Is a bog a wetland? Look at one from a distance and you might not be certain. The surface is either flat or hummocky, and there are usually no puddles to be seen. Low shrubs and scattered tamarack and black spruce trees cover much of the ground. From a distance a bog can look as dry as a suburban lawn.
Or is it? A bill–HR 1330–recently introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by two congressmen from Louisiana says that even if you sink up to your chin in the icy waters of a bog, it is still not a wetland. Why not? Because if you toss a pebble into a bog, it won’t splash when it lands. The splash test, as people are calling it, requires that wetlands be submerged, inundated for three weeks or longer during the growing season. Saturation, even continuous saturation, would not be enough. Defenders of wetlands are not happy with this bill, and they are equally unhappy with persistent rumors that the Bush administration is rewriting the wetlands manual to incorporate the splash test even if Congress doesn’t pass HR 1330.
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HR 1330 would also set up a system for classifying wetlands as high, medium, or low quality. Low-quality wetlands would be stripped of protection. Medium-quality wetlands would be protected as long as nobody was really serious about destroying them. High-quality wetlands would enjoy a greater degree of protection, but the kicker here is that the federal government would be required to make an immediate offer to buy the land from the owners. This presumably would enable us to dispose of all the excess cash that’s lying around Washington these days.
Sources within the EPA are now saying that John Sununu’s people are the ones rewriting the manual and that a political definition of wetlands will be substituted for the existing scientific definition. When EPA head William Reilly visited Chicago last week, he was asked about the manual; he responded by changing the subject as quickly as possible. In his campaign George Bush said he would be the environmental president and pledged that there would be no net loss of wetlands while he was in office. Of course, Bush’s campaign promises are not something you could take to the bank, and his solicitude for the oil industry is well-known, so wetland advocates are not optimistic. Rewriting the definition would allow the president to say he was keeping his promise: all those millions of acres that used to be wetlands are not wetlands anymore, so we don’t need to worry about protecting them.
