CHAPTER 7
WETLANDS

WHAT ARE WETLANDS?

Wetlands are transition zones between land and aquatic systems where the water table is usually near or at the surface, or the land is covered by shallow water. Wetlands can take many forms, some of which are immediately recognizable as "wet." Other wetlands appear more like dry land, and are wet during only certain seasons of the year, or at several year intervals. In fact, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports that most wetlands lack surface water and waterlogged soils during at least part of each growing season.

Swamps are wetlands that are dominated by trees and shrubs. Swamp forests that are associated with rivers and streams in the Southeast are commonly known as bottom-land hardwoods. Wetlands that consist of herbaceous plants, such as sedges, cattails, and bulrushes, are known as marshes. Marshes are highly variable and include fens, sloughs, potholes, and wet meadows. Bogs are generally dominated by sphagnum moss, which builds thick layers of peat as it dies. Other wetlands include seeps, vernal pools, pocosins, and muskegs. Although many people do not think of them as such, the deep channels of rivers, streambeds, lake bottoms, and shallow tidal waters are also wetlands.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in "Wetlands: Status and Trends" (http://www.epa.gov/OWOW/wetlands/vital/status.html, March 23, 2005), as of 1997 there were an estimated 105.5 million acres of wetlands in the forty-eight conterminous states (does not include Alaska and Hawaii), which is about 5.5% of the total land area. Ninety-five percent of these wetlands were freshwater wetlands, while 5% were estuarine (coastal saltwater) wetlands. Wetlands range in size from less than one acre to thousands of acres.

In "Wetlands: Status and Trends," the EPA reported that in the 1980s an estimated 170 to 200 million acres of wetlands existed in Alaska—covering slightly more than half of the state—while Hawaii had 52,000 acres. After Alaska, Florida (eleven million acres), Louisiana (8.8 million), Minnesota (8.7 million), and Texas (7.6 million) have the largest wetland acreage.

Indispensable Part of Life on Earth

Wetlands are distributed unevenly, but occur in every state and U.S. territory. (See Table 7.1.) They are found wherever climate and landscape cause groundwater to discharge to the land surface or prevent rapid drainage from the land surface so that soils are saturated for some time. All wetlands have one common trait: hydric (oxygen-poor) soils. Wetlands are covered by shallow water or have water just below the ground surface long enough to create waterlogged soils for long periods during the growing season. These conditions cause hydric soils.

Almost all plants and animals use oxygen to convert sugar and other organic molecules into the energy that they need to grow and survive. When soil microbes decompose dead plants and animals, they use oxygen that is trapped in the soil. Normally that oxygen is replaced from the air.

In wetlands, when the hydric soil is flooded or saturated, the oxygen used by the microbes is not replaced fast enough. This is because oxygen moves through water about 10,000 times slower than through air. As a result, wetland plants are specially adapted to temporarily survive without oxygen in their roots or to transfer oxygen from the leaves or stem to the roots. This anaerobic (without oxygen) condition also causes the soils to have the sulfurous odor of rotten eggs.

Local hydrology (the pattern of water flow through an area) is the primary determinant of wetlands. Wetlands can receive groundwater in-flow, recharge groundwater, or experience both inflow and outflow at different locations. Figure 7.1 illustrates water movement in several different wetland situations. Wetlands do not

always occupy low points and depressions in the landscape. They can occur at the soil interface with complex underground water systems. (See Figure 7.1, part A.) Fens are examples of wetlands that occur on slopes at groundwater seepage faces and are subject to a continuous supply of the chemicals that are dissolved in the groundwater. (See Figure 7.1, part B.) Locations that are down gradient of a break in the slope of the water table, such as along streams or rivers, receive a continuous water supply and are ideal for wetland growth. They also, however, may receive some groundwater discharge. (See Figure 7.1, part C.) Bogs are wetlands normally found on uplands or extensive flatlands. Most of their water and chemistry comes from precipitation. (See Figure 7.1, part D.)

Riverine (areas along streams, rivers, and irrigation canals) and coastal area wetlands are highly subject to periodic water level changes. Coastal area wetlands, for example, are affected by predictable tidal cycles. Other coastal and riverine wetlands are highly dependent on flooding and seasonal water level changes. Some examples are the floodplains of the Illinois and Missouri Rivers.

TYPES OF WETLANDS

A wide variety of wetlands exist across the United States because of regional and local differences in hydrology, water chemistry, vegetation, soils, topography, and other factors. There are two large groups of wetlands: estuarine (coastal) and palustrine (inland). Estuarine wetlands are linked to estuaries and oceans and comprise 5% of the wetlands in the forty-eight contiguous states. Estuaries are places where fresh and salt water mix, such as a bay or where a river enters the ocean. In estuaries, the environment is one of ever-changing salinity and temperature. The water level fluctuates in response to wind and tide. Examples of estuarine wetlands are saltwater marshes and mangrove swamps.

Palustrine wetlands comprise the other 95% of wetlands. The most common location of palustrine wetlands is the floodplains of rivers and streams, the margins of lakes and ponds, and isolated depressions surrounded by dry land. Some examples of inland wetlands are the Florida Everglades, wet meadows, swamps, fens, bogs, prairie potholes, playa lakes, and wet tundra.

Wetlands are further divided by their vegetation. Emergent wetlands (marshes and wet meadows) are dominated by grasses, sedges, and other herbaceous (non-woody) plants. Emergent wetlands account for 74% of estuarine wetlands, while representing only 25% of palustrine wetlands. Shrub wetlands (including shrub swamps and bogs), characterized by low-to-medium-height woody plants, make up 13% of estuarine wetlands and account for 18% of freshwater wetlands. Forested wetlands, mostly wooded swamps and bottomland hard-wood forests, are dominated by trees and account for 51% of freshwater wetlands.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is the agency charged with conducting wetland status and trend studies of the nation's wetlands at ten-year intervals. To accurately report wetland status, the USFWS has further subdivided estuarine and palustrine wetlands into numerous habitat categories.

