Government▼Watch Administration drops controversial wetlands rule in SWANCC led EPA and Corps officials to issue guidance in January 2003 that made it more difficult for regulators to protect isolated wetlands, such as prairie potholes and playa lakes, from development. PHOTODISC
The U.S. Clean Water Act’s (CWA) protections for the nation’s wetlands are once again in question in the face of a recent court ruling that lobs responsibility for decision making back into the legal system. Officials with the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) have announced that they will not march ahead with a proposal to redefine which of the nation’s wetlands the CWA protects. The about-face is in response to overwhelming public opposition to the proposed rule making, introduced in January 2003 (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003, 37, 126A). “EPA received over 133,000 comments, and more than 99% opposed the announcement of proposed rule making,” says John Meagher, director of the wetland division at EPA. The agencies proposed to draft new rules after a 2001 Supreme Court decision, known as SWANCC (Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), precipitated a debate asking whether or not isolated, non-navigable bodies of water are protected as wetlands under the CWA. The justices’ decision
What’s a protected wetland? No one knows.
In addition, confusing language in the SWANCC ruling has triggered a host of lawsuits brought by developers aiming to broaden the definition of isolated waters to include wetlands connected to navigable bodies of water by ditches or culverts, thereby removing them from federal protections. Hoping to clarify the situation,
EPA and Corps officials announced their January 2003 proposal that would have asked how broadly isolated waters should be defined. The draft proposal, withdrawn on December 16, could have led to the loss of CWA protections for more than 20% of the nation’s wetlands, says Julie Sibbing, wetlands policy specialist with the environmental group the National Wildlife Federation. Decisions in a majority of the 30 court cases litigated in the wake of SWANCC have determined that if a wetland is connected to a navigable body of water through human-made conveyances such as ditches and connecting culverts, it is still protected under the CWA and not defined as isolated, EPA’s Meagher says. Bob Szabo, executive director of the National Wetlands Coalition, an industry group, asserts that the federal courts are actually split over SWANCC, with one, the U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit, narrowing federal jurisdiction to cover only wetlands that are close to navigable waters. The public is put in a chaotic situation; it is left up to Corps officials and the courts to decide whether or not a wetland is isolated, he concludes. —JANET PELLEY
Working cooperatively to preserve the Baltic Sea The European Commission will provide $2.3 million for a fouryear transnational marine research forum for the Baltic Sea region, a move officials hope will substantially improve the effectiveness of local environmental policies. Scientists from eight countries bordering the Baltic Sea, Europe’s largest internal water basin, have a long history of cooperation. But there has never been any strategic planning of national research programs. Recent debates over fishing rights and oil spills, for example, have highlighted the need for more international scientific collaboration to support policy makers, says Kaisa Kononen of the Academy of Finland. The four main threats to the Baltic are eutrophication from agricultural activities, contaminant loading from industrial activities, overexploitation of living marine resources, and invasive species. The initiative, launched in January 2004, brings together 10 marine research funding organizations from 8 of the countries
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around the sea. Also involved are Russia (as an observer) and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), an organization of marine scientists focused on the North Atlantic. These groups will pool their funding, coordinate the use of facilities, and share experiences to identify good practices related to research and program management. Solutions such as a joint research program showing that fish stocks are declining, for example, could help in establishing a policy to restrict fishing among all neighboring countries. The European Union is keen to support environmental projects in the Baltic Sea region. The European Investment Bank announced in December 2003 that it would provide a loan of $19.2 million to a St. Petersburg water company to build a wastewater treatment plant. Currently, one-third of St. Petersburg’s wastewater is dumped into the Baltic without any treatment. —MARIA BURKE
© 2004 American Chemical Society
