A Murky Ruling Threatens the Fate of Millions of US Wetlands

Abstract

For decades, federal protections were extended to wetlands adjacent to “waters of the US” by the Clean Water Act. In its Sackett v. EPA ruling, however, the US Supreme Court redefined the meaning of “adjacent,” eliminating protections to wetlands without a continuous surface connection to these waters (i.e., geographically isolated wetlands, GIWs). Yet it remains unclear how this continuous surface test will work in reality, where ecological connectivity often extends beyond physical connectivity. Here, we calculate the number of US wetlands that could be considered geographically isolated depending upon the distance threshold used to define isolation (ranging from 1 m to 100 m from the nearest hydrological feature). Overall, we estimate that 27–45% of wetlands, at minimum, could be considered geographically isolated using this range of distance thresholds. Over 3 million wetlands are within 1–100 m of the nearest hydrological feature, making them most vulnerable to losing prior protections from the Clean Water Act. The Midwest and Northeast have the largest share of potential GIWs within this range. Freshwater emergent wetlands and forested/shrub wetlands make up the majority of these vulnerable wetlands, though this varies by state. Roughly 47% of these wetlands are located in states without state-level protections for GIWs. Our analysis highlights the heterogeneity of risk to wetlands across the country and the scale of the uncertainty imposed by the updated Sackett definition. State-level protections that are robust to changes in federal protections are urgently needed to secure the country’s wetlands from further pollution and destruction.