Geographically isolated wetlands are another type of important wetland in the United States. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service defines them as "wetlands with no apparent surface water connection to perennial rivers and streams, estuaries, or the ocean." They have no surface water outlet and therefore are vulnerable to changes in surrounding land use practices. Steve Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a June 11, 2002, news release, "In desert areas, isolated wetlands provide vital fresh water oases for wildlife and function as stepping stones for migrating birds. Their isolation has promoted the evolution of unique plant and animal life that is specially adapted to these habitats." Williams also pointed out that isolated wetlands are important to human beings because many of the wetlands contribute important subsurface water flows to other wetlands and streams. In areas such as the Prairie Pothole Region, isolated wetlands store rainwater, which reduces flooding and recharges groundwater supplies, in addition to providing habitat for wildlife. On June 11, 2002, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a report (Geographically Isolated Wetlands: A Preliminary Assessment of Their Characteristics and Status in Selected Areas of the United States) that describes nineteen types of isolated wetlands in seventy-two study areas and provides ecological profiles of their fish and wildlife conservation values.

MANY ROLES OF WETLANDS

Wetlands provide essential ecological functions that benefit people and the ecological systems surrounding the wetlands, as well as the wetland itself. The plants, microbes, and animals in wetlands are part of the global cycles for water, nitrogen, and sulfur. Wetlands also store carbon in their plant communities and soils instead of releasing it into the air as carbon dioxide, making them part of the global cycle for carbon.

Wetland functions fit into several broad categories (see Figure 7.2 and discussion below):

• High plant productivity
• Temporary water storage
• Trapping of nutrients and sediments
• Soil anchoring

Not all wetlands perform all functions, nor do they perform all functions equally. The location of the wetland in the watershed and its size determine its functions. A watershed is the land area that drains to a stream, river, or lake. Other factors that will affect wetland functions and their performance are weather conditions, quality and quantity of water entering the wetland, and human alteration of the wetland or the land surrounding it. The values of wetland functions to human communities depend on the complex relationship between the wetland and the other ecosystems in the watershed. An ecosystem consists of all the organisms in a particular area or region and the environment in which they live. The elements of an ecosystem all interact with each other in some way and depend on each other either directly or indirectly.

Wetlands—Nursery, Pantry, and Way Station

Wetlands are diverse and rich ecosystems, which provide food and shelter to many different plants and animals. The combination of shallow water, high nutrient levels, and primary productivity (plant growth and reproduction) is perfect for the development of organisms that form the base of the food chain. The water, dense plants, their root mats, and decaying vegetation are food and shelter for the eggs, larvae, and juveniles of many species. Smaller animals avoid predators by hiding among the vegetation while they wait to prey on still smaller life forms. Fish of all sizes seek the warmer, shallow waters to mate and spawn, leaving their young to grow on the rich diet provided by wetlands. Food and organic material that is flushed out of wetlands and into streams and rivers during periods of high flow feed downstream aquatic systems, including commercial and sport fisheries.

Estuarine marshes, for example, are among the most productive natural ecosystems in the world. They produce huge amounts of plant leaves and stems that make up the base of the food chain. When the plants die, they break down in the water and form detritus. Algae that grow on plants and detritus are the principal foods for shellfish such as oysters and clams, crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp, and small fish. Small fish are the food for larger commercial species such as striped bass and bluefish. (See Figure 7.3.) According to the EPA's Functions and Values of Wetlands (March 2002), 75% of commercially harvested fish are wetland-dependent. When shellfish species are factored in, the number increases to 95%.

Both estuarine and palustrine wetlands also serve as way stations for migrating birds. The Central Flyway extending from south-central Canada through the north-central United States and into Mexico, for example, provides resting places and nourishment for more than 400 of some 800 species of protected migratory birds (which individually number in the millions) during the migration season. Without this stopover area, the flight to their Arctic breeding grounds would be impossible. Chesapeake Bay with its extensive tidal and freshwater marshes on the East Coast Atlantic Flyway gives winter refuge to thousands of ducks and geese.

Wetland Biodiversity

Wetlands are the source of numerous natural products, including furs, fish and shellfish, timber, wild-life, and wild rice. A wide variety of species of microbes, plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, fish, birds, and other animals make their homes in or around wetlands because of the availability of water. For others, wetlands provide important temporary seasonal habitats. Physical and chemical features such as landscape shape (topology), climates, and abundance of water help determine which species live in which wetland.

According to the EPA's Wetlands and People (http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/vital/people.html, March 23, 2005), more than one-third of the United States' threatened and endangered species live only in wetlands, and nearly half use wetlands at some point in their lives. When wetlands are removed from a watershed or are damaged by human activity, the biological health of the watershed declines. Many species of plants and animals are lost to the watershed or decline in number. The EPA estimated that approximately two-thirds of freshwater mussels (67%) and crayfish (65%) were rare or imperiled and more than one-third of freshwater fish (37%) and amphibians (35%) dependent on aquatic and wetland habitats were at risk. Nearly one-fifth (18%) of dragonflies and plants were at risk. Forty-six percent of the threatened and endangered species listed by the USFWS rely directly or indirectly on wetlands for survival. All (100%) amphibians, fish, clams, and crustaceans listed as threatened or endangered rely directly or indirectly on wetlands for their survival.

According to the Division of Bird Habitat Conservation of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, waterfowl remain the most prominent and economically important group of migratory birds on the North American continent. By 1985 (when waterfowl populations had decreased to record lows) approximately 3.2 million people were spending nearly $1 billion annually to hunt waterfowl. Interest in waterfowl and other migratory birds also had expanded in other areas. About 18.6 million people observed, photographed, and otherwise appreciated waterfowl and spent $2 billion on waterfowl-related activities.

Numbers of people who regularly engage in wildlife watching activities are even larger. According to the 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, which is conducted every five years, in 2001 some sixty-six million people spent $38.4 billion on wildlife-watching activities.

The well-being of waterfowl populations is tied directly to the status and abundance of wetland habitats. Populations of ducks in North America dropped from 1955 through 1993, primarily because of declining wetland acreage. New wetland protection measures, however, are beginning to help reverse the trend. Under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) during the period 1986 to 1990, farmers enrolled 8.2 million acres of cropland within the Prairie Pothole Region, a vast area of the north-central United States and Canada from which almost 70% of North America's ducks originate. Nearly 13,000 square miles (an area approximately the size of Maryland) was converted to dense nesting cover under the CRP.

