The Bush administration has announced that for the first time in more than half a century there has been a net increase in wetland acreage in the United States. According to officials at the Department of Interior, there were 107.7 million acres of wetlands in the United States at the end of 2004. This was a net gain of more than 191,000 acres of wetlands since the department's previous survey in 1998. This is the first time since the department began collecting data on wetlands in 1954 that there has been a report of an acreage increase.
But the Bush administration is guilty of Orwellian doublespeak. Since 1998 there has actually been a net loss of more than 523,000 acres of swamps and tidal marshes. The reported gains in wetlands have resulted from an addition of more than 715,000 acres of shallow water ponds.
There are two main sources for these shallow water ponds. One is ornamental, man-made ponds constructed around housing developments and as water hazards on golf courses. Due to nearby development, most of these ponds are of no value to nesting birds. The second major increase in wetlands was due to mining-site ponds. In many areas sand and clay are strip-mined for construction projects. What is left are long narrow holes in the ground that collect rainwater. These new ponds are in fact “wet deserts” that do not support life of any kind, yet they are counted as wetlands in the Interior Department surveys.
The latest survey by the Interior Department completed in 2004 also does not include an estimated loss of nearly 65,000 acres of coastal wetlands along the Gulf Coast due to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
Bush Deceives Voters on Wetlands Protection
In regular photo ops President Bush tells the public that he wants to set aside an additional 3 million acres of wetlands for protection over the next five years.
But he is doing precisely the reverse.
Environmental groups have shown that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are routinely permitting the draining of isolated wetlands that are not connected to oceans or navigable rivers.
EPA estimates that up to 20 million acres of wetlands are likely to lose protection under the new policy.
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