Knight Ridder/Tribune
Rex Springston , Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
December 15, 2000
Dec. 14—Virginia took an important step yesterday toward ensuring that the state's wetlands stay wet.
The State Water Control Board proposed regulations to overhaul the way Virginia regulates the draining and filling of wetlands.
The new rules would, for the first time, protect isolated wetlands such as bogs and spring-fed ponds. The rules also would limit the draining of low-lying, often forested areas called nontidal wetlands.
Under the rules, a person who wants to fill or drain wetlands would have to get a state permit. That permit would require, among other things, the creation of other wetlands to compensate for the ones destroyed.
"The goal of this program is to assure that there is no net loss of wetlands," said Kathy R. Frahm, director of legislative affairs for the state Department of Environmental Quality.
In addition, the DEQ and the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries are developing a program to provide grants to landowners who voluntarily create wetlands. Under that program, Virginia agencies would create wetlands on state property such as prison grounds, parks and wildlife-management areas.
If these voluntary programs succeed, Frahm said, more wetlands will be created than destroyed in Virginia.
Gov. Jim Gilmore has pledged to bring about a net gain in wetlands.
Once despised as mosquito-filled hellholes, wetlands such as swamps and bogs now are considered natural treasures that filter pollution from water, absorb waters from floods and provide havens for unusual animals and plants.
Virginia has lost nearly half its wetlands since the 1780s. Those losses probably continue, but scientists say current records are not thorough enough to prove it.
The regulations proposed yesterday would put new and existing wetland protection programs under one umbrella at the DEQ.
The rules would: Regulate the draining of nontidal wetlands. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had regulated draining until a 1998 court decision said the corps could oversee filling but not draining.
The decision meant builders could drain wetlands without a permit, and that meant the builders didn't need to re-create wetlands.
Using a controversial method called "Tulloch ditching," builders legally drained about 2,400 acres of wetlands, mainly in low-lying southeastern Virginia, from June 1998 to September 1999, experts say.
The water board took action in July to start controlling the ditch digging. The new regulations would continue that work. Put Virginia in the business of regulating damage to so-called isolated wetlands — bogs, ponds and other wet areas fed by underground water, not streams. Now, no agency oversees work in these wetlands. Continue existing wetland programs. For example, the DEQ, like the corps, requires a permit for the filling of nontidal wetlands. The DEQ is working to assume sole responsibility.
Damage to tidal wetlands, such as brackish marshes, has been regulated for years under state and federal law.
The rules proposed yesterday will be open for public comment in early 2001. After that, they will go back to the board for final adoption before October.
Concerned about wetland losses, the 2000 General Assembly directed the DEQ to create regulations to protect watery lands that were not regulated under state and federal law.
Legislators approved the program despite opposition from developers who said the rules would impinge on property rights.
The assembly gave the DEQ 10 more staff positions, and $870,000 for two years, to run the expanded program.
Maryland, Pennsylvania and North Carolina already operate their own wetland protection programs.
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© 2000, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
