"…It became much harder last year to protect wetlands in the United States. In Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Supreme Court held that wetlands without a "continuous surface connection" to "waters of the U.S." — a term whose definition changes according to political whim — aren't covered under the provisions of the Clean Water Act.
The decision was a gift to developers, significantly weakening the power of the Clean Water Act and putting at least half of all U.S. wetlands at risk. The Natural Resources Defense Council called it "the most important water-related Supreme Court decision in a generation." In a concurring opinion, even Justice Brett Kavanaugh recognized its likely impact — to human beings, if not to wildlife. The decision, he wrote, would have "significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States."
In addition to gutting the Clean Water Act, the decision highlights one of the greatest flaws in how this country has traditionally treated wetlands. For too long, we have considered them one of two things: waterways with a clear commercial use that therefore deserve protection, or hindrances to development that can be dredged or filled and paved over to build another highway or another hotel or — thank you, Joni Mitchell — another parking lot. If ever we have needed a World Wetlands Day, it is now.
As the rain fell last week, I kept thinking of the children. Not just because they will inherit what's left of the world we have protected so poorly but also because they seem to understand what we still do not: that we are animals like any other, enmeshed with the wild world.
Called to water."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/opinion/wetlands-mining-ecosystem.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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