CWF Helps to Conserve Wetlands

CWF is Helping to Conserve America's Wetlands

Hunters and anglers across the country have time and time again shown their support for protection of wetlands. Sportsmen and women know that wetlands are critical to both humans and wildlife. Yet the nation continues to lose around 130,000 acres of wetlands per year, and what remains, is increasingly degraded. What will it take to save America's wetlands for future generations of humans and wildlife?

For example, in Northeast Colorado in recent years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has not been taking jurisdiction on proposed fills in wetlands unless they are immediately adjacent or have a direct surface connection to a sizeable stream like the South Platte River. Wetlands adjacent to irrigation canals and reservoirs and wetlands that empty into drainage ditches, which do not have an immediate connection to such a stream, are being designated as non-jurisdictional, regardless of their value to wildlife. In other words, such wetlands have no protection under the Clean Water Act, and protection under state law (i.e., Section 401 Certification) is tied to the CWA.

CWF is supporting the efforts of NWF to address this issue in the form of a "Conservation Blueprint for America's Wetlands." The Wetlands Blueprint sets out an aggressive and comprehensive agenda, in the form of 10 essential steps for the protection and restoration of the nation's wetlands. We would like to ask for you to join us in endorsing and promoting this critical Blueprint.

As conservation organizations, our ultimate goal is to encourage leaders at all levels to endorse and ultimately to act on this agenda. We have set a high goal of getting at least 1,000 hunting and fishing organizations nationwide to endorse the Wetlands Blueprint.

The Blueprint of the text is below. Please email requests for hard copies to grassroots@nwf.org.

Hunting, angling and outfitter groups can sign-on to the Blueprint for America's Wetlands by sending an email to grassroots@nwf.org  and providing:

Name of a contact person
Contact's email address
Contact's phone number (the contact information will only be used to contact folks if needed for purposes related to the blueprint)
Name of the organization (as you'd like it listed)
State

Dennis Buechler, Director Emeritus of CWF and Co-chair of the Issues and Advocacy Committee, is our contact (wetlandsandwater@comcast.net).

Ten Essential Steps for the Future of America's Wetlands

As hunting and fishing organizations committed to maintaining and restoring a diversity and abundance of wetlands for future generations of people and wildlife, we urge our elected officials to work to:

Ensure that avoidance of wetland impacts, where possible, is the guiding principle for wetland protection. It is extremely difficult and expensive to restore wetlands and they usually cannot be restored to their full functionality and diversity once they have been drained or filled.
Scientists estimate that as many as 80 percent of wetland replacement projects to date have failed to become fully functional. Some types of wetlands cannot be recreated under any known technologies and others take many decades to fully develop. It makes the most sense to avoid destroying wetlands where other options are available.

Pass legislation to ensure that all wetlands, lakes, rivers and streams are protected under the federal Clean Water Act. The 2001 U.S. Supreme Court's "SWANCC" decision held that Clean Water Act protections do not extend to certain non-navigable, intrastate, "isolated" waters bodies based solely on their use by migratory birds. Although this narrow decision should only apply to a small percentage of water-bodies, it has been used to justify a rollback of protections for over 20 percent of the nation's wetlands. Legislation is needed to reaffirm Congress' intent to apply Clean Water Act protections to all wetlands and other waters of the United States.

Ensure full funding and eventual expansion of incentive programs that encourage farmers and other private landowners to restore wetlands on their property. Voluntary, incentive based programs that help farmers and other landowners to restore wetlands on their properties have been enormously popular. Programs such as the Wetlands Reserve Program enable farmers to take unproductive land out of production and put it back into wetlands that can provide floodwater control, water quality improvements and wildlife habitat. Landowner interest in these programs is consistently many times greater than funding available.

Ensure natural wetlands are protected from pollution, such as unregulated stormwater discharges, mercury contamination, and other sources of pollution. While net losses of wetlands have slowed in the United States, those that remain are becoming increasingly degraded. Uncontrolled stormwater runoff, containing high concentrations of nutrients, sediments and other contaminants are choking natural wetlands and impairing their functions. Deposition of mercury from air pollution is leading to accumulations of this dangerous toxic in the flesh of fish and wildlife species and the humans that consume them.

End federal subsidies that promote the large-scale destruction or degradation of wetlands. A variety of federal programs subsidize the destruction or degradation of wetlands. Currently proposed Army Corps of Engineers civil works projects threaten more than 640,000 acres of wetlands, including 200,000 acres from the Yazoo Pump project in Mississippi alone.
Crop insurance programs run by USDA are not linked to wetland protection provisions that apply to other agriculture subsidies, leading to the drainage of thousands of acres wetlands that would not be sufficiently productive to justify draining if not for insurance programs that eliminate risk.

Support the establishment and implementation of a national wetlands restoration plan to ensure a diversity and abundance of wetlands across the country. While there are currently dozens of federal programs that promote wetland restoration, there has been no attempt to coordinate these programs to ensure that all types of wetlands in all regions of the country are being restored. A national wetland restoration plan would allow the better targeting of restoration efforts to avoid unnecessary duplication and to identify restoration needs that are not currently being addressed.

Launch a new "Marshall Plan" for the restoration of large scale ecosystems like coastal Louisiana, Upper Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, Puget Sound, Chesapeake Bay and the Everglades. North America's freshwater ecosystems are among the most imperiled in the world. Yet the current approach of providing piecemeal, minor funding for restoration of these systems dooms any chances at long term success. With public demand increasing for protecting and restoring these valuable systems, it is time to begin a comprehensive planning process for large scale aquatic ecosystem restoration efforts and to dedicate sufficient funding to enable their success.

Prevent rising sea levels from inundating coastal wetlands by working to address global climate change. Rapidly rising sea levels due to global warming pose a serious threat to coastal wetlands, particularly when combined with soil subsidence and ill-planned coastal development. From the mid-Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico, sea level rise over the past few decades has already contributed to coastal wetland losses as high as 25 square miles per year. Scientists project that, if global climate change continues, the rate of sea level rise will accelerate during the next century, eliminating important habitat for wildlife and displacing many coastal communities.

Create a comprehensive new national wetlands monitoring and tracking program and establish concrete goals for all federal departments to contribute to the net gain of wetlands. Current federal wetlands tracking programs are useful in identifying national trends of wetland loss by area, but new mechanisms need to be developed to accurately track the status of wetland functions, values and acreage. Such a tracking program can be used to chart progress towards a national net gain goal for wetlands. Each federal department should be given and evaluated on concrete annual goals for their assigned contribution to achieving this goal.

Ensure public transparency and participation in all aspects of wetland incentive, tracking and regulatory programs. The public has a substantial interest in ensuring the maintenance and restoration of a diversity and abundance of wetlands. From waterfowl hunters concerned about waterfowl habitats, communities concerned about future flooding or water treatment costs, to conservationists who want to ensure that we preserve biodiversity for future generations, the public has ample standing to participate in decision making regarding the protection, restoration and tracking of our nation's wetlands.