Army Corps proposes easing Gulf wetlands rule

Mike Stuckey Senior news editor • Profile • E-mail

Federal wetlands regulators have dropped a bombshell on environmentalists with a little-publicized proposal to relax restrictions on filling in certain wetlands along the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast to speed recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

“It’s unethical, illegal, immoral, unsustainable and they’re simply doing it to make the fat cats richer faster,” said Derrick Evans, executive director of a Gulfport, Miss., community group that plans to fight the proposal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps’ proposal would allow property owners and developers to skirt the conventional "regional general permit" process for any projects that fill up to 5 acres of “low-quality” wetlands in the six southernmost Mississippi counties. Especially galling to environmentalists: The new process would also eliminate the requirement for public notice of such projects.

Vital to ecosystems for their role in filtering runoff, controlling floods and decreasing erosion, wetlands are a hot topic all along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. Not only was the flooding from Hurricane Katrina exacerbated by the extensive loss of marshes and bogs to centuries of development in the region, the storm claimed thousands of acres of remaining wetlands.

Last year's deadly hurricane also destroyed 70,000 homes and tens of thousands of other buildings in Mississippi. A desire to streamline the rebuilding process in the wake of Katrina is behind the proposed change in wetlands rules, said Jason Steele of the Corps' Mobile, Ala., office.

"At this point, the housing demands are pretty great, so this is just a way to help out with that situation," said Steele, noting that the proposal "in all likelihood will change dramatically" after the current 30-day period for public comment closes.

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Steele said the post-Katrina workload on his short-staffed office has been intense, with just four project managers available to oversee work in the six Mississippi counties: Hancock, Harrison and Jackson, which abut the Gulf of Mexico; and Pearl River, Stone and George to the north. The Corps is also grappling with a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that muddied the federal agency's authority in regulating virtually all of the nation's wetlands, a sweeping power it had claimed under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The current permit process to fill wetlands is supposed to take 120 days or less, Steele said, but is dragging out to as long as eight months. "We understand that in the very near future, developers will be coming in greater numbers," he said.

The change in procedure would allow property owners to decide on their own that any wetlands in planned developments are 5 acres or less and of "low quality," and proceed quickly to the building phase. The proposal covers virtually all land uses from houses to shopping centers. Tidal wetlands, historic sites and any known habitat of endangered or threatened species are excluded.

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