Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News

The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund

Volume 9, Number 4 • July-August 2001

Your Help Is Needed to Strengthen National Wetlands Policies that Affect Your Wetlands

by Ami Grace, Clean Water Network

Wetlands advocates throughout the Great Lakes have been integral in protecting the remaining wetlands in the Basin. Members of the Clean Water Network have worked to reinstate a rule that makes it illegal to drain a wetland under the Clean Water Act. However, a new onslaught of wetlands challenges are currently unfolding in Washington, D.C. that could roll back many of the protections we put in place! Please read on and feel free to contact Ami Grace with the Clean Water Network at 202-289-2421 or cleanwaternt@igc.org to get involved.

Army Corps of Engineers to Review Permits and Relax Restrictions

After Network members worked for three years to develop replacement permits for the harmful Nationwide Permit (NWP) 26, the Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) is proposing to undo many of the restrictions Network members worked so hard to put in place. Every 5 years all NWPs come up for review and reauthorization. Replacement permits for NWP 26 and all other NWPs will be considered for modification in late July.

This year we are expecting a 45-day public comment period. The Clean Water Network will generate an analysis of the proposal and sample comments. If you would like to help with this process, please contact the Clean Water Network at the number above. Through this process we hope to squash the Corps’ proposal to weaken restrictions on the use of NWPs. We will also be working to abolish more of the most destructive permits—namely NWP 21—which allows mining companies to destroy wetlands and streams for surface mining without any acreage limit!

Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for NWP Program

In late July the Corps released their Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the entire Nationwide Permit program. Network members spent time in 1999 telling the Corps what this PEIS should consider. Now we will have an opportunity to comment on the PEIS. Our website will be updated to include sample comments developed by the Clean Water Network. If you would like to help develop these sample comments, please contact the Clean Water Network at the number above. The Corps is conducting this PEIS in order to ensure the NWP program only authorizes activities that have minimal individual and cumulative impacts on the aquatic environment.

Action!

Please visit the Clean Water Network’s “Legislative Action Center” at www.cwn.org for more information.