The Clean Water Act (CWA) Of 1972

While wetland loss is happening globally, the destruction is most severe in the forty-eight conterminous United States where almost half of the wetlands were lost by the middle of the 1980’s. Over the past thirty years “the wetlands have been recognized as complex, diverse ecosystems whose functions provide an incredible range of beneficial functions and services within the landscape” (BenDor et al. 342). Areas where wetlands were once located were considered wastelands and little was done to protect or preserve these areas. These important ecological areas have been lost in the last two centuries due to industrialization and urbanization. In this paper, I want to explore the threats our wetlands are facing and examine if enough is being done

Section 404 of the CWA requires industries such as construction or agriculture to obtain permits from the Army Corp of Engineers or an authorized state before dumping waste from an identifiable source like a pipe, ditch or factory. While the Clean Water Act has done much to improve the health and quality of our waterways, the Act only protects surface water and does not protect groundwater from contamination. Also, the wording of the Clean Water Act has been challenged in several lawsuits, and the Supreme Court has ruled the EPA has no jurisdiction over wetlands that are not bordered by bodies of water that are wide and deep enough for ships to pass through. This could be disastrous for inland wetlands like the Prairie Potholes of the Upper Midwest (located in Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana and four Canadian provinces) which are home to more than half the migratory waterfowl in the United States. In addition, the potholes absorb and hold excess water, which reduces the risk of downstream flooding, they provide grass for livestock and recharge the groundwater which supplies water to wells and farmlands in the area. Sixty-four million acres (about the size of Colorado) of the Prairie Potholes are in the United States and are spread among the

One such program is called the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), which expired in 2014. The program was authorized by Congress in the 1990 Farm Bill and started as a pilot program in 1992 and went nationwide in 1995. From 1992 to 2014, the USDA enrolled 2.3 million acres of wetlands and habitats. The WRP program was successful in saving wetlands, habitats and fisheries. The program lives on under the 2014 Agricultural Act and is known as Wetland Reserve Easement (WRE). Under this program private landowners who voluntarily enroll their land in the program will have 50% to 100% of the easement value and cost to restore the wetlands paid by the USDA, depending on the type of easement. Through no fault of the USDA, recent high prices in crops used for biofuel have encouraged farmers to return wetlands to agricultural lands, once again putting Prairie Potholes at risk. The government has a policy regarding wetlands preservation called “No Net Loss,” which was adopted in 1989 under the George H.W. Bush administration. which is to offset the loss or destruction of wetlands caused by urbanization and industrialization. The government tries to achieve this by restoring, replacing and reconstructing these areas. The problem is that not all of the wetlands have been restored or replaced. Oftentimes these efforts are never completed