In the early 1990s, when the prolonged drought in the northern Great Plains ended, prairie potholes that had been dry for more than ten years filled with water. The prairie came to life and great numbers of waterfowl occupied the potholes. Surrounded by the CRP grass, nesting ducks were no longer easy targets for predators. Prior to the CRP, nest success of only 10% was common, that is, the rate of successful breeding was exceeded by the waterfowl mortality rate. With abundant grass and wetlands, spring survey numbers of ducks began to climb. In 1993, 26.3 million ducks were reported in the area, 32.5 million in 1994, and 36.9 million in 1995. Studies by the USFWS and Ducks Unlimited, Inc., a hunting and conservation group dedicated to protecting ducks and their habitat, showed that the CRP has tripled nest success throughout the Prairie Pothole Region.

Additional measures to preserve and protect the waterfowl population include the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. A joint strategy adopted by the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the Plan established an international committee with six representatives from each of the three countries. Its purpose is to provide a forum for discussion of major, long-term international waterfowl issues and to make recommendations to directors of the three countries' national wildlife agencies. It approves the formation of Joint Venture partnerships and reviews and approves Joint Venture implementation and evaluation plans. The Committee is responsible for updating the Plan, considering new scientific information and national and international policy developments, and for identifying the need to expand or diminish activities carried out on behalf of the Plan.

Water Storage

Wetlands function like sponges, absorbing water. By temporarily storing runoff and flood waters, wetlands help protect adjacent and downstream property owners from flood damage. Wetland plants slow the flow of water, which contributes to the wetland's ability to store it. The combined effects of storing and conveying (in this case, to carry and slow the flow) permit water to percolate through the soil into groundwater recharging aquifers, and to move through the watershed with less speed and force.

Wetlands are particularly valuable in urban areas because the paved and other impermeable surfaces shed water, increasing the rate, velocity, and volume of runoff so that the risk of flood damage increases. Loss or degradation of wetlands indirectly intensifies the flooding by eliminating their ability to absorb the peak flows and gradually release floodwaters, thereby helping to maintain stream flow, particularly at times of runoff or low flow.

Nutrient and Sediment Control

Figure 7.4 shows how wetlands improve the quality of water. Wetlands are natural filters that cleanse water. When water is stored or slowed down in a wetland by the plants and root masses that grow there, sediment settles out and remains in the wetland so that the water leaving the area is much less cloudy than the water that entered. The loss of cloudiness or turbidity has important consequences for both human health and the ecological health of the watershed. Turbidity has been implicated in disease outbreaks in drinking water. Turbid water bearing silt has been responsible for smothering plants and animals in rivers, streams, estuaries, and lakes.

Wetlands can also trap nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen) that are dissolved in the water or attached to the sediment. Nutrients are either stored in the wetland soil or used by the plants to enhance growth. Studies in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, for example, have shown that some forested streamside wetlands are capable of removing 80% of the phosphorous and 90% of the nitrogen from water.

Too much nutrient, such as silt, reaching rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs can affect both human and ecological health. Too much nitrogen in drinking water can cause "blue baby syndrome" in infants and young livestock. Too much nutrient can cause eutrophication (depletion of dissolved oxygen by aquatic plant growth) in estuaries, lakes, rivers, and streams.

Soil Anchoring

Wetlands also play an important role in soil anchoring. The thick mesh of wetland vegetation and roots acts like a net and helps to hold soil in place even during periods of relatively high water flow such as a major storm. If the wetlands lining a stream or river are removed, this leads to poorly anchored soil and an increased water flow to carry it away. The result can be severe erosion and changes to the contours of channels, making them deeper and flatter. As a result, aquatic communities at the erosion location are disrupted or eliminated, and downstream aquatic systems are damaged by silt.

Marsh plant fringes in lakes, estuaries, and oceans protect shorelines from erosion in a similar fashion. The plants reduce soil erosion by binding the soil in their root masses as a function of anchoring the marsh. At the same time, the plants and root masses cushion the force of wave action, retarding scouring of shorelines.

ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF WETLANDS

Appreciation of the economic value of wetlands has undergone a dramatic change since the 1970s. Prior to that time, wetlands were considered useless, good only for taking up space and breeding mosquitoes. The emphasis was on filling and draining wetlands to turn them into productive land for development and agriculture. In the mid-1970s the growing environmental movement with its emphasis on clean water led to a closer examination of wetlands and their role in watersheds and the global ecosystem. Wetlands are now valued not only for their ecological role but also for their contribution to the economy.

Recreation

Some of the most popular recreational activities, including fishing, hunting, and canoeing, occur in and are dependent on healthy wetlands. According to the EPA fact sheet on the economic benefit of wetlands (http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/facts/fact4.html, March 4, 2005), more than half of all U.S. adults (ninety-eight million people) hunt, fish, bird-watch, or photograph wildlife. Spending on these activities amounts to $59.5 billion annually. Individual states gain additional economic benefits from the spin-offs (boat rentals, bait, film, ammunition, and other gear) as well as tourist dollars. Wetland areas also provide more areas of open space.

An example of the value of these wetland-related recreational activities can be found in the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wild-Life Associated Recreation conducted every five years by the USFWS. The most recent survey (2001) reported that in that year 34.1 million people age sixteen years and older went fishing and spent an average of $1,046 each; 28.4 million anglers went freshwater fishing, while 9.1 million went saltwater fishing. Overall, anglers spent $35.6 billion in 2001 on fishing trips, $4.6 billion on equipment, $14.7 billion on travel-related costs, $6 billion on food and lodging, and $3.5 billion on transportation. They spent nearly $5.3 billion on land-use fees, guide fees, equipment rental, boating expenses, and bait. Camping equipment, binoculars, and special fishing clothing accounted for $721 million in expenditures. Equipment such as boats, vans, and cabins cost $11.6 billion. Anglers spent $3.2 billion on land leasing and ownership and $860 million on magazines, books, membership dues and contributions, licenses, stamps, tags, and permits.

Commercial Fisheries

According to Fisheries of the United States 2003, a publication of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the value of the U.S. commercial fish landings in 2003 was about $3.3 billion. Eighty-seven percent of the value of U.S. finfish landings was from species that are dependent on near-coastal waters and their wetlands for breeding and spawning. The EPA's National Coastal Condition Report II (January 2005) estimated that about 75% of commercial fish and 80% to 90% of sport fish spent a portion of their life cycles in coastal wetland and estuarine habitats. Adult stocks of commercially harvested shrimp, blue crabs, oysters, and other species throughout the United States were directly related to wetland quality and quantity.

