Wetland Mitigation: That Swamp Land Is Worth Something

A wetland is classified as any low-lying land that is flooded for at least a portion of a calendar year.  Swamps, bogs, marshes and fens all fall into this category.   An acre of wetland can store up to 1 to 1.5 million gallons of water.  Enviro Girl thinks that’s astonishing–if we would just leave wetlands alone, we’d have no need for retention ponds in most cases.  Wetlands also filter and purify water flowing into streams, lakes, rivers and oceans and they provide habitat for an amazing array of creature and plant life–everything from reptiles to insects, fungi to ferns.  Without wetlands, water sources would be more polluted and flooding becomes a problem.  In short, wetlands provide many services and resources, but they’re under-appreciated.

Years ago, people drained, dredged, filled in and built over millions of acres of wetlands across America.  Wetlands were not valued for their biodiversity or for their role in keeping water systems healthy.  They were seen as cheap property that could become valuable once filled in.  The most famous example of wetland development occurred in central Florida:

Disney knew the importance of getting as much land as possible and was well aware of how prices would escalate if people found out what he was doing…  By the time Disney announced the project on November 15, 1965, the company had acquired 27,443 acres (43 square miles) for $5 million. (This has expanded over the years to more than 30,000 acres, or almost 47 square miles). As Disney predicted, within days of this announcement land values for property surrounding the Disney site sky-rocketed from $180 per acre to as much as $80,000 per acre.

The 1972 federal Clean Water Act changed the scene for wetland development as it included language protecting designated wetland areas and forcing people to avoid building on designated wetland areas.  If it’s impossible to avoid development on a wetland, “Wetland Mitigation” allows for development if an equal or greater amount of wetland elsewhere is restored or enhanced.  “Wetland Credit,” if you will.

Recently Enviro Girl got a very tedious and long letter outlining a wetland mitigation project on property adjacent to her family’s property.  Because of an interstate highway project, 17 acres of wetland will be paved over in order to accommodate traffic through Green Bay, Wisconsin.  This wetland is part of the Duck Creek watershed.  To compensate for the 17 acres of wetland being removed, approximately 60 acres of land adjacent to Duck Creek some 20 miles east of the highway project will become restored wetland.  This means the farmer who owns those fields had to remove all the drain tile and pumps currently moving water off of those 60 acres.  Various federal, state and county dollars will restore the former wetland area, including bringing in fill to create a berm around the designated area and plant it with native species.

One one hand, Enviro Girl is happy because:

*  Triple the amount of wetland being developed will be restored.

* Flooding, which has become a huge problem in recent years, will be reduced in her immediate area–60 acres will retain and filter an awful lot of water that previously got channeled into Duck Creek.

*  Water pollution will be reduced because the drain tile and pumps forced Duck Creek full of water toxic with agricultural pollution run off.

* Wildlife will find more habitat and what was formerly a cornfield will now become a diverse ecosystem, adding beauty and interest to the area.

On the other hand, Enviro Girl knows that wetlands exist in the lowest-lying areas for a reason–all water systems must recycle and replenish themselves and whenever human development messes with water systems, problems occur.  You need look no further than the damage caused by recent hurricane storm surges.  Coastal wetlands absorb the damage and protect inland areas.  The gain of 60 wetland acres in her back yard is great, but who knows what the loss of 17 acres further along the Duck Creek watershed will bring.

While this wetland mitigation project is under way, so is proposed legislation that would weaken wetland protection laws in Wisconsin.  The general argument is that property owners should have more say–if they want to develop property, that should be their right.  The proposed legislation would make it easier for property owners to develop their land as they wish and more easily apply “wetland mitigation” standards to compensate for their development. On one hand, Enviro Girl appreciates people’s desire to profit off of their real estate investments.   On the other hand, if everyone developed land as they pleased, she suspects we’d be surrounded by vacant strip malls, uninhabited housing developments and acres of asphalt pavement because human nature is to make a fast buck, not restore and retain wildlife and habitat for generations.  It’s no coincidence that legislature eroding Smart Growth in her state has also been recently proposed.

Realtors and other proponents of “economic growth” love to undermine efforts to protect land from development.  Yet Enviro Girl can easily point out plenty of available land currently zoned “industrial,” “residential,” and “commercial” that adequately meet the needs of a growing economy without contributing to water pollution or urban sprawl.  Economic development can take place without adding undue stress to our environment, but that often means property owners lose their “right” to do what they want with what they own.  Enviro Girl does not know a simple solution to this problem, but she does understand that everyone’s tax dollars pay to clean up pollution caused by a small percentage of the population who tend to profit the most.  One solution is to reassess property values and create incentives to reduce urban sprawl.  Taking the long view of Wetland Mitigation and Smart Growth legislation in Wisconsin means accounting for the cost of unchecked development and pollution–a cost that everyone ends up paying for.