(C) South Dakota Searchlight
This story was originally published by South Dakota Searchlight and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Trump administration actions will harm South Dakota wetlands • South Dakota Searchlight [1]
['Brad Johnson', 'Travis Entenman', 'Dave Dickey', 'Investigate Midwest', 'More From Author', 'March', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline']
Date: 2025-03-18
Our wetlands, and the birds, animals, fish, insects and plants that call them home, are screaming for help.
The relentless march to destroy these important, vulnerable centers of creation took another step on March 12.
“Given the U.S. Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, it is time for EPA to finally address this issue once and for all in a way that provides American farmers, landowners, businesses, and states with clear and simplified direction,” a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency press release said.
The goal is to narrowly interpret which wetlands receive protection under the 1972 Clean Water Act.
The 2023 Supreme Court action, commonly called the Sackett decision, greatly narrowed which wetlands were protected. But the Obama, first Trump and Biden administrations all defined the protections differently. Now the second Trump administration seeks to take the narrowest approach possible.
The EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have now issued guidance to staff that interprets “waters of the United States” to include “only those adjacent wetlands that have a continuous surface connection” to a navigable waterway.
This leaves most of the isolated wetlands in South Dakota and many other states without federal protection.
The EPA’s press release underscored the primary motives for the narrow interpretation: economics and private property rights.
“Farmers and ranchers are the best stewards of the land and need water regulations that are clear and practical, not burdensome,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in the EPA’s announcement.
If that narrow group, which makes up less than 2% of our population, is the country’s best environmental steward, we are in trouble.
After all, “agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the leading source of water quality impacts on surveyed rivers and streams, the third largest source for lakes, the second largest source of impairments to wetlands, and a major contributor to contamination of surveyed estuaries and ground water,” according to the EPA.
Given their critical role in nature, wetlands deserve better.
“Wetlands provide values that no other ecosystem can,” the EPA website says.
“These include natural water quality improvement, flood protection, shoreline erosion control, opportunities for recreation and aesthetic appreciation and natural products for our use at no cost. Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems in the world.”
Apparently, EPA’s new regime has not had time to scrub these webpages, given that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin plans to cut the budget by 65%.
In the face of the Trump administration’s actions, people need to rethink and defend their relationship to the water supplies that sustain us.
Daily, it seems, another wetland disappears.
“Wetland loss rates have increased by 50 percent over the last decade and continue to disproportionally impact vegetated wetland such as marshes and swamps,” according to the Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous United States 2009 to 2019 report to Congress.
“Approximately 670,000 acres of vegetated wetlands, an area greater than the land extent of Rhode Island, disappeared between 2009 and 2019.”
That’s similar to clearcutting slightly more than half of the Black Hills National Forest.
Wetlands are extremely important to South Dakota, which has an estimated 1.87 million acres of wetland habitats.
“A scientific survey of randomly selected citizens indicates that a majority (86.5%) believe that wetlands are important for a high quality of life. Nearly 82 percent believe that wetlands are important in preserving water quality and that they should be protected,” said a May 2001 report produced by four South Dakota state agencies.
Given their critical role in nature, wetlands deserve better.
The report highlights a long list of benefits.
Wetlands “control the spread of salts into cropland, and trap snow in the winter. Wetland plants including sedges, rushes and marsh grasses provide habitat for invertebrate and vertebrate food sources for birds and other wildlife, and spawning areas for fish. A variety of wildlife including ducks, over 100 fish, 80 bird, 25 mammal, 17 amphibian, and 10 reptile species depend on South Dakota wetlands. They provide the most productive breeding habitat in North America for waterfowl and many other game and non-game wildlife species.”
Wetlands are critical to hunting, fishing, wildlife watching and photography, trapping, and guiding. They also are the primary source of the fathead minnows sold as baitfish.
They provide “a water source for all wildlife and a valuable winter cover for resident wildlife, particularly whitetail deer and pheasants,” the 2001 report said. “Altogether, wetlands are among the most productive natural ecosystems in the world.”
So, why do we treat them with such disdain?
It generally comes down to the fact that wetlands find themselves between people and money. Our eyes are focused on short-term profits instead of the long-term viability of our world.
People will have an opportunity to change that narrative and comment on the EPA’s proposal.
Six listening sessions are planned for late March to April, although dates have not been set. Two are open to all stakeholders, one to states, one to tribes, one to industry and agricultural stakeholders, and one to environmental and conservation stakeholders.
Hopefully the Trump administration will hear a clear message during those sessions: Wetlands are screaming for our help.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2025/03/18/trump-administration-actions-will-harm-south-dakota-wetlands/
Published and (C) by South Dakota Searchlight
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/sdsearchlight/