Flood Control

In its 1998 National Water Quality Inventory—1998 Report to Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited the following two examples of the economic benefits of flood control associated with wetlands.

In Massachusetts, the Army Corps of Engineers estimated that annual flood damage costing more than $17 million would occur from the destruction of 8,422 acres of wetland in the Charles River watershed. For this reason, the Corps decided to preserve wetlands rather than construct extensive flood-control facilities along a stretch of the Charles River near Boston. This preservation project has resulted in annual benefits of about $2.1 million per year and costs an average $617,000 annually.

In determining the value of wetlands, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources estimated that it cost the public about $300 to replace the water storage capacity lost by one acre of wetland that holds twelve inches of water. Using this estimate, the cost of replacing 5,000 acres of wetland would be $1.5 million, more than the state's annual appropriation for flood control.

HISTORY OF WETLANDS USE

Until well into the twentieth century, wetlands were considered nature's failure, a waste in nature's economy. For this reason, people sought to increase the usefulness of wetlands. In the agricultural economy of that time, land unable to produce crops or timber was considered worthless. Many Americans began to think of draining these lands, an undertaking needing government funds and resources.

In the nineteenth century, state after state passed laws to facilitate drainage of wetlands by the formation of drainage-districts and statutes. When a number of landowners in an area petitioned for a drainage project, a hearing was held. A district encompassing the area affected could be created with the power to issue bonds, drain the area, and bill the landholders—petitioners and opponents alike. Coupled with an agricultural boom and technological improvements, reclamation projects multiplied in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The farmland under drainage doubled between 1905 and 1910 and again between 1910 and 1920. By 1920 state drainage districts in the United States encompassed an area larger than Missouri.

Early Conservationists

The earliest effective resistance came from hunters, sportsmen, and naturalist lobbies. Organizations such as the Izaak Walton League, the Audubon Society, and the American Game Protective Association deplored the destruction by drainage of wildlife habitats and began to press for protection of wetlands. These early conservation efforts met chilly receptions both from the public and the courts. A growing number of Americans, however, were beginning to sympathize with conservationists. Drainage projects were often disappointing—soils had proven to be poorer than expected, and the costs were generally greater than expected.

Reclamation's Failures

Lower Klamath Lake, in Northern California, became a striking example of reclamation's potential for creating wastelands far more desolate than those they replaced. The lake, a shallow sheet of water fringed by marshes, had been set aside by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 as a waterfowl sanctuary. In 1917 the water inflow was cut off. The lakebed dried up and became prey to dust storms. The peat in the marsh bottom caught fire. Rather than being a reclaimed area of extraordinary fertility, the former wetlands became an ecological travesty. Time helped to reverse the damage, but as of 2002 less than 25% of the historic wetland basin remained. In spite of this, the basin continues to support tremendous bird life on a smaller scale.

Efforts to reclaim the Klamath Basin continue. According to a January 30, 2003, news release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) (President Bush to Propose Record-Level $3.9 Billion for Conservation Programs) in the fiscal year budget for 2004, President George W. Bush proposed setting aside $8 million for water conservation and water quality enhancements in the Klamath Basin.

Similarly, for many years Florida sought to drain the Everglades, a vast wetland region covering much of the southern part of the state. Efforts there resulted in lands prone to flooding and peat fires. Peat fires are particularly dangerous because they burn underground and can flare up without warning long distances from where they were originally ignited. Costs escalated, and the drainage district went broke. Across the nation, the gap between the cost and the value of reclaimed land widened even more. The agricultural depression beginning in the 1920s increased the growing skepticism as to the value of reclamation.

Nonetheless, during the Great Depression (1929–41), programs such as the Works Progress Administration and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation encouraged wetland conversion as a way to provide work for many unemployed people. By the end of World War II (1945), the total area of drained farmland had increased sharply.

Tide Turns for Wetlands

Since the early 1970s, conservationists have turned to the courts to challenge reclamation projects and protect wetlands. If drainage once seemed to improve the look of the land, today it is more likely to be seen as degrading it. Wetlands turned out to be not wastelands, but systems efficient in harnessing the sun's rays to feed the food chain, and important in the global cycle of water, nitrogen, carbon, and sulfur. A number of studies have shown that the value of wetlands for flood protection is far greater than their potential value for agriculture.

No Net Loss

As the drainage movement once found support in state laws and federal policies, so did the preservation movement. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order instructing federal agencies to minimize damage to wetlands. In 1989 the EPA adopted a goal of "no net loss" of wetlands, meaning that where a wetland is developed for other uses, the developer must create a wetland elsewhere to maintain an overall constant amount of wetland acreage.

COMPENSATORY MITIGATION.

A major part of the no net loss policy is the practice of compensatory mitigation. Mitigation requires that a party who alters or destroys a wetland area must offset that loss by restoring, creating, or enhancing wetlands elsewhere. For example, a builder can be permitted to construct a highway that will disrupt a wetland if the builder will construct or restore a wetland elsewhere. The premise of mitigation is that the same amount or more wetlands will be created or restored without unnecessarily slowing down economic growth.

The Army Corps of Engineers determines the number of credits required to obtain the permit needed to develop wetland areas. The ratio the Corps seeks is usually one to 1.5 acres—this means that for every wetland acre the person is destroying or harming, the person must assume the cost of restoring 1.5 acres of wetlands.

Mitigation banking, a variation of compensatory mitigation, allows people who build on wetlands to pay to a "bank" to enhance another wetland area. This is particularly advantageous to the small property owner who seeks to build only one or two structures. The person purchases "credits" in the bank and transfers full responsibility to an agency or environmental organization that runs the bank. Environmental professionals design, construct, and maintain a specific natural area using these funds. Several states use mitigation banking.

Critics contend that new or improved wetlands may not provide the same value over the same span of time and dislike mitigation because it presumes that wetlands destruction at certain sites is acceptable. Many mitigation projects have not worked well because mitigators often have not kept their agreements, it is difficult to mimic natural systems, and even where it is done properly, a wetland can take as long as thirty years to mature. In the intervening years, however, since the mitigation policy went into effect, the science of wetland creation and restoration has made significant advances, so that the number of sites with successful wetland mitigation is growing.

