Lawmakers seek to limit restrictions on state wetlands
Republicans propose rolling back protections on 1 million acres
Republican lawmakers are pressing ahead with plans to roll back protections for an estimated 1 million acres of wetlands in Wisconsin, sparking the latest battle between business and conservation interests.
Environmentalists say a bill that cleared an Assembly committee last week will imperil water resources, harm wildlife and spawn more flooding.
Supporters say the measure includes safeguards and gives new tools for the property development industry that will help spur more home building and
business expansion.
At issue are landscapes, often called isolated wetlands, which fall under state authority and operate under a regulatory system managed by the Department of Natural Resources that first seeks to avoid any impact.
They include potholes, woodland depressions, shallow marshes and meadows that may only be wet from rain or snowmelt part of the year and are not connected to a navigable body of water.
They pepper the state but are especially dense in a thick band that runs from the southeast to the northwest. Wetlands have had legal protections for years because of their ecological importance.
This was underscored in a study published on Jan. 29 in the journal Nature Geoscience by scientists at the University of Minnesota who analyzed wetlands impacts, including isolated wetlands, on the Minnesota River, a 17,000-square-mile drainage basin.
As one example, the researchers found in a four-year period that wetlands during high stream flows were five times better at reducing nitrates in waterways than conservation practices on the same amount of land. Nitrates come from sources like fertilizer and can harm drinking water supplies and spur the growth of algae.
In all, there are more than 5 million acres of wetlands in Wisconsin, with most of that acreage regulated by the federal government through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Wisconsin is one of only a few states that regulate isolated wetlands. In a bipartisan vote in 2001, Wisconsin became the first state to regulate the parcels after a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The high court said federal clean water laws did not give the Corps the authority over wetlands that did not connect to a stream or river. That raised concerns in Wisconsin that isolated wetlands would lose protections, prompting a broad coalition to push the state to take on oversight.
However, with nearly two decades of experience, Wisconsin’s law needs an overhaul, according to Republicans.
On Thursday, the Assembly Committee on Regulatory Licensing Reform approved the wetlands bill on a party-line vote and Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said the legislation is expected to pass his house this month.
Senate leaders declined to comment on their plans for the legislation. But business interests have been pushing for looser wetlands regulations for years and have framed the issue as an effort to remove barriers and allow more development of land that now must usually be avoided.
At a legislative hearing in December, developers, home builders and business owners described situations where small wetlands have forced them to limit their use of their land.
“We have all heard these stories from job creators and homeowners,” Rep. Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna), the Assembly majority leader and one of the chief sponsors of the bill, said during the six-hour legislative hearing.
At the hearing, Howard Kamerer, president of WOW Logistics, an Appleton-area company that has erected buildings across the state, likened the current law to “pushing on a balloon” because it forces companies to avoid small wetlands and look elsewhere, rather than getting embroiled in a bureaucratic process and trying to build there. Such decisions can push development farther out of a community and exacerbate sprawl, he said.
“What we do is build that new industrial park right in the middle of someone’s farmland and pay them the money so we don’t have to deal with the DNR and we don’t have to deal with the regulatory burden,” Kamerer said.
In October, when the legislation was introduced, the measure took away DNR authority to assess the ecological impact of isolated wetlands before they could be filled and land developed.
That measure was roundly attacked by environmentalists and sporting groups, and last week, Republicans limited the scope of the bill and tailored looser restrictions for wetlands in urban areas where development pressure is growing and creating hardships for those who want to commercialize land.
One change would exempt 1 acre or less of wetlands in areas defined as urban if rare or high-quality wetlands aren’t impacted. For each project, the land would not have to be mitigated, meaning wetlands would not have to be created elsewhere.
Another change would allow the filling of up to 3 acres of wetlands if the land was to be used for farming purposes, and the first 1.5 acres would not have to be mitigated.
Conservation groups oppose the revised version. Ducks Unlimited, for example, says wildlife will be exposed to more loss of habitat.
The Wisconsin Wetlands Association predicted more flooding problems as an outcome.
“Wetlands are the great managers of water that flow across our landscape,” said Tracy Hames, executive director of the association.
His group estimates potentially hundreds of thousands of acres could be affected because of the bill’s definition of an urban area. A community with less than 100 people could qualify and a builder could destroy up to 1 acre of wetlands as far as one mile outside of town.
In the first version of the bill, “they were going to shoot your father, your mother and your dog,” Hames said. “Now they are only going to shoot your mother. Is that any better?”