Southeastern Fishes Council
In the News
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Duck Hunters Win One For Isolated Wetlands - Or Do They?
March 4, 2003
Release from:
Associated Press
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) - When conservationists decided to fight for the wetlands, they called in their big gun.
Perched at President Bush's elbow for an hour-long White House meeting was John Tomke, president of Ducks Unlimited, the nation's largest waterfowl hunting group with 1 million members.
It looked like a cozy gathering. George W. Bush's father is the organization's most celebrated member since John Wayne.
But this meeting was no social call.
Twenty-million acres of fragile wetlands across the United States could be bulldozed by developers because of the administration's plan to rewrite fine print in the Clean Water Act.
In booming coastal communities and ports like Myrtle Beach, a quarter of the lowlands in the area could be affected.
Wetlands are vital to water quality, as well as habitat for nearly half of the nation's endangered species. Traditional conservationist groups knew they couldn't shoulder their way into this Oval Office over the plight of swamp-dwelling salamanders and songbirds.
But ducks! Now those are wetlands birds with political muscle.
So the tree-huggers awkwardly linked arms with the hunters for their White House visit in December. The president leaned over to tell Tomke how much he enjoys hunting on the Texas Gulf Coast, where green-headed mallards and pintails flock every autumn.
Tomke, in turn, reminded Bush that 22,000 hunters were among the 133,000 Americans who filed protests to his wetlands plan. Along with 218 congressmen, including 26 Republicans.
Out on the marsh, a man's prospects can be shattered in a single phrase: "I wouldn't share a duck stand with him."
Four days later, the administration announced the president had personally decided "not to issue a rule that could reduce" federal wetlands protection, including smaller parcels important to wildlife called "isolated" wetlands.
Happily ever after?
Not exactly.
Since the December meeting, conservationists say isolated wetlands development continues at an ugly pace. Many of the projects already were in the works, some reaching back to previous presidents.
More disturbing, the wetlands supporters say, is that field inspectors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies still appear to be following the administration's preliminary orders -- known as "guidance" -- not to interfere with development in isolated wetlands.
"Guidance is where mischief often occurs," says Nancy Vinson of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League.
Wetlands by their very nature are as difficult to define as they are to walk through -- alchemies of water, earth and mist. The Southeast has the largest variety, with evocative names like pocosin, citronelle pond and Carolina bay.
But isolated wetlands are rooted more in law than science. Federal agencies describe them as low-lying areas surrounded by dry land without -- and this is crucial -- a direct surface connection to a waterway.
Isolated wetlands are particularly vulnerable. They tend to be small, inconspicuous. But even little bogs perform the same work as larger swamps that obviously feed rivers and lakes and remain regulated.
Operating as "nature's kidneys," they sop up floods, recharge aquifers and trap sediment, as well as provide wildlife habitat.
In South Carolina, scientists calculate that for every wetland acre that is paved, coastal estuaries that nourish marine life lose 7.6 pounds of dissolved organic carbon.
"If you want to have shrimp to eat, you need wetlands," says Prescott Brownell, a biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal agency.
Thirty years ago, all wetlands received broad protection under the Clean Water Act. Development wasn't prohibited. But dredge and fill permits were required.
Then in a 2001 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Clean Water Act could not block Chicago-area governments from turning an isolated wetland (a flooded rock quarry, actually) into a landfill because the wetland didn't nourish interstate waterways.
Quickly, the Bush administration extended the rationale nationwide.
In South Carolina, for example, at least 300,000 isolated wetland acres are believed to be vulnerable now.
Scientists consider these soggy bottomlands to be among the nation's richest ecological treasures, bubbling kettles of evolution for birds, rare amphibians, even flesh-eating plants.
But a building boom has engulfed Myrtle Beach, with golf courses, outlet malls, tract housing and highways overpowering these wetlands.
Biologist Brownell calculates that it takes just a year or two for heavy machinery to obliterate vast wetland that flourished in the 20,000 years since retreating Ice Age glaciers contoured this coast.
His deep, courtly voice drips like syrup, but he can't conceal his contempt.
"First they cut ditches to dehydrate the land," Brownell complains. "Then they take a machine that chops up all the native shrubs and groundcover. Then they say, 'No wetland here!'"
One project is particularly galling: the Carolina Bays Parkway, named after a peculiar Southern wetland that used to be common.
The six-lane bypass should reduce Myrtle Beach traffic jams. The state highway department and its contractors got federal permits to fill 223 acres of wetlands along the route.
But conservationists say more wetlands were destroyed illegally. The epicenter of the dispute is a 65-acre roadside crater that was designated an isolated wetland. Now a parade of dump trucks haul gravel and fill dirt from this "borrow pit" for construction elsewhere.
Environmental groups plan to sue over what attorney Blan Holman contends is rampant unpermitted development.
"I could find 10,000 acres of wetlands that have been recently destroyed," Holman said. "Something is seriously broken here."
Everyday since 1978, researchers have been studying one isolated wetland near the Savannah River, and they've found it is a fertility fountain.
In 26 years, they've caught and counted over 1 million amphibians and reptiles representing 66 species.
But supporters of growth point out that wetlands development has brought a different kind of vitality. Tourism here has surged to 13 million annual visitors. Retail sales have tripled to $7 billion.
The stakes are high. About the same time President Bush was talking duck-hunting with Tomke, local officials learned they were $2.8 million short in bond payments on a staggering $1.2 billion road construction plan, including the new Carolina Bays parkway.
Their solution: refinance the terms through 2017 through even more development.
Out on the marsh, hunters remain wary about the future of the wetlands here and elsewhere. For now, they say President Bush is welcome to share their duck stand.
"The administration must make sure the federal rules continue to protect isolated wetlands," said Don Young, a Ducks Unlimited leader. "We can bring our energies to bear again if need be."
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