CONCERN OVER PROPERTY RIGHTS

The dispute over wetlands regulation reflects the nation's ambivalence when private property and public rights intersect, especially since three-fourths of the nation's wetlands are owned by private citizens. In recent years, many landowners have complained that wetland regulation devalued their property by blocking its development. They have argued that efforts to preserve the wetlands have gone too far, citing instances where a small wetland precludes the use of large tracts of land. Many people believe that this constitutes taking without just compensation.

The "takings" clause of the Constitution provides that when private property is taken for public use, just compensation must be paid to the owner. Wetland owners claim that when the government, through its laws, eliminates some uses for their land, the value is decreased, and they believe that they should be paid for the loss.

While some people believe that wetland protection should take priority over property concerns, a significant portion of the public is troubled over what it sees as growing government infringement on the rights of property owners. They believe that just as landowners must be compensated for property seized by eminent domain (the authority of the government to take private property for public use, with compensation to the owner), so should the losses (devaluation of wetland acreage) be compensated, even though no physical taking of property occurs.

State Must Reimburse an Owner for Loss

In the 1970s and 1980s, state courts and the lower federal courts frequently handed down contradictory rulings on the issue of compensation for wetland-related takings. In 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court, in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (60 LW 4842), resolved the issue of compensation when land taken for an accepted public good loses significant value.

David Lucas, a homebuilder, bought two residential lots on a South Carolina barrier island in 1986. He planned to build and sell two single-family houses similar to those on nearby lots. At the time he purchased the land, state law allowed house construction on the lots. In 1988 South Carolina passed the Beachfront Management Act to protect the state's beaches from erosion. Lucas's land fell within the area considered in danger of erosion; as a result, Lucas could no longer build the houses.

Lucas went to court, claiming that the Beachfront Management Act had taken his property without just compensation because it no longer had any value if he could not build there. Lucas did not question the right of the State of South Carolina to take his property for the common good. Rather, he claimed the state had to compensate him for the financial loss that resulted from the devaluing of the property.

On June 29, 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a seven-to-two decision, agreed:

There are good reasons for our frequently expressed belief that when the owner of real property has been called upon to sacrifice all economically beneficial uses in the name of the common good, that is, to leave his property economically idle, he has suffered a taking.… When…a regulation…declares "off-limits" all economically productive or beneficial use of land … compensation must be paid.

The Supreme Court said that a state could stop a landowner from building on his property only if he was using it for a "harmful or noxious" purpose—for example, building a brickyard or a brewery in a residential area. This was not the case. Lucas had planned to build homes, a legitimate purpose that was neither harmful nor noxious. Although it was possible to define the planned buildings as harmful to South Carolina's ecological resources, this would not be consistent with earlier Court interpretations of "harmful." Only by showing that Lucas had intended to do something "harmful or noxious" with the land could the state take his land without compensation. This they did not do, and, therefore, they owed him the money.

LOSS IN WETLAND ACREAGE

When the first Europeans arrived in America, there were an estimated 215 million acres of wetlands in the mainland forty-eight states; today there are approximately 105.5 million acres. In the intervening years, more than 50% of the wetlands in the lower forty-eight states have been lost. Wetlands have been drained, dredged, filled, leveled, and flooded to meet human needs. Although natural forces such as erosion, sedimentation, and rise or drop in sea level may erase wetlands over time, 95% of the wetland losses since 1780 are believed to have been caused by humans. Many of the nation's older cities, such as New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Charleston, are built on filled wetlands.

The USFWS has been tracking wetland losses. In Wetland Losses in the United States 1780s to 1980s (1990), the USFWS reported that twenty-two states had lost more than 50% of their wetlands, an area equal to the size of California. (See Figure 7.5.) Seven states (California, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio) had lost more than 80% of their wetlands. According to the report, for the first time in United States history, there are fewer than fifty million acres of forested wetlands in the conterminous United States.

In its first wetlands status and trends report in 1983, the USFWS estimated the wetland loss between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s (the years prior to wetland protection) at 458,000 acres per year. In 1991 the USFWS reported that estimated wetland loss in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s had declined to 290,000 acres per year. In its Wetlands Overview (December 2004), the loss rate reported by the EPA was 60,000 acres annually, an almost 87% reduction from the mid-1970s level. The decline in wetland loss was attributed to "increased public awareness of the functions and value of wetlands and the need to protect them, the implementation and enforcement of wetland protective measures, elimination of incentives to drain wetlands, private land initiatives, coastal monitoring and protection programs, and wetland restoration and creation actions."

In their 2000 305 (b) filings with the EPA, nine states reported wetland losses. Figure 7.6 shows the sources contributing to these losses. Filling and draining were cited by five states as sources of wetland loss. Agriculture, residential development, and urban growth were cited among other causes.

The states also identified the leading causes of the loss of wetland integrity, that is, the impairment of wetland functions. Six of the nine reporting states identified sedimentation or siltation as the leading cause. Flow alterations, nutrients, filling and draining, habitat alterations, and metals also were cited as causes of loss of wetland integrity. (See Figure 7.7.) The primary sources identified as causing integrity loss were agriculture, construction, and hydrologic modification. (See Figure 7.8.)

Not all wetland losses result in the total obliteration of a wetland. The conversion of a wetland from one type to another may be considered a "loss" because the wetland has changed in one or more functions, particularly if the change results in a wetland perceived as less valuable.

For example, the USFWS reported that between 1986 and 1997 (the latest data available) four million acres of forested wetland were removed. The removal was the result of timbering and other practices that removed the tree canopy but left the wetland character, that is, did not drain or fill the wetland. Loss of forest canopy can radically change the hydrology and wildlife habitat value of a wetland. Most of the forested wetlands were converted to freshwater shrub (2.8 million acres) or emergent wetlands (0.5 million acres). Other conversions include upland land use, ponds, and lakes and rivers.

INVASIVE SPECIES

People are not the only ones who can dramatically alter wetlands. Nonnative—also called exotic—species can be as devastating to wetlands as humans by changing the nature of the ecosystem, thereby interfering with its function and the survival of native plants and animals. Plants and animals introduced either accidentally or deliberately can cause unexpected harm by displacing native species from their habitat or by placing stress, such as disease or predation, on a native species.

