Muddy Monday

December 23, 2019

Today is the day the NEW Waters of the US Rules go into effect. We thought this would be a good reason to move up our regularly scheduled Wetland Wednesday newsletter. Besides, it is Christmas!

We have been talking about this new rule for some time. There is one major change that may or may not be a typo. It has to do with the definition of a wetland. There are two versions of what a wetland is in the new regulation.

The old and familiar definition is:

“Wetlands means those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency or duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas.”

This definition is found in several sections of the regulation and has been in use since about 1986.

However, today’s regulation also has a new version of this definition that changes the last sentence to:

“Wetlands generally include playa lakes, swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas such as sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, prairie river overflows, mudflats, and natural ponds.”

This is significant as it includes some of the more controversial wetland types.

Both versions of the wetland definition are included in the new regulation. What does this mean?