Swamp Stomp

Volume 14, Issue 48

One of the most important wetland regions in the world hosts our nation’s capital, Washington DC. While the region homes over half of North America’s migratory waterfowl, according to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)—a non-profit alliance that works with various government environment offices to responsibly manage the nation’s public resources—potholes plague the area. This is not surprising considering that nearly two-thirds of wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region—Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota—have already been either drained or modified for agricultural use.

The National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been working to reverse this trend. A $35 million, four state initiative was launched, however, internal reviews suggest the program fails to make a desirable impact. One review from March 18, 2013, titled “Final Oversight and Evaluation Report: North Central Wetlands Conservation Initiative (NCWCI) — Combined Report Spring 2012,” revealed the following three shortcomings:

First, “Commonly, the reviewer did not agree with certified wetland determinations. It was apparent that quality assurance and oversight was occurring minimally (3 out of 4 states).”

Second, “The methods currently utilized for offsite determinations are inadequate.” Furthermore, “Agency experts are not consistently applying the approved protocols when conducting onsite determinations.” The processes for wetland identification, such as mapping and sampling, prove, therefore, to be deficient.

Third, “Agency experts have not consistently received adequate training as required. Inadequate training was found in 2 out of the 4 states with a combined success rate of 19.5%.”

Such reports led Jeff Ruch, PEER Executive Director, to assert, “America’s Prairie Pothole wetlands are dying the death of a thousand cuts.” The claim was delivered during comments regarding how one evaluation warns that the aforementioned conditions place “the agency at risk of loss of confidence from the wetland conservation community, the Administration, and Congress.”

Ruch also noted that “these reports also suggest that the government program charted to save the Prairie Pothole wetlands is doing the opposite.” The individual reports on each of the four prairie states from 2013 and 2014 revealed major concerns in three of the states.

In Minnesota, “The review finds that the correct wetland identification decisions (vegetation, soils, and hydrology) are not being rendered accurately and that proper wetland conservation labels are not being made according to policy. The inconsistencies fall outside of acceptable expectations.”

In South Dakota, “During the interview process it was discovered that wetland certification production goals had unrealistically been set at approximately 200 per year for wetland specialists in one area. This could result in the avoidance of adverse decisions.” Furthermore, retired NRCS employees acting as independent “consultants” to farmers have created a revolving-door problem. One person posted to the Comments section of the state report, “One employee expressed it was ‘uncomfortable’ trying to do a quality assurance because the Consultant used to be the DC [District Conservationist] in that office.”

In Iowa, “No Quality Assurance Plan was provided from either the State Office or the area offices. There is currently no policy pertaining to this issue, however it is still a ‘good idea’ to have one…”

Ruch used the Freedom of Information Act to acquire versions of the reviews that are heavily redacted to hide what the NRCS refers to as “pre-decisional” information. He claimed, “Terms like ‘absence of quality assurance’ are euphemisms for saying the resource is being sold out.”

“These redactions make it impossible to tell whether the agency is actually doing anything to fix what is broken. Typically, this much blacked out space in the official reports is a bureaucratic signal that problems persist,” Ruch continued.

The reports can be found at the following links:

Iowa, http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/ia/11_6_14_Iowa_report.pdf;

Minnesota, http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/ia/11_6_14_Minn_report.pdf;

North Dakota, http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/ia/11_6_14_North_Dakota_report.pdf;

South Dakota, http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/ia/11_6_14_South_Dakota_report.pdf.