In 1899 the nutria or coypu (Myocastor coypus) was introduced into California for the fur-farming trade. This introduction was originally viewed as a way to provide economic benefit. Subsequently, state and federal agencies as well as private interests were responsible for introducing nutria into the wild in fifteen states to provide a new fur resource. In coastal states such as Maryland and Louisiana, the results have been disastrous.

Nutria are large (about fifteen pounds), semi-aquatic rodents that live in fresh, intermediate, and brackish marshes and wetlands and feed on the vegetation. They eat all vegetation in an area, changing a marsh to a barren mudflat. Nutria feed on the base of plant stems and dig for roots and rhizomes in the winter. Their grazing strips large patches of marsh and their digging turns over the upper peat layer. This conversion of marsh to open water destroys valuable habitat for muskrat, wading birds, amphibians, reptiles, ducks, fish, crabs, and a host of other species, as well as causing erosion and siltation. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, nutria currently affect 100,000 acres of coastal wetland in Louisiana alone. To date, the best control method is trapping and harvest for meat and fur.

Plant species can be as harmful as animals. Eurasian watermilfoil, phragmites (common reed grass), hydrilla, and purple loosestrife are introduced species that have disrupted wetland systems. Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is a good example. It is a perennial herb with reddish-purple flowers that may reach six feet in height under the right conditions. It was an important medicinal herb and ornamental as early as 200 years ago on the East Coast and was probably introduced for this reason. It has no known North American predators and has high reproductive capacity—up to 300,000 seeds per stalk. Because it can out-compete most native wetland plants, it can change the character and ecological function of a marsh. This is a serious threat since many wetland and other wildlife species are adapted to and depend on specific plants.

GOVERNMENT WETLAND PROGRAMS

Clean Water Act

The goal of the Clean Water Act is to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's water." Wetlands are considered part of the nation's water and are covered by the Act.

SECTION 404.

Section 404 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (PL 92–500), commonly called the Clean Water Act, authorizes the Army Corps of Engineers to issue permits for "discharge" into the nation's waters and is the primary federal authority for the protection of wetlands. "Discharge" is defined as the addition of dredged or fill materials to U.S. waters. These discharges include material removed from one portion of a water body (dredging) for placement in another portion of the same or another water body (overboard disposal, or placement of dredged material on wetlands adjacent to the area of dredging), and materials brought from other sources to be used as fill. "Fill" is defined as any material used for the primary purpose of replacing an aquatic area with dry land or changing the bottom elevation of a water body. Examples are soil and debris used to fill in wetlands and rubble placed overboard to create fishing reefs. Under Section 404, the Corps does not regulate dredging (removal of materials from water) but only the addition of materials to water.

Section 404 jurisdiction encompasses all navigable waters of the United States, plus their tributaries and adjacent wetlands, and includes ocean waters within three nautical miles of the coastline and isolated waters where the use, degradation, or destruction of these waters could affect interstate commerce or foreign commerce. The Corps evaluates the impact of proposed projects that involve wetlands, considering comments from the EPA, the USFWS, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the affected states. Regulations established under Section 404 require that any project affecting more than one-third of an acre of wetlands or 500 linear feet of streams must be approved by the Corps.

SECTION 404 JURISDICTION QUESTIONED.

Between 2000 and 2002, legal challenges arose over the extent of the Army Corps of Engineers' authority under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the meaning of certain terms used in the Act (such as "waters of the United States" and "navigable waters"). In its Clean Water Act Information Brief (The Supreme Court's SWANCC Decision, December 2002), the United States Department of Energy detailed one such challenge.

According to the brief, the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) wanted to develop a nonhazardous solid waste disposal facility on a site that contained isolated ponds and wetlands. The Corps denied the Agency a Section 404 permit to fill those wetlands because they were used by migratory birds. Lower courts found in favor of the Corps, and SWANCC appealed the finding to the United States Supreme Court.

On January 9, 2001, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision (Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, 531U.S. 159, 2001). The court determined that the Corps' authority under the Clean Water Act did not extend to isolated wetlands if they were not "adjacent" to navigable waters. It held that the Corps exceeded its statutory authority by asserting CWA jurisdiction over the ponds that SWANCC wanted to fill based solely on the use of those "non-navigable, isolated, intrastate" waters by migratory birds.

Other legal challenges detailed in the Department of Energy's information brief include Idaho Rural Council v. Bosma (143 F. Supp. 2d 1169, 1179 [D. Id. 2001]). In this case, the court found that springs connected to non-navigable streams and groundwater connected to surface water were both waters of the United States. In United States v. Buday (138 F. Supp. 2d 1282 [D. Mont. 2002]) the court found that the United States had jurisdiction to regulate a discharge to a tributary of a navigable water.

The implications of the Supreme Court's decision in SWANCC have prompted a move to restore protection to America's wetlands. On February 27, 2003, Democratic congressmen John D. Dingell of Michigan and James Oberstar of Minnesota introduced the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act of 2003 to the United States House of Representatives. According to a news release from Congressman Dingell's office on February 27, 2003, wetlands are in jeopardy because of the Supreme Court's decision in SWANCC and Bush administration regulatory actions. The Clean Water Authority Restoration Act is intended to restore the original intent of the Clean Water Act and to reestablish protections for "isolated" wetlands throughout the United States. According to Congressman Dingell's news release, the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act includes a set of findings that explain the factual basis for Congress to assert its constitutional authority over waters and wetlands. It also reaffirms the original intent of the Congress by creating a statutory definition of "waters of the United States" based on longstanding definitions in the Army Corps of Engineers regulations. The legislation also deletes the term "navigable" from the Act to reinforce that the original concern of the Congress in the 1972 Act related to pollution rather than navigability. The Clean Water Authority Restoration Act made no progress in the House during that legislative session. It was reintroduced in March 2005 and was referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

The EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers remain committed to helping Americans comply with the Clean Water Act's requirements for protection of the nation's wetlands. According to a January 10, 2003, EPA news release, the EPA and the Corps issued clarifications for the rules the federal government uses to protect wetlands that are regulated under the Clean Water Act. At the same time, the EPA announced its intention to publish an Advance Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM) to solicit from the public data and information to clarify the extent of Clean Water Act coverage in light of the Supreme Court's decision in SWANCC.

