Army Corps proposes easing Gulf wetlands rule

Lawmaker ‘absolutely shocked’
"I was absolutely shocked," said state Rep. Frances Fredericks of Gulfport, who said she learned about the proposal after an Oct. 12 meeting between environmentalists and Corps officials.

"We've just had the worst disaster this country has ever had," she said. "People are taking advantage of that to come in and get permits, pushing and pushing to get permits all in the name of recovery to do things they wanted to do for a long time."

The meeting was sought by Evans' group, Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, the Sierra Club, elected officials and others to complain about what they saw as lax or non-existent enforcement of wetlands regulations in the crush of post-Katrina rebuilding.

"Basically, at this meeting, they tell us they have no ability to do enforcement," said Howard Page, the Sierra Club's regional conservation chairman and a member of the club's state board. Instead, he said, they were told of the proposal to lessen wetlands regulation.

“Everyone kind of all at once dropped their jaw and looked at it,” Page said. “The proposed change would codify the lack of enforcement.”

Gulfport attorney Robert Wiygul, who has represented numerous environmental groups and was at the meeting, said he also was shocked: “This thing is crazy.”

Area builders don’t think so. Although he had not yet seen the Corps proposal, Don Halle, the newly elected vice president of the Home Builders Association of the Gulf Coast, said, “If they would do that, it would certainly help out in a large way. Virtually everything where we’re located could be deemed wetlands the way they do it.”

Several questions
But Evans, Page, Wiygul and a number of other environmentalists and wetlands experts contacted by MSNBC.com questioned the Corps proposal on several grounds.

“Five acres is quite a lot,” said Dr. Denise Reed, a University of New Orleans geologist who specializes in wetlands. “Five acres doesn’t sound like a lot but we know from other areas of the coast that multiple small impacts like this cumulatively can be very damaging.”

The jump in size from a half-acre to five also caught the attention of Chris Lagarde, a biologist who handles environmental issues for Congressman Gene Taylor, a Democrat whose district includes his hometown of Bay St. Louis. “When they permit 5 acres at a time they always say there’s no going to be any impact, but when you put 10 of them together, you’ve impacted 50 acres,” he said.

Evans said his group’s chief concern when it comes to filling in wetlands is the potential for flooding. “People died unnecessarily in my watershed because of the Corps’ previous willingness to develop housing in places where housing does not belong," he said. “Floodwaters that instead would have been dispersed ended up in my mother’s living room, 4 miles from the beach.”

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