Input on proposed Section 404 Nationwide Wetland Fill Permits

The Green Onion Resource Center (GORC), a new non-profit conservation group located in northwestern Wisconsin, submits this E-mail input as our comments and recommendations on the Proposal to Issue and Modify Nationwide Permits published in the Federal Register on July 21, 1999. As you know, these nationwide permits are being considered in the context of the Corps' legal duties under Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act. Please consider our input, and include it in the appropriate administrative record.

At the outset, we acknowledge that this proposal represents some important steps forward in comparison to earlier proposals. However, this current proposal still contains loopholes that will accelerate losses of our nation's valuable wetlands, cause more than minimal impacts, and undermine the Clinton Administration's goal of achieving a net gain of wetlands.

There are many deficiencies in the current proposal that should be remedied or strengthened.   For example:

+ It is not appropriate to allow trees to be planted in uplands as a way to
compensate for wetlands destruction.   Planting trees along streams is
one way to mitigate water quality damage caused by wetlands destruction,
but it does not address the loss of flood storage capacity or habitat that a restored wetland would provide.   For all wetlands larger than 1/4 acre that are destroyed, the Corps should require that wetlands be restored on at least a one to one ratio.

+ Proposed Nationwide Permit 40 is an invitation to destroy
agricultural wetlands.   It should be rewritten to recognize the Corps'
responsibility under the Clean Water Act to determine whether a project
will have more than minimal impacts and to approve mitigation for any
project.   The Corps should limit this permit to activities that would
destroy less than 1/4 acre of wetlands, and not allow it to be used at
all in prairie potholes, playa lakes or vernal pools.

+   We support a prohibition on the application of all nationwide permits in the 100-year floodplain. The Corps should expand this restriction to include drainage activities
as well as fills to better protect flood storage areas.

+   We support the new "indexing" approach to NWP 39 for
residential, commercial, and institutional development as this will
justifiably limit the amount of wetlands destruction allowed without
environmental review based on the size of the parcel in question.

Aside from this input on the current proposal, we are appalled by the Corps' overall failure to effectively administer this wetlands protection program. We have asked President Clinton and EPA Administrator Carol Browner to intercede to ensure that this program achieves the Section 404 statutory purposes.

In our region, the Corps is "invisible" on wetlands issues. Virtually everyone who applies for a Corps wetland fill permit is issued one; there is miniscule or no follow-up inspections or monitoring to determine whether these issued permits' conditions were fulfilled; when violations are brought to the Corps' attention, it expedites issuance of after-the-fact permits to bless the violators; and this region's St. Paul District Corps' office is proposing its own unique version of bureaucratic exercizes to exempt the need for permits and allow wetlands losses to continue. 'Business as usual' for the Corps is helping those wishing to destroy wetlands rather than those trying to protect them.

In short, this regulatory program is not accomplishing its intended purposes, and represents a massive waste of taxpayers' funds. Instead of looking for ways to issue more wetland fill permits or exempt the need for such permits, the Corps should be doing some major 'soul searching' and 'house cleaning' to re-organize itself so that it can actually begin to PROTECT wetlands.