal government now regulates wetlands through a permitting system that involves the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service.

The corps, which has done a good job of using scientific principles to develop methods of identifying wetlands and delineating their boundaries, is using a 1987 delineation manual that needs revision. A manual prepared in 1989 was withdrawn because it was viewed as too inclusive. Under the Bush administration, the so-called 1991 proposed revisions were prepared but not adopted because they excluded many true wetlands. Interested observers, including Congress, have quite reasonably wondered whether wetlands are a political construct rather than an ornament of nature.

In October 1992, Congress requested a report from the National Academy of Sciences on the scientific and technical basis for characterization of wetlands. The request was passed to the National Research Council - the operating arm of the academy - which formed a 17-member study committee. The study was sponsored by the EPA and the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

The research council report was released May 9, just prior to the House vote on H.R. 961. As it turned out, the report contradicted some aspects of the bill. To some proponents of the House bill, the content and timing of the report seemed calculated to undermine inertia behind drastic revision of federal wetlands protection.

The research council was accused of manipulating the report's release for political purposes. In fact, the council's committee system is far too ponderous to be devious, and the suggested manipulation of 17 unpaid experts by the EPA is ludicrous but not funny.

H.R. 961 offers a political definition of wetlands that excludes many swamps, marshes and playas that no reasonable person would consider to be anything but wetland. The use of a political process to make technical pronouncements leads to the sort of confusion that Congress asked the academy to resolve. Nature defines wetlands; it is the role of Congress to decide whether some, all or no wetlands will be protected.

Redefinition of wetlands through legislation of technical criteria is simply a misleading way of removing protection from vast areas of wetland. The corps issues thousands of permits each year for drainage and filling of wetlands, but public policy seeks to keep this rate of conversion as low as possible and to offset losses by creation or restoration of wetlands.

H.R. 961 endorses future losses that would equal the percentage of wetlands lost since colonial times. It is hard to believe that such a drastic change in environmental policy reflects the national will, but the change may become law if the full implications of H.R. 961 do not come to light as the Senate debates the wetlands issue.

The legitimate frustration of landowners with regulatory red tape and federal devaluation of private lands can be dealt with in ways that do not require abandonment of the nation's commitment to preserving its remaining wetlands. Our grandchildren will shake their heads in disgust if we fail to realize that amputation of wetlands from our surface water resources will cost us dearly in the long run.

William Lewis, professor of biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, was chairman of the National Research Council's Committee on Characterization of Wetlands.

by CNB