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Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No
Net Loss
Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite
2009, University Press of Florida
6 June 2009 | The US government policy of 'no net loss' for wetlands
is one of the most significant parts of the Clean Water Act, and so
one of the key elements of our environmental law. Done right, it
protects and restores some of the nation's most valuable ecosystems;
done wrong, it can provide "green wash" cover to the decline of these
same ecosystems. For these and other reasons, it's about time someone
provided non-specialists with a detailed but jargon-free examination
of this exciting field's successes and failures. Unfortunately, this
isn't the agenda of Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and
the Failure of No Net Loss.
Authors Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite show us a world of uncaring
incompetence, malicious greed and the tragic results that inevitably
follow from bad policy implemented by corrupt bureaucrats. But it's a
world so full of name-calling and so utterly devoid of successes or
even good faith efforts that it can't help but call into question
whether they are looking for the truth or just a sensational story.
'No net loss of wetlands' means that, under some circumstances,
highway projects, commercial developers, or other projects can disrupt
existing wetlands if they mitigate their damage by paying for the
restoration of wetlands in the same watershed. In the opening pages,
the authors offer their thesis statement on this policy: "It's a huge
scam". Or, as they later put it another, more delicate, way: "The
result is a taxpayer funded program that creates the illusion of
environmental protection while doing little to stem the destruction of
precious natural resources."
To their credit, the authors have meticulously researched every
weakness, mistake and problem in the development and implementation of
the wetlands-related regulations under the Clean Water Act. But they
have also willfully disregarded the genuinely significant improvements
that have been made to the system of regulations under the Act. Worse,
they don't seem to comprehend at all the alignment of incentives with
environmental benefits that 'no net loss' of wetlands, and in
particular the practice of mitigation banking, creates.
Let's take, for example, their coverage of the US Army Corps of
Engineers' role in regulating mitigation banks. We can agree straight
away that the Corps does not have an unblemished record in the
environmental arena, and even set aside the question of whether it is
the right branch of government to be regulating aquatic impacts. There
are still thousands of cases where the Corps has enforced the complex
rules well, where impacts were 'avoided and minimized' and both
economy and ecology were well-served – none of which are presented in
this book.
Instead, Pittman and Waite describe a history of the Corps and
wetlands regulation dating back to 1899 that reads like the plot of a
BBC mystery. Nefarious developers bribe slow-witted officials;
"toothless" regulators hatch "phony" mitigation banks in "backroom"
deals; and so on. But the more commonplace reality of public servants
integrating science and public policy as they make the countless
ordinary decisions about the regulation of 'fill' placed in 'waters of
the United States' as the country grew over the last fifty years
doesn't rate any coverage.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm in the mitigation banking
business myself, as a partner in a firm that buys land, restores
wetlands to a standard set by the rules of the Corps and the EPA, and
sells 'outsourced compliance' credits to developers, transportation
departments, and others.
This means that I'm immediately in for the cartoon treatment by
Pittman and Waite as a rapacious and money-grubbing exploiter of
loopholes, but it also means I've spent hours poring over the public
notices put out by the Corps – including the Jacksonville District
which is responsible for Florida in particular. These notices are up
on the web for anyone to see, and include detailed analysis of the
work proposed and the potential impact – down to 1/100 of an acre –
for every single project that anyone wants to build.
... (cont)
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/608178/-/4krpq2/-/
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Opinion
There is an urgent need for a national wetlands policy
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By HADLEY BECHAPosted Monday, June 8 2009 at 18:47
In Summary
Wetlands are generally defined as areas of land permanently,
temporarily or occasionally covered with water that is either static
or flowing, fresh, brackish or salty, in natural or man-made areas.
MORE THAN THREE-QUARTERS of Kenya’s land is arid and semi-arid. This
means the country is water-scarce.
The scarcity will continue to have adverse effects on the economic and
social development as well as on environmental stability.
There is increasing competition over available water resources by
various users and interest groups.
There is a conflict between farmers and livestock herders, livestock
and wildlife, farmers and fisherfolk, urban and rural water suppliers,
upstream and downstream communities and between the need for large-
scale irrigation and conservation.
Many rural folk do not have ready access to clean drinking water.
Urban folk do not have enough water either. The few sources available
are drying up due to over-abstraction.
Without a comprehensive policy framework and legal mechanism to
protect wetlands, Kenya will find it increasingly difficult to achieve
its national development agenda.
Worse, the country will have failed to fulfil its obligation under the
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, to which
Kenya is a signatory.
