Protecting Isolated Wetlands in Wisconsin

Before the settlement of Wisconsin by Europeans, the state had about 10 million acres of wetlands. Since then, over half of those wetlands have been destroyed and many more damaged. Humans fill and drain wetlands for agriculture and building sites. This was common practice for many years until wetlands became protected by the federal government, thanks to the Clean Water Act in 1972 and other conservation laws passed around that time. The filling, draining, polluting, and other acts detrimental to wetlands became illegal and permits were then required for the alteration of wetlands. A big hit the protection of wetlands came in 2001 when the supreme court ruled that isolated wetlands (wetlands less than 2 acres in size and having no connection to a navigable body of water) were not protected under federal law. Wisconsin legislators quickly moved to create a state law which would protect isolated wetlands since federal laws no longer did and the state’s abundance of such isolated wetlands (about 20% of Wisconsin’s wetlands). Later that year, Wisconsin passed 2001 Act 6, which protected isolated wetlands under state law. Now, in 2011-2012, Wisconsin republicans are seeking to weaken or remove the state’s protection of isolated wetlands.
Under governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin republicans strive to make isolated wetlands easier to fill and develop on. It started in spring 2011 when Scott Walker signed an act that gave special permission for a small wetland near Lambeau Field in Green Bay to be filled. Now in February 2012, the state senate will vote upon Senate Bill 368 and Assembly Bill 463. These bills change the way permitting is done for developing on sites with wetlands. Previously, the state had developers look for sites that do not have wetlands on them, avoidance. If they could not find one of those, they asked that the damage done to the wetland be as minimal as possible, minimization. If filling the wetland could not be avoided, the state made developers mitigate the wetland, create a wetland elsewhere, mitigation. The new bills change this. They allow the filling of wetlands, so long as the wetlands destroyed are mitigated; they no longer heavily emphasize avoiding natural wetland destruction. It is feared that developers will not try to avoid natural wetlands since mitigation is allowed before considering other sites.
Mitigated wetlands are not nearly as ecologically beneficial as natural wetlands. Natural wetlands have more complex plant communities, are important to migrating waterfowl, are part of the land’s hydrology, and took thousands of years to form. A mitigated wetland contains a fraction of the diversity and is sometimes in an arbitrary place on the landscape, ecologically disconnected. Also, the new bills offer no special protection for the state’s highest quality wetlands. These have rare organisms, special importance to migrating birds or other unique characteristics.
I think that protecting Wisconsin’s natural wetlands is important. All wetlands should be completely protected, in my opinion, and there should be no legal options for their developers trying to fill them. The current republican party in Wisconsin is erasing years of environmental policy that extends beyond just wetland protection. Environmental protection should not be tied this closely to political will, but since it is, the best thing to do is vote and stay involved.

References
Cain, M. J. (2008, August 21). Wisconsin’s Wetland Regulatory Program. In Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources.
Knight, J. (2012, January 26). Knight Life: State bills would weaken wetland rules. In Leader-Telegram.
Wetland Communities of WI (n.d.). In Wisconsin Wetlands Association. from
http://wisconsinwetlands.org/wetlofwisc.htm