Conservation groups cheered last week as the New York State Assembly passed legislation on the Clean Water Protection/Flood Prevention Act (A.2048) to expand protection of New York's wetlands by an overwhelming bi-partisan vote. The bill still needs to be passed by the New York State Senate.

"New York State wetlands serve as essential natural filters and water purifiers. They are also our first line of defense against soil erosion and flooding. However, state law has not kept pace with the knowledge regarding the importance of wetlands. This legislation is intended to help bring New York law into the 21st century on this important issue," said NYS Senator Carl L. Marcellino.

Under current state law the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) can only regulate development and other activities that threaten wetlands when the wetlands are included on New York's Freshwater Wetlands Maps. New York law directs DEC to map only those wetlands that are 12.4 acres and larger, or that are determined to be of "unusual local importance." In practice, very few wetlands of "unusual local importance" have been included on the maps.

The new bill would drop the threshold to one acre. Locally there is a reason for wanting the area of concern to be smaller.

Caroline DuBois, longtime environmental activist explained the benefit in terms of the tributaries to the Mill Pond in Oyster Bay. She said, "Pollution runs downhill and anything that happens upstream, for example on 25A, affects the water quality in the harbor and therefore all the little tributaries need protection. For instance, the stream along Mill River Road empties into the Mill Pond. Along the way it flows through many private properties past cesspools, garages with leaking oil, road runoff, and pet waste.

Giving more protection to small waterways decreases the level of pollution in our drinking water as well as the harbor."

The Assembly action proposes to protect wetlands under New York State law that are now unprotected as a result of rollbacks at the federal level. Environmental groups and citizens statewide overwhelmingly support passage of the Clean Water Protection/Flood Prevention Act and call on the Senate to pass S.2081 in 2006.

"Friends of the Bay applaud the New York State Assembly for their prompt consideration and passage of this significant environmental legislation," said Friends of the Bay Executive Director Kyle Rabin. "Now the Senate must take action. As an organization on Long Island, we know how important wetlands are in protecting our drinking water and cleaning up the polluted run-off that threatens our bays and estuaries." Mr. Rabin said there are few areas on Long Island that have wetlands that meet the 12.4 acre minimum and that explains why we have already lost some here. "We see that Long Island is nearly built out. There are very few areas of open space left and that puts more pressure on those remaining freshwater wetlands." Mr. Rabin said, "actually, upstate areas have more freshwater wetlands above one acre than we see on Long Island and so they need more help from their upstate legislators."

Mr. Rabin said Long Island has already reacted to the fact that we are located over our sole source aquifer and therefore "we have no landfills here."

John Williams said, "As mayor of Centre Island, I am very supportive of the proposed legislation that would expand state protection over freshwater wetlands. Our village has had first-hand experience as to the crying need for such legislation. The importance of protecting our remaining wetlands is obvious and the proposed legislation would be of great benefit."

He explained, "Several years ago the state DEC staff routinely issued a developer a permit to build on a small wetland in our village because it was not large enough to appear on their maps. When we called to protest the permit the DEC conducted a site inspection that verified that the area was in every respect a wetland and should not be subject to filling and development but unfortunately, once issued, a permit cannot be revoked."

"As it turned out," Mayor Williams said, "The village passed its own island-wide restrictions to protect existing wetlands that discouraged such activity and the developer appears to have abandoned his project. That shows the importance of protecting our remaining wetlands and that the proposed legislation will be a great help to the DEC and villages like ourselves."

By comparing the state maps with maps produced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) the Sierra Club determined that the USFWS shows 281,216 wetlands in New York, while DEC reports that it regulates 15,625 wetlands. This leaves hundreds of thousands of wetlands in the state subject to federal protection alone. On this score, federal records demonstrate that since the rollback began in 2001 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), the primary federal agency that regulates wetlands, has not applied federal protections to hundreds of New York State's wetlands. Currently DEC gets no warning when ACOE determines that a wetland is not subject to federal regulation.

"New York clearly cannot rely on ACOE to protect important smaller wetlands," said Leila Goldmark, staff attorney for Riverkeeper, Inc. "The New York State Attorney General's Office recently reviewed all wetland permit determinations available from 2001-2004. The AG's Office has stated that fully 45 percent (562) of the applications received were found to be non-jurisdictional by ACOE. Of those, only one application was found that qualified for regulation under state law. All of those wetlands went unregulated and were destroyed."

Last year the Assembly passed A.2048, S.2081 was released from the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee with a nearly unanimous 11 to 1 recommendation but the Senate leadership refused to allow the measure to come to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

"Every year we delay results in additional wetlands going under buildings, malls and parking lots, resulting in increased non-point source pollution, increased flooding and poorer habitat," said Don Riepe, director of the NE chapter of the American Littoral Society. "It's time for the Senate to end the delay and stand with the Assembly and Governor in taking responsibility for protecting our most vital resource."

"Many different bird species across New York depend on freshwater wetlands to nest, breed and feed, and numerous Audubon Important Bird Areas exists because of these freshwater habitats," said Albert E. Caccese, director of conservation and government relations for Audubon New York. "Audubon New York applauds the Assembly and the Governor for taking action to improve protection of these significant resources."

Wetlands perform important functions in natural drainage systems. By capturing and holding water run-off from rainstorms and snow melt, they filter out contaminants and reduce potential for flooding. Water held in wetlands is then released slowly to streams, rivers and groundwater.

In this way, wetlands purify the surface waters that many public water supplies rely on as a source of drinking water and provide steady flows of the cool clean water that fish and other aquatic animals rely on. Due to the critical nature of these functions every other northeastern state regulates activities that threaten wetlands much more comprehensively than New York State's current law allows.

Adding their voices to the appeal were: Brad Sewell, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council; Dereth Glance, program director with Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE); Wally John, legislative vice president of New York State Conservation Council; Robert Moore, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York and John Stouffer, legislative director for Sierra Club - Atlantic Chapter.