Why are wetlands important? What are their attributes, functions and
value? What are the causes of wetlands degradation and destruction?
And what are the major challenges in the formulation of a wetlands
policy?
Wetlands are generally defined as areas of land permanently,
temporarily or occasionally covered with water that is either static
or flowing, fresh, brackish or salty, in natural or man-made areas.
Examples of wetlands include marshes and swamps, flood plains, flooded
grasslands and forests, lakes and seasonal shallow water bodies, river
estuaries and deltas, mudflats, mangrove habitats, seagrass beds,
shallow reefs and coral gardens.
Wetlands are highly productive ecosystems exhibiting unique biological
diversity. These ecosystems provide a wide range of products and
perform varied functions.
Wetland products include water, foliage, fisheries and wildlife.
Wetlands regulate and control floods, recharge and discharge ground
water, control salinity and soil erosion, retain sediment and purify
water. They are critical to climate change and global warming
mitigation.
http://www.flyrodreel.com/node/12464
EPA Abandons Wetlands and Fisheries to Destruction in 2nd Largest U.S.
Estuary
Submitted by Ted Williams on Thu, 06/18/2009 - 13:01
CHAPEL HILL, NC—The Environmental Protection Agency last night backed
away from its earlier finding that an 11,000 acre mine expansion by
PCS Phosphate posed “unacceptable harm” to critical wetlands and
fisheries in the nation’s second largest estuary, the Albemarle-
Pamlico, according to environmental groups. After elevating the permit
to the national level in a rare move, EPA could have vetoed the
destruction of 1,200 acres of the most critical wetlands and nurseries
while still allowing continued mining by the company for 29 years.
“EPA has inexplicably reversed course, embracing a devastating mine
plan that it determined would cause unacceptable harm just two months
ago,” said Derb Carter, director, Carolinas Office, the Southern
Environmental Law Center. “EPA isn’t protecting the environment our
children and grandchildren will inherit long after PCS Phosphate
mining has left the area.”
After EPA’s elevation of the mining permit, the Corps rejected the
minimum steps EPA determined necessary to avoid “unacceptable” impacts
from the mine expansion, leaving EPA’s concerns largely unaddressed.
In its letter accepting the permit, EPA acknowledged the inevitable
destruction it has now allowed, noting that the permit is “designed to
provide for the early detection of unacceptable impacts.”
In a June 11th letter to EPA following the Corps permit decision, the
South Atlantic Fishery Management Council recommended EPA veto the
permit in concurrence with multiple federal and state agencies. The
Council found that the permitted mine expansion will result in
“significant and unacceptable impacts” to essential fish habitats
including coastal ecosystems and aquatic resources that depend on
them.
Environmental groups echoed these concerns in urging EPA Administrator
Lisa Jackson to stand by her agency’s findings and implement the
administration’s pledge in a May 20th letter to U.S. Senator Barbara
Boxer, “we need to identify opportunities to expand protection of
wetlands and other aquatic resources that are especially vulnerable or
critical to sustaining the health of [aquatic] systems.”
In a letter to the Corps, EPA stated it will not act to prevent the
destruction of wetlands and fisheries.
PCS Phosphate’s permitted mine expansion will be the largest single
destruction of wetlands permitted in North Carolina history. It
jeopardizes the irreplaceable ecosystem of Albemarle-Pamlico Sound,
the nation’s second largest estuary and one of the most productive
American fisheries which generates thousands of jobs and over $1
billion annually.
In its objections to the permit, EPA requested that the Corps revise
the permit to
• reduce wetland impacts by 29 percent (1,166 acres);
• prohibit mining that would affect the most sensitive fish
nursery areas, prohibit mining of rare hardwood wetlands; and
• improve the proposed mitigation to compensate for remaining
wetland and water quality impacts.
The Corps’s response to EPA reduces wetland impacts by only 1 percent
(44 acres) and fails to address other EPA concerns and
recommendations.
Concern over PCS Phosphate’s planned destruction of wetlands and
primary nurseries near the Pamlico River remain unaddressed despite
consistently being raised by the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries,
N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, U.S. EPA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, and the South Atlantic
Fishery Management Council throughout the permit process.
Acting as its own agent of delay, the company sued North Carolina for
years during the permitting process after being warned such action
would delay the issuance of any permit. PCS Phosphate, a subsidiary of
Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, is now permitted to mine 11,000
acres, including 4,000 acres of wetlands and more than four miles of
tidal creeks and streams bordering the Pamlico River.
-- Southern Environmental Law Center