Filling of wetlands continues

Sunday, August 30, 2009 9:23 PM

By Spencer Hunt

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

More than 477 acres have been covered since plan stalled in 2006

A state plan to better protect streams and wetlands from development stalled three years ago after business groups complained that it would cost too much to comply.

In the meantime, from 2006 to 2008, more than 477 acres of wetlands and 106 miles of streams were filled in, according to Ohio Environmental Protection Agency records.

"It's become more and more frustrating," said Trent Dougherty, staff attorney for the Ohio Environmental Council. "We're still living under rules that ultimately aren't as protective as these new rules would be."

When developers fill in streams and wetlands to build homes, shopping malls and offices, they must build wetlands and small streams to replace what they destroy.

But studies showed that these replacement streams and wetlands prove to be poor substitutes. That's when the Ohio EPA proposed new rules that would make developers make more exact copies of what they destroyed, down to the species of plants and the frogs, salamanders and insects that live in them.

But developers balked.

"With the severe economic depression we're in, it may not be wise to move boldly ahead with new rules and regulations that would slow development down," said Vincent Squillace, vice president of the Ohio Home Builders Association.

EPA officials say they're working with business and environmental groups on a compromise.

"It takes time to hear everybody, write things down and so forth," explained Linda Oros, an agency spokeswoman.

What does all of this mean to the rest of us?

Small streams are ecologically valuable because they provide habitat for fish and mussels and slow the flow of rain water, which in turn reduces flooding problems.

Wetlands shelter amphibians and insects and act as filters to keep fertilizers and pesticides out of drinking water supplies.

EPA officials used to think that simply replacing wetlands was good enough. But an agency report in 2006 found that half of the wetlands that developers built were either "poor" or "shallow, unvegetated ponds."

All of the wetlands surveyed in the report were in "banks," large pre-built wetlands where developers can buy shares to quickly satisfy their wetland repair and restoration obligations. Such banks are often miles away from the destroyed streams and wetlands they are supposed to replace.

The proposed rules include the kinds of plants necessary for different types wetlands, including skunk cabbage and sedges found in "forest seep" wetlands, and would grade the replacements on the number of animal species that live in them, including insect larvae.

"You're talking about getting back the true cost of the ecological loss," said Anthony Sasson, the Ohio Nature Conservancy's freshwater conservation coordinator.

"We're losing, environmentally, right now."

Jennifer Klein, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce's environmental policy expert, said the new standards would exceed federal rules and are unnecessary.

One recent change to federal standards, enacted in April 2008, lists wetland banks as the federal government's preferred option for developers. That appears to conflict with a provision in the state's proposal that replacement wetlands be built closer to construction sites.

Randy Bournique, supervisor of the agency's wetland permitting program, said there is nothing in federal law that keeps the Ohio EPA from enacting more restrictive, or protective, standards.

He said he's optimistic that a compromise set of rules could emerge in October.

shunt@dispatch.com