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Wetlands Protections Are Failing, Report Says: Environmental Group Calls on State to Stem Steady Losses

Posted on: Thursday, 2 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Dennis Lien, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Feb. 2--Federal and state laws intended to protect wetlands in Minnesota often don't work properly, resulting in the continued loss of these ecologically valuable swamps and marshes, a prominent environmental organization charged Wednesday.

The reason? A byzantine and bewildering set of protections rife with loopholes and exemptions, inadequate enforcement and outdated and mismatched regulations, according to a report to be released today.

"You put all of those together and you've got a regulatory framework for wetlands that isn't working as intended," said Janette Brimmer, legal director of the St. Paul-based Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the report's lead author.

The report was done as a follow-up to last April's Ducks, Wetlands and Clean Water Rally at the state Capitol and was released before Saturday's Wetland Summit in Bloomington.

The document, called the First Annual Minnesota Wetlands Protection Report, doesn't break new ground regarding how many wetlands have been lost or restored in Minnesota.

Instead, it identifies the many ways wetland losses occur and recommends measures to stem those losses. It concluded the primary causes are:

-- Too many exemptions in wetland protection laws. Minnesota's 1991 Wetland Conservation Act, for example, contains a large number of exemptions that allow draining, filling or alteration of wetlands. Designed to achieve no net loss of wetlands, the law requires that for every acre of wetland destroyed, a replacement acre, and sometimes two, be created.

-- Inadequate enforcement of laws. The report cited weak enforcement of federal laws, weak enforcement of entitlement to state exemptions and a general lack of resources. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, for example, only has five conservation officers designated as wetland specialists.

-- Complicated, outdated and mismatched laws and rules. It reported state and federal laws are often confusing and promote disagreements among agencies.

The report recommended several steps to improve the situation. They include:

-- Limiting exemptions allowed under the state's Wetland Conservation Act.

-- Improving enforcement, including establishing a wetlands SWAT team that could investigate violations and enforce laws.

-- Giving the public more authority to take legal action on wetlands issues.

-- Requiring reporting on wetland protection, including an annual Governor's State of Our Wetlands Report.

Dave Weirens, land and water section manager at the state Board of Water and Soil Resources, said wetland laws in Minnesota work better than depicted in the report. His agency oversees local administration of the state Wetland Conservation Act.

"If you look at the fact that regulated impacts are more than offset by the amount of replacement wetlands, we think the law is performing as drafted," he said.

Not only did Weirens contend local governments do a good job of administering wetland laws, but he said his agency works with the federal government to make state and federal laws mesh better.

He said, however, that his agency would begin an assessment of the state wetlands act this month. "We'll be looking at some of the issues in the report," Weirens said.

Wetlands, which are known to reduce flooding, filter water impurities and provide wildlife habitat, have attracted increased attention in recent years, in part because of relatively low duck populations. Ducks count on wetlands for food, rest during migration, breeding and rearing locations, and protection from predators.

During the past century, Minnesota has lost 50 percent of its wetlands; in heavily farmed areas, more than 90 percent of wetlands are gone.

The state has acknowledged at least 3,167 acres were lost as part of regulatory processes between 1999 and 2003. Unrelated efforts such as the state's Reinvest in Minnesota program and the federal Conservation Reserve Program, meanwhile, have restored hundreds of thousands of acres. There's no good estimate for how many acres have been drained illegally or rendered ineffective through isolation or fragmentation.

"Everybody seems to agree acreage continues to be lost, but the pace has slowed," Brimmer said.

The report, she said, grew out of last year's duck rally on the Capitol steps that attracted more than 5,000 people.

"We thought things were happening on the landscape that we don't know about," Brimmer said. "We said, 'Let's get a bunch of people out on the landscape to tell us about wetlands.' Those wetlands stories bore out under investigation."

The two co-chairs of a follow-up duck rally in April said they believe the report will play a key role in efforts to improve statewide duck habitat.

"It's timely, it's important, I think it's a good piece of work," said David Zentner of Duluth, past national president of the Izaak Walton League, a conservation group. "It is an excellent job of putting together why we're in the trouble we're in."

"We think it's an important work showing some of the loopholes in the current wetlands law," said Lance Ness, president of the Fish & Wildlife Legislative Alliance.

Brimmer, Zentner and Ness said some changes could be made within various wetlands protection agencies. But other changes would require legislative action, an uncertain proposition in the session that begins next month.

"In this short session, it's going to be difficult to do any real in-depth adjustments or changes," Ness said. "Also, we're being told, 'Please, don't bring up wetlands right away.' "

"We don't want to do anything frivolous or haphazard. So, will something happen this year? It's unlikely. Next year is more likely."

Dennis Lien can be reached at dlien@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5588.

Wetlands loss: an example

A wetlands report released today outlines nine case studies that illustrate how laws and enforcement problems contribute to wetland destruction and loss. Following is one example that the report said shows what can happen with inadequate coordination and imprecise enforcement of drainage-law exemptions.

-- In 2001, Douglas County proposed repairing a county ditch that had been built in 1904 and last maintained in 1925.

-- A branch of the ditch, which had filled with silt, sediment and debris, cut through a corner of a federally owned Waterfowl Production Area.

-- Local conservation officials chose not to require any mitigation for the project because no more than one foot of sediment would be removed from the ditch and they determined there would be no impact on 10 wetlands located along the ditch.

-- Those officials, however, failed to address a key element of the project -- a decision to lower a culvert at the end of one wetland by 1.38 feet.

-- That resulted in the water level of a larger area being lowered last fall and is expected to result in the loss of at least 25 acres of high-quality wetlands on the federal property.

The report will be available after 9 a.m. today at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy's Web site: www.mncenter.org.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

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Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)

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