Wetlands Characteristics and Boundaries (1995) / Chapter Skim
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3 WETLAND DEFINITIONS: HISTORY AND SCIENTIFIC BASIS
3 WETLAND DEFINITIONS: HISTORY AND SCIENTIFIC BASIS
Pages 43-64
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From page 43... ...
Now, however, they are being asked to help interpret regulatory definitions of wetlands. The application of scientific principles to the definition of wetlands and to the determination of wetland boundaries could help stabilize and rationalize the application of regulations, but it does not ensure that any resultant definition will be precise in its ability to distinguish wetlands from all other kinds of ecosystems, or in its ability to specify the exact boundary of a wetland.
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From page 44... ...
This led Congress to pass the Swamp Land Act of 1850, the intent of which was to enable Arkansas, Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin to reclaim the swamplands within their boundaries (9 Stat.
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From page 45... ...
Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 Even as late as 1972, Congress passed major water pollution control legislation without ever using the term "wetland." In the 1972 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA, later retitled the Clean Water Act) , Congress gave USACE and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
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From page 46... ...
§ 407~. This authority was largely ignored, however, until Executive Order 11574 of President Nixon directed the institution of a permit program under the terms of Section 13 of the Refuse Act "to regulate the discharge of pollutants and other refuse matter into the navigable waters of the United States or their tributaries and the placing of such matter upon the banks" (35 Fed.
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From page 47... ...
When the government accepted the new judicial interpretation of the act, USACE and EPA needed for the first time to adopt a regulatory definition of wetland. EVOLUTION OF THE REGULATORY DEFINITIONS Only in the 1950s were scientists beginning to use the term "wetland" as a category that would encompass terms such as bog, swamp, and marsh.
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From page 48... ...
, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Office of Coastal Zone Management, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, as did the Canadian Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy, the Wildlife Management Institute, the Institute of Ecology, the Sport Fishing Institute, the Conservation Foundation, and representatives of state wetland programs (Kusler and Bedford, 1975~. Thus, the new classification system was subject to diverse influences, both organizationally and geographically.
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From page 49... ...
Generally included are inland and coastal shallows, marshes, mudflats, estuaries, swamps, and similar areas in coastal and inland navigable waters. Many such areas serve important purposes relating to fish and wildlife, recreation, and other elements of the general public interest.
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From page 50... ...
For the purpose of this classification system, wetland is defined more specifically as land where the water table is at, near or above the land surface long enough each year to promote the formation of hydric soils and to support the growth of hydrophytes, as long as other environmental conditions are favorable. Permanently flooded lands lying beyond the
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From page 51... ...
Wetlands lacking vegetation and hydric soils can be recognized by the presence of surface water at some time during the year and their location within, or adjacent to, vegetated wetlands or aquatic habitats. 51 There is great similarity between portions of this definition and the one that was adopted a year later by USACE.
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From page 52... ...
Although the legislative history provides little assistance in determining what Congress meant by the new reference to wetlands, that history does illustrate the extent to which Congress understood wetland issues. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, in its report, noted that "the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act exercised comprehensive jurisdiction over the Nation's waters to control pollution to the fullest constitutional extent." Quoting a 1972 Senate report, the new report stated (FWPCA, Legislative History, Vol.
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From page 53... ...
It provided that the governor of a state could administer a dredge-and-fill permit program for navigable waters "other than those waters which are presently used, or are susceptible for use in their natural condition or by reasonable improvement as a means to transport interstate or foreign commerce shoreward to their ordinary high water mark, including all waters which are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide shoreward to their mean high water mark, or mean higher high water mark on the west coast, including wetlands adjacent thereto." This language meant that if EPA approved
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From page 54... ...
at least periodically, the land supports predominantly hydrophytes; (2) the substrate is predominantly undrained hydric soil; and (3)
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From page 55... ...
Second, it embraced the concept of predominance (hydrophytes or undrained hydric soils had to be "predominant" in wetlands)
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From page 56... ...
FSA directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop criteria and lists of hydric soils and hydrophytic vegetation, and defines those terms as follows: "Hydric soil" means soil that, in its undrained condition, is saturated, flooded, or ponded long enough during a growing season to develop an anaerobic condition that supports the growth and regeneration of hydrophytic vegetation.
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From page 57... ...
1985 FSA Definition The FSA definition emphasizes the importance of hydric soil as a critical indicator of wetland status. It implies that wetlands cannot exist without hydric soils.
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From page 58... ...
The special strengths of the 1979 FWS definition include its specific reference to nonsoil environments that can support wetlands and its reference to "systems," a critical concept that should always be coupled to wetland definitions. FLAME OF REFERENCE FOR REGULATORY DEFINITIONS The refinement and analysis of definitions is useful insofar as it focuses attention on the key characteristics of wetlands and on the factors that unify wetlands and separate them from other kinds of ecosystems.
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From page 59... ...
The minimum essential characteristics of a wetland are recurrent, sustained inundation or saturation at or near the surface and the presence of physical, chemical, and biological features reflective of recurrent, sustained inundation or saturation. Common diagnostic features of wetlands are hydric soils and hydrophytic vegetation.
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From page 60... ...
60 ._ I ca _ ~ \ ._ ._ r -I 0 0 O .~ .
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From page 61... ...
The last portion of the definition makes specific reference to the two most pervasive and reliable indicators of wetlands: hydric soils and hydrophytic vegetation. The definition acknowledges that these two indicators are so likely to accompany the presence of a wetland that their absence must be specifically explained in a wetland that lacks them.
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From page 62... ...
The reference definition endorses the use of three factors, but designates the factors more generically than does the USACE definition. It is important that both scientific inquiry and regulatory practice related to wetlands recognize the special status of hydrologic conditions in creating and maintaining wetlands.
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From page 63... ...
The reference definition of wetlands specifies, however, that hydric soil is an indicator, albeit a powerful one, whereas the criterion is somewhat broader because it extends to substrates other than hydric soils. Similarly, hydrophytic vegetation often is called a criterion.
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From page 64... ...
The minimum essential characteristics of a wetland are recurrent, sustained inundation or saturation at or near the surface and the presence of physical, chemical, and biological features reflective of recurrent, sustained inundation or saturation. Common diagnostic features of wetlands are hydric soils and hydrophytic vegetation.
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