Swamp Stomp

Volume 15, Issue 3

For years, Massachusetts has actively attempted to prevent the destruction of swamps, marshes, seasonal ponds, and other wetlands. These areas protect numerous threatened species, filter pollution, and control floodwaters. This policy began three decades ago when developers became required by law to replace almost every square foot of wetlands destroyed in the process of building houses, parking lots, and shopping malls.

Today, however, according to an examination by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, the state’s landscape is littered with examples of the policy’s failure. Many of the areas created as replacement wetlands are now dry land, filled with invasive species, or much smaller than intended. Others, built near roads and sidewalks, degraded from pesticide control or foot traffic. Furthermore, due to a lack of vigor in carrying out the policy, some developers never even fulfilled their promises to replace the wetlands they destroyed.

The rate of wetland construction failure is not amiss to specialists, some of whom have joked that the best way to identify sites is to spot abandoned shopping carts and old tires. Matt Schweisberg, head of Wetland Strategies and Solutions, an environmental consultant firm in Merrimac, and former chief of the New England wetlands protection program for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, when asked if replacement wetlands match the ecological function of the areas destroyed, asserted, “It’s almost a blanket assumption that they don’t work.”

According to the preliminary results of a University of Massachusetts Amherst study, only 51 of the 91 wetland projects that researchers were given permission to access were successfully built—and some of these were much smaller than originally planned. In 28 cases, the developer attempted to build the wetland unsuccessfully, and in 12 cases, the wetland was never built at all.

These numbers reflect a string of long-running problems plaguing the state wetlands program, including: an administration that is ill-equipped to enforce the law and monitor sites, state budget crunches that have delayed some long-planned improvements, and challenges in building wetlands in areas that have always been dry.

The policy’s failure up to this point has led many regulators to rethink the policy all together. Now that the economy has begun to improve, large tracts of affordable dry real estate have become hard to find. An alternative that is under consideration is that instead of replacing the wetlands destroyed in construction, developers would have to contribute to a fund that would be used to create larger, more meaningful wetlands elsewhere.

A decision is expected soon due to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to allow developers to contribute to a fund used to build and preserve existing wetlands. Therefore, unless Massachusetts changes its policy, then its regulations would conflict with federal policy.

Municipal officials are worried, however, that a move away from the current policy would do little to benefit the communities that have lost their wetlands to construction. Furthermore, developers are concerned that the required contributions to the federal fund would prove too expensive.

Michele Restino, conservation agent for the city of Taunton, claimed, “The replication areas need to be next to what is destroyed. If it goes to Boston (or elsewhere), how does it do any good here?”

The director of the wetlands and waterways program at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Lealdon Langley, however, thinks that the current policy approaches wetland preservation in the wrong way.  He asserted, “There are plenty of places where things can go wrong. We think it’s important to put emphasis on avoidance, and then reconstruction. We want to keep wetlands intact.”

Massachusetts’ “no net loss” policy for wetlands may be one of the stricter state policy’s regarding wetland preservation, but many of its shortcomings are applicable to a number of states. Appropriate funding and maintenance, as well as finding a location that can support all the complexities of wetland replication, must be available when constructing new wetlands. Furthermore, efforts must be made to preserve natural wetlands to ensure environments don’t lose the benefits wetlands provide. The new federal policy allows for greater attention and care to be given to larger wetland systems, however, it could also mean the extinction of wetlands from some environments entirely. A middle ground must be found to ensure wetland loss does not become a major problem in certain areas, and that also provides funds for the preservation and maintenance of all wetland systems.