Army Corps proposes easing Gulf wetlands rule

Proposal is fluid, Corps official says
The Corps’ Steele said the acreage issue is one that could well be changed as a result of public comment during the 30-day period. “If people suggest maybe an acre might be more environmentally friendly and that’s a consistent comment that we receive then we’ll take that into consideration and we’ll probably revise it down to an acre,” he said.

The environmentalists’ concern that the new permit rules would eliminate a public notification and comment process when such wetlands are to be filled is well-founded, Steele said. “There would not be any notice for these general permits," he said. “There’s no notification process.”

“The loss of public participation was the red flag for everybody,” Page said. “That’s the only way we can do anything.”

Without knowing what wetlands are being filled, the environmentalists say, they can’t monitor and challenge the permits and make sure that only true “low-quality” areas will be affected. “Did you ever meet a developer that thought something was high-quality wetlands?” Wiygul asked rhetorically.

Steele said the new process would still call on the Corps to “verify” a developer’s own assessment of wetlands quality, known as a “delineation,” usually performed by environmental consultants that the Corps has had a hand in training. “If we don’t consider it a low-quality wetland, it would go through the standard individual process,” he said.

One such consultant, Patrick Chubb of Biloxi, Miss., who performs about a hundred delineations and related studies a year, doubted that the Corps would give very close scrutiny to many of the applications processed under the new rules. Currently, at the half-acre limit, “they always have the opportunity (to review the delineation) if they choose to. Most of the time, I would say they don’t.”

Chubb was among a number of sources who had not heard about the proposal until contacted by MSNBC.com. Federal and state officials outside the Corps were notified of the plan by letter, according to the proposal itself. But Steele said other parties would only have been informed only if they had signed up in advance for e-mail alerts or happened to click on link to “Public Notices” on the Corps’ Mobile district Web site.

Chubb said he was surprised he had not heard of the plan because he deals frequently with Corps officials and prides himself on staying abreast of all such issues. Reed also was surprised to first learn of the proposal from MSNBC.com, especially since she sits on an environmental advisory board to the Corps. Her fellow board member, Kenneth Babcock of Ducks Unlimited, also had not seen the Corps proposal until it was e-mailed to him, but he said the panel has a national focus and the Mississippi proposal appeared to be “more regional in nature” and appeared to adequately balance environmental concerns with economic ones.

News to congressman's staff
Nor had Lagarde of Rep. Taylor’s staff seen the proposal until contacted by MSNBC.com. He said he planned to look into it immediately. “I’m not sure where this originated but I suspect it has something to do with all the condos that want to come to town, all the golf courses that want to come to town,” he said.

Lauren Thompson of the state’s Department of Marine Resources said her agency was in the middle of reviewing the proposal and would comment on it during the review period.

But the Corps plan “is such a significant proposal and it’s so unprecedented that they need to give the public additional time,” said Jeff Grimes of the Gulf Restoration Network, who said his group would ask the Corps to extend the comment period another 30 days.

In the meantime, the Sierra Club, Evans’ group and others are rallying their troops to bombard the Corps with feedback against the proposal.

The notion that wetlands, even low quality wetlands, need to be filled to provide new housing is “a false choice, it’s not real,” Evans said. “It’s because it’s cheaper. It’s cheaper for the developers to get a couple hundred acres of wooded wetlands, fill it in, throw up some housing, throw up some new Wal-Mart, whatever, it’s just more expedient to them ... than doing the more sustainable recovery approach, which is to do redevelopment in the downtown areas.”

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