Gaining Wetlands

The United States is gaining more wetlands than it is losing, primarily because of voluntary programs offering economic incentives rather than the command and control regulations of the Clean Water Act, which governs wetlands. The net gain in 1994 was nearly 60,000 acres.

When Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, released the Clinton Administration's wetlands reform plan in August 1993, she said wetlands were being lost at the rate of nearly 300,000 acres per year, but the statistics she cited were more than a decade old. The loss of wetlands declined beginning in the late 1980s, and the voluntary programs led to the achievement of no net loss by 1993:

• Since 1987, the Fish and Wildlife Service has made thousands of voluntary agreements with private land-owners to restore converted or degraded wetlands on their property, restoring more than 210,000 acres of wetlands.

• The Conservation Reserve Program operated through the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service offers landowners annual payments for 10 years for placing environmentally sensitive cropland into an easement (giving another party, in this case the government, the right for certain use of one's land) and implementing a conservation plan for the easement; this program has restored roughly 300,000 acres of wetlands since 1988.

• The Wetlands Reserve Program operated by the Soil Conservation Service has obtained easements for restoration of 125,000 acres in the two years it has been in effect.

While the voluntary programs have restored thousands of acres of agricultural wetlands, the regulations administered by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act have resulted in large costs but little benefit.

• Half of all applicants for Section 404 permits proposed to disturb less than 1.1 acres, and one-fourth affected less a quarter of an acre.

• Yet these applicants, many seeking to build a single-family home, had to go through a process that involved consultation with up to four other federal agencies.

• Despite the onerous provisions, government statistics show no decline in wetland conversion due to development.

Source: Jonathan Tolman, "Gaining Ground: An Analysis of Wetland Trends in the United States," May 1994, Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1250, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 331-1010.