In the Year�2000, �the US Army Corps of Engineers announced new, stricter regulations that will make it harder for developers to keep destroying this nation�s wetlands. The rules require developers to secure a permit from the Corps for projects affecting a half-acre of wetlands or more, down from the prior minimum notification�for three acres. This change could make a big difference. Wetlands have been disappearing at a rate of about 70,000 to 100,000 acres a year, many of them lost to development on small parcels.

Even though more than 80 percent of U.S. voters, support wetlands protection, over 100,000 acres of wetlands are still being destroyed needlessly every year.

The National Audubon Society, with the Clean Water Network, commissioned a public opinion poll on wetlands in early 1998 on the issue of wetlands. Results show increasing understanding of the importance of wetlands on the part of the voting public. Fully 82 percent of the 1,000 randomly selected registered voters said it is important to protect wetlands.

Habitat values now outpace all other values as voters� most important reason to protect wetlands. Voters understand that wetlands are unique and irreplaceable natural habitats that cannot necessarily be created or moved. This poll revealed a growing awareness that is essential to our efforts to educate voters on wetlands protection and restoration. Indeed, focus group participants asked for more education, with a local emphasis, saying this could make wetlands more important to themselves and others.

Poll results - wetlands importance

• 82% of those polled say protecting wetlands is important to them (86% of men and 79% of women);
• voters believe wildlife habitat and clean water are the most important reasons to protect wetlands
• voters agree with these statements:

85% - "wetlands provide unique natural habitat for hundreds of species of waterfowl, fish, plants and animals;"

83% - "wetlands provide unique natural habitat for hundreds of species of birds, fish, plants and animals;"

73% - "wetlands provide clean water by trapping and filtering water pollution and sediment;"

62% -"wetlands are like sponges which can store water and help prevent flooding."

Among the most important ecosystems on Earth, the wet ecosystems of bogs, freshwater marshes, prairie potholes, forested swamps, and salt-water estuaries provide critical nesting, rearing, feeding, and stop-over habitat for bird and other wildlife populations in watersheds across the nation. Wetlands are essential to estuary, river, and watershed health, trapping sediments and cleaning polluted waters, preventing floods, recharging groundwater aquifers, and protecting shorelines. Wetland health is intimately tied to human health.

Wetlands began disappearing soon after permanent European colonization of the United States. More than half of the 215 million acres of wetlands that existed at the time of settlement have been destroyed. Only 100 million acres remain today. New York State has lost 60% of its wetlands since Colonial times.� Throughout much of our nation�s history, wetlands were viewed as obstacles to development that should be eliminated. Federal laws provided incentives for draining and destroying wetlands. Only in the last twenty-five years have public and government understanding of the importance of wetlands grown enough to begin to change some incentives to protecting and restoring wetlands.

Still, despite their now well-understood importance to ecosystem health, wildlife, families and communities, wetlands continue to be destroyed at an alarming rate, over 100,000 acres per year in watersheds across the country. As wetlands are destroyed, so too are vital natural habitats for many species of songbirds, frogs, fish and other birds and wildlife. As these species and their insect-based food chain disappear, whole ecosystems are disrupted. These changes impoverish our lives and our children�s future.

What�s a wetland, anyway?

�"Wetland" is a generic term for all the different kinds of wet habitats where the land is wet for some period of time each year but not necessarily permanently wet. Many wetlands occur in areas where surface water collects or where underground water discharges to the surface, making the area wet for extended periods of time. Other wetlands occur along our coasts, such as salt marshes, and are created by the tide. The federal Clean Water Act defines wetlands as "areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas."

Some common wetlands you might recognize include Swamps, unlike marshes, are dominated by woody shrubs and trees, some with hardwoods such as red maple and ashes and others with softwoods like cedar and spruce. In hardwood swamps, a variety of shrubs and plants, such as skunk cabbage, grow beneath the forest canopy. Shrub swamps are dominated by willows, alders, shrubby dogwoods, and buttonbush. Some shrub swamps are permanent, while others slowly transform themselves into true forested swamps.� The Klydel Wetland in North Tonawanda is contains water-loving maple trees, i.e., silver maple, water-;loving oak trees, i.e., pin oaks and swamp while oaks, and other species adapted to wetlands, i.e., green ash.

The Klydel Wetland also contains Vernal pools, which are, literally, spring pools that tend to fill up in spring and dry up in summer. The important point is that biological activity peaks in spring. In general, vernal pools are small, temporary, and "isolated" from other wetlands, streams, or other water bodies. They provide essential breeding habitat for certain animals, such as�invertebrates and some species of amphibians. While not all vernal pools dry up completely, the essential ingredient is that the pond has no fish.

Habitat for birds and other wildlife. Up to one-half of North American bird species nest, feed, or rest in wetlands. As our wetlands have been destroyed, bird populations have slowly declined. In the last fifteen years alone, for example, the continental duck breeding population fell from 45 million to 31 million birds, a decline of 31 percent. Between 1978 and 1987, seventy-five percent of forest-dwelling neotropical migrants, many of which rely on coastal wetland habitats during their arduous migrations, declined in numbers.� Nearly half of all federally threatened and endangered species rely on wetlands. A majority of fish and many species of amphibians, insects and plants are wetland dependent.

Clean water. Wetlands are vital to cleansing the nation�s water, trapping sediment and capturing nutrients from waters that flow through them. Wetlands save communities millions every year that otherwise would be spent on drinking water treatment plants. For example, if the wetlands of the Congaree bottomland hardwood swamp in south Carolina were destroyed, the cost to the community to install a water treatment plant would be $5 million.

Flood prevention. By soaking up and storing storm water, wetlands help prevent flooding, and this saves families and communities from tragedy and great expense. In a 1983 study, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that protecting wetlands along the Charles river near Boston resulted in annual savings of $17 million in flood damage prevented.

Tourism. In 1991, more than 24 million Americans reported they traveled to watch birds. Bird watching and hunting now generate over $19 billion and 220,000 jobs annually. In 1985, five birding festivals were held in the U.S., and 1997 more than 60. In Grand Island, Nebraska, the annual Sand Hill Crane festival brings in tourists who give a $40 million boost to the economy.

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