America's Disappearing Wetlands

Report Outline
Struggle Over Protection
Understanding Wetlands
Federal and State Issues
Special Focus

Struggle Over Protection

Slow Official Recognition of Their Value

More than 11 million acres of American wetlands, an expanse twice the size of New Jersey, have been drained for farmland, homesites, roads and other uses in the past 30 years. Ten times that amount has been lost since the first European settlers arrived here. Yet, until recently, few people gave much thought to wetlands preservation. On the contrary, it was widely believed that wetlands — marshes, swamps, bogs, fens, tidal flats and prairie potholes — were wastelands. Writers and storytellers infused them with evil and mystery. And they posed a real enough public health threat as breeding grounds for disease-bearing mosquitoes.

The environmental movement that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s cast wetlands in a new light. Researchers demonstrated that marshes and swamps were worth billions annually in wildlife production, groundwater “recharge” — reentry into underground reservoirs — and for flood, pollution and erosion control. Congress took heed and made wetlands protection a national goal with passage of the 1972 federal Water Pollution Control Act. The law's aim was to make the nation's waters safe and clean once again by upgrading waste-water treatment plants, controlling dumping of toxic wastes and regulating the disposal of dredge and fill materials in waterways. Whether Congress intended to extend federal jurisdiction over all wetlands became, and remains, a matter of intense dispute within Congress and among the federal agencies involved in implementing the legislation.

Since 1972, Congress has had ample opportunity to abandon wetlands regulation, but instead has killed every industry-backed bill to do so. The Reagan administration, however, has taken up the critics' cause and mandated numerous regulatory changes to ease restrictions. Those changes are being challenged in federal court by environmental groups. Congress, too, is again struggling with the issue this year as it considers reauthorization of existing wetlands legislation.