LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Michigan officials are confident the state can continue to protect its wetlands, despite concerns raised by environmental activists following a Supreme Court ruling that could roll back federal safeguards.
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In Sackett vs. EPA, a 5-4 decision concluded that wetlands could only be protected by the Clean Water Act “if they have a continuous surface connection with a larger body of water.”
“By narrowing the Act’s coverage of wetlands to only adjoining wetlands, the Court’s new test will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the decision. “The scientific evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that wetlands separated from covered waters by those kinds of berms of barriers [artificial barriers such as dikes and levees], for example, still play an important role in protecting neighboring and downstream waters, including by filtering pollutants, storing water, and providing flood control.”
Kavanaugh added that, although he disagreed with the new test for defining wetlands, he agreed with the Court’s decision that the EPA overstepped its bounds when it prohibited a landowner from building his home on supposedly protected land.
The Court’s new, narrower interpretation would allow development projects to move forward without permits that would have triggered a federal review. Michigan is one of only a handful of states that conducts its own wetlands program, and officials at the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) say their protections will stand.
“It’s not a lot of change for us. It’s actually status quo,” Anne Garwood, of EGLE’s Water Resources Division, told News 8. “I would say the only thing is there is confusion out there now. A lot of property owners, even developers and farmers, a lot of people are a little bit confused because there has been so much publicity about the SCOTUS decision.”
Meanwhile, the federal ruling remains under review by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers.
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