TULLOCH RULE.

Another highly litigated regulation adopted under Section 404 is the Tulloch rule. This regulation was adopted as the result of a successful challenge brought against the Army Corps of Engineers by several environmental interest groups to stop the draining of wetlands in North Carolina. The Corps district engineer named in the lawsuit was Colonel Tulloch. The rule provides that any "incidental fallback" constitutes a discharge that requires a permit if the deposit is part of an activity that destroys or degrades a wetland. Incidental fallback is soil or other materials that drop from the dredges, backhoes, shovels, or other excavating devices into virtually the same place from which they were removed. This expansion of the definition of "discharge" brought all wetland ditching and excavation under 404 jurisdiction, including activities such as sand and gravel mining, which were previously not within Corps jurisdiction. The new rule effectively stopped almost all draining and dredging of wetlands.

In 1998 the Tulloch rule was overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court on the grounds that the Corps had exceeded its authority in adopting the Tulloch rule. The court stated that Section 404 was clearly intended to regulate the addition of dredged or fill materials, and not their removal. The Corps and several environmental groups appealed the ruling, but the decision of the lower court was upheld in 1998 twice by federal appeals court decisions. The appeals court further admonished the Corps and the EPA that if they believed that they needed to regulate the removal of materials in wetlands, the appropriate remedy was congressional action, not arbitrary regulation. The Corps and the EPA declined to pursue the issue with the Supreme Court.

SECTION 401.

Section 401 of the Clean Water Act empowers the states to approve, condition, or deny a permit or activity approved by the Army Corps of Engineers by refusing to issue "401 certification," that is, the state's concurrence with the project. Congress granted the states this authority because of state complaints that their objections to massive Corps and other federal projects were not considered, and that these federally approved projects were often not in the best interests of the state.

No 404 permit may be issued by the Corps without 401 certification or waiver of the certification by the state. The 401 certification applies not only to Section 404 permits issued by the Corps, but also to any application for a federal license or permit that might result in discharge of any type to navigable waters. In some states, Section 401 authority forms the basis for all state activities to protect wetlands.

Swampbuster Program

The Swampbuster provision of the 1985 Food Security Act (PL 99–198), as amended by the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, withholds federal farm program benefits, such as price supports, special loans, disaster relief, crop insurance, and conservation easements, from any person who:

• Plants an agricultural commodity on a converted wetland that was converted by drainage, dredging, leveling, or any other means after December 23, 1985
• Converts a wetland for the purpose of or to make agricultural commodity production possible after November 28, 1990

Farmers are asked to report on whether they plan to or have altered any "wet area" when they apply for their farm benefits. The Natural Resources Conservation Service assists farmers in making wetland determinations with regard to the Swampbuster program.

The 1996 Farm Bill

The 1996 Farm Bill (PL 104–105) reauthorized one program, the Conservation Reserve Program, and created a new program, the Wetlands Reserve Program. The two programs are designed to protect and restore wetlands.

WETLANDS RESERVE PROGRAM.

The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) is a voluntary USDA program created by the 1996 Farm Bill and has been implemented in forty-nine states. The program provides farmers with financial incentives, such as fair market price for land, to retire marginal farmland, and in many cases, restore and protect wetlands. According to a September 2004 USDA fact sheet, the program had enrolled a total of 1.47 million acres. Retiring cropland through the WRP has benefited the recovery of threatened or endangered species, as well as protected wetlands. The WRP was reauthorized under the Farm Bill of 2002 and is to extend through 2007.

CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM.

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was originally authorized in the 1985 Farm Bill as a soil conservation strategy that included paying farmers to retire marginal cropland from production for ten years. Its political support came from its potential to reduce expensive crop surpluses. Under the Conservation Reserve Program the Farm Service Agency pays farmers to plant over their cropland with natural vegetation. Unlike the Wetland Reserve Program, farmers do not have to permanently retire their land under this program, but instead can do so for ten-year intervals. As a wetland protection and restoration strategy, the program has been successful beyond anyone's expectations. Many thousands of acres of cropland have been restored to a natural state that in many cases includes wetlands.

The CRP was reauthorized in the 2002 Farm Act, extending the program through 2007. According to a September 2004 USDA report on the Conservation Reserve Program, more than thirty-four million acres of cropland have been retired through the program.

State Programs

Many states have enacted their own state laws to protect wetlands. These laws may complement or be more stringent than federal regulations. For example, Maryland has had state laws to protect tidal wetlands since the early 1970s. In 1989 Maryland adopted its Nontidal Wetlands Act to provide the same protections to freshwater wetlands.

In addition to using their Section 401 authority, states have included wetland protection in their water quality standards, passed laws protecting ecologically important wetlands such as the Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina, established mitigation banking, and created public education programs to increase public awareness of the value of wetlands. Several states have set up special funds to buy important wetlands.

WETLAND GAINS

Not all wetlands are being destroyed or threatened. Numerous efforts are ongoing at the private, local, state, and federal levels to protect existing wetlands and to create new ones. Wetland losses can be offset by restoring, creating (mitigating), enhancing, reallocating, or replacing wetlands:

• Wetland restoration—the return of a wetland to a close approximation of its condition prior to disturbance, including reestablishment of its predisturbance aquatic functions and related physical, chemical, and biological characteristics.
• Creation—the construction of a wetland in an area that was not a wetland within the past 100 to 200 years and is isolated from other wetlands.
• Enhancement—the modification of one or more structural features of an existing wetland to increase one or more functions based on management objectives. Enhancement, while causing a positive gain in one function, frequently results in a reduction in another function.
• Replacement or reallocation—activities in which most or all of an existing wetland is converted to a different type of wetland, and has the same drawback as enhancement.

Each of these approaches has benefits and drawbacks.

Private Initiatives

More than 75% of the wetlands in the United States are privately owned. Therefore, the protection and restoration or enhancement of most wetlands will be done on private property. A number of government programs, both regulatory and voluntary, exist to foster wetland protection, and some foster both restoration and enhancement. Many have been successful, but government cannot do it all. Some of the most successful wetland programs and projects are the result of private initiatives. Frequently, private organizations form partnerships with landowners to buy, lease, or create easements paid for with private, or a mix of private and public, funds.

Organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, the Audubon Society, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and hundreds of others are working with private landowners, corporations, local communities, volunteers, and federal and state agencies in innovative projects to protect and restore wetlands. For example, the Nature Conservancy has two wetland restoration projects on the Illinois River, Spunky Bottoms and Emiquon, that aim to return more than 8,500 acres of farmed land to their original wetland state.

In another example, Ducks Unlimited is working with the National Resource Conservation Service to implement the Wetland Reserve Program in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, which historically comprised twenty-four million acres of hardwood bottom stretching from southern Illinois to Louisiana. Since the partnership formed, 8.7 million hardwood seedlings have been planted on 29,000 acres in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Constructed Wetlands

One growing source of constructed wetlands is waste-water treatment. Constructed wetland treatment systems are designed and constructed to use the natural processes involving wetland soils, vegetation, and their associated microbes to assist with the treatment of waste-water. They are designed to take advantage of many of the same processes that occur in wetlands but in a more controlled manner. While some of these systems are operated solely to treat wastewater, others were designed with the multiple objectives of using treated wastewater effluent as a source of water for the creation or restoration of wetland habitat for wildlife and environmental enhancement. The cost is often competitive with traditional wastewater treatment alternatives. The primary drawback is that they are land intensive; large land tracts are not always available at affordable prices.

There are two general types of constructed wetland treatments: subsurface flow systems and free water surface systems. Both types are usually constructed in basins or channels with a natural or constructed subsurface barrier to limit seepage. The subsurface flow systems create subsurface flow through a permeable medium (soil, sand, gravel, or crushed rock), keeping the water below the surface to minimize odors and other nuisance problems. (See Figure 7.9.) These are also known as rock-reed filters, vegetated submerged bed systems, and root-zone systems. Free water surface systems are designed to simulate natural wetlands, with the water flowing over the soil surface at shallow depths.

Wetlands constructed for wastewater treatment can be found throughout the United States. Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, and South Carolina are some of the states using constructed wetlands for this purpose.

Marsh construction and wetland rehabilitation as a method of disposing of dredged spoil materials are another growing source of wetland construction. The Army Corps of Engineers has been using dredged material to restore or construct marshes since 1969. Dredged material is placed on shallow bay bottoms to build up elevations to an intertidal level, usually by pumping hydraulically dredged material to the marsh construction site. If the site is exposed to high wind or wave action, protective structures such as riprap breakwaters are built to protect the site. Vegetation can be actively planted or the site may rely on natural recruitment. Generally within two to three years, these sites are indistinguishable from natural wetlands in appearance.

Restoration of the Florida Everglades

The Everglades is America's premier wetland. It has been designated an International Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site, and a Wetland of International Importance. According to the World Heritage Committee in its report of May 15, 2000, the Everglades is one of two U.S. sites (Yellowstone National Park is the other) on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Figure 7.10 shows how agricultural and industrial activities and urbanization have reduced the Everglades to about half its former size.

The Everglades is part of the South Florida Ecosystem, an 11,000-square-mile region extending from the Kissimmee River near Orlando to the Florida Keys. Originally a wide expanse of wetland, pine forests, man-groves, coastal islands, and coral reefs, today it is one of the nation's most highly populated and manipulated regions. Its freshwater supply comes from rainfall (forty to sixty-five inches per year) in the Kissimmee River Basin and southward, mostly in May through October.

Slow and rain driven, the natural cycle of freshwater circulation feeding the Everglades historically built up in shallow Lake Okeechobee, which averages twelve feet deep and covers about 730 square miles. Thus began the flow of the wide, shallow "river of grass," as it was called by Native Americans. Fifty miles wide in places, one to three feet deep in the slough's center, and only six inches deep elsewhere, it flowed south at a rate of about 100 feet per day across the sawgrass of the Everglades to the mangrove estuaries on the Gulf of Mexico. A six-month dry season followed this flow. During the dry season, water levels gradually drop. The plants and animals of the Everglades are adapted to the alternating wet and dry seasons.

During the past one hundred years, an elaborate system of dikes, canals, levees, floodgates, and pumps has been built to move water to agricultural fields, urban areas, and Everglades National Park. Water runoff from agriculture and urban development have brought excess nutrients into the Everglades, reducing production of beneficial algae and promoting unnatural growth of other vegetation. Ill-timed human manipulation of the water supply has interfered with the natural water cycle, ruining critical spawning, feeding, and nesting conditions for many species.

The Florida legislature has enacted a number of laws to combat the growing water shortage in Florida, including the Everglades. The 1981 Save Our Rivers Act and the 1990 Preservation 2000 Fund authorize the water management districts to buy property to protect water sources, groundwater recharge, and other natural resources. The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), the agency that oversees flood protection and water supply, began buying out landowners in the east Everglades area in hopes of retaking more than 200,000 acres of agricultural and residential property at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion. The action is aimed at restoring water flow to the Everglades National Park. For updated status reports on land acquisition efforts, see http://www.evergladesplan.org/pm/progr_land_aquisition.cfm.

In 1998 the Army Corps of Engineers and the SFWMD released their plan for improving Florida's ecological and economic health. This plan covers the entire region and its water problems, and focuses on recovering the major characteristics that defined the "river of grass." Specifically, the plan calls for:

• Reducing the freshwater flows into the Caloosahatchee River and St. Lucie Canal, restoring to the Everglades water now lost to the tide
• Returning the water flow in the Kissimmee River to its former floodplain to achieve a more meandering river system
• Restoring 40,000 acres of marshes for water storage and filtration to remove nutrients prior to water entering the Everglades
• Modifying water deliveries through improved timing and distribution to mimic historic water conditions
• Reestablishing historic flows and water levels to sloughs feeding into Florida Bay to restore natural estuarine salinity

In 2000 Congress passed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the largest environmental restoration project ever attempted anywhere in the world. Over its thirty-year life, the project will implement the Corps-SFWMD plan. The project will restore critical water flows to the Everglades and ensure adequate water supplies for south Florida cities, communities, and farmers well into the future. The cost of the project will be shared equally between the state of Florida and the federal government.