Wetland Resource Group Meeting March 9 1993

• Description: Meeting materials for the Wetland Rescource Group Meeting held March 9, 1993.
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 3/9/1993
• Author: Colorado DNR
• Title: Resource Group Meeting March 9 1993
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Meeting

the actual classification of any given site should be made
only during a permit review. The criteria from permit to
permit should be consistent, but the factors that will lead to
a particular classification will change as development pat-
ters change and as the state of restoration science changes.
Also, rid =id advanced classification will introduce questions
of property value takings.
Let me conclude by say ing that a nation unable to define
wetlands and with no explicit policy defining the purposes
and intergovemmental responsibility for regulation of the
wetlands which are defined will be hard pressed to devise
creative solutions to wetlands regulation challenges, includ-
ing classification schemes. Indeed, the classification debate
has often been intractable because we have not first come to
gips with the goals and strategies for the regulatory frame-
work. Thinking about reform in market - oriented terms will
allow no net loss to give way to net gain. And the net -gain
,goal within the market- oriented strategy will clarify the
meaning and purpose of classification.
Patricia
Riexinger
n 1984, at the first meet-
ing of the Association of
State Wetland Managers
down in Florida, I got up and
touted the values of classifi-
cation. I'm here today to
conditionally recant that.
Classification means a lot
of different things. When
most people think of wet -
land classification within
the context of the Clean Water Act and wetland permitting,
they're thinking of the H.R. 1330 approach [the Comprehen-
sive Wetlands Conservation and Management Act of 1991,
a bill introduced by U.S. Representative Jimmy Hayes (D-
LA)], which says you look at your nation's wetlands, and put
them into some sort of ranking that says these are very
important. these are medium important, and these are so
unimportant we're not even going to pay attention to them
anymore.
As it turns out. New York's classification system is very
similar to the H.R. 1330 approach. We classify our wetlands
into one of four categories, from Class I, which are the most
important wetlands, down to Class IV, which provide fewer
benefits. The law itself actually requires us to classify wet-
lands according to their "best use." Instead, the regulations
took the functions and values identified in the law and
translated them into measurable characteristics _that rank
wetlands into categories.
Our statewide classification is based on specific site char-
acteristics that can be gathered remotely, from aerial photos
or other records. In fact. very few of the wetlands that we
have classified in the state have actually been visited by a
biologist. As a result, many of the classifications are inaccu-
rate. Unfortunately. I also think the classification system
itself is built on certain presumptions and pretenses. For
example, a Class II wetland is one that is a cattail marsh in
which purple loosestrife constitutes less than two- thirds of
the cover type. Purple loosestrife happens to be pretty good
at water quality improvement and people love it; it's just not
great duck habitat. But why marsh anyway? Why do we like
marshes better than swamps? From a duck's point of view?
Which ducks? Mallards versus black ducks? Black ducks
have probably lost more habitat than mallards. Mallards will
nest next to swimming pools down on Long Island.
Classification also, to some degree, forces some false
distinctions. If you have ranking, you have to have some sort
of relative ranking of functions. One of those functions is
flood protection. Under our classification system, you have
a Class I wetland if you are in a heavily developed area and
the wetland is providing flood protection. If you are in a
lightly developed area, your wetland is Class II. Those
people living in the lightly developed area are not going to
be happy with the thought that they are less important. If it
is providing flood protection, that is an absolute value.
New York State has a jurisdictional cutoff of 12.4 acres:
wetlands over 12.E acres in size are protected; wetlands
smaller than 12.4 acres are not protected. There is a clause,
however, that says smaller wetlands of unusual local impor-
tance can be added to the maps and protected. According to
the regulations, if a smaller wetland has any Class I charac-
teristics, it can automatically get added to the map, and
we've added a handful of these smaller wetlands to the map
using classification.
However, when our biologists go out in the field with the
landowner to delineate the boundary for them, they start
talking with them. irrespective of the classification, asking
"How can you stay out of the wetland, how can you avoid it
altogether ?" "How can you minimize the scope of your
project such that it will not impact on the wetland ?" They
use the same sequencing approach - regardless of the classi-
fication of the wetland. In fact, most of our permit applica-
tions in New York State are not for encroachments of the
wetland, they're for encroachments into the 100 -foot adja-
cent area. And people, for most practices, stay out of the
wetlands.
With that said, I would like to comment on some of the
perceived benefits of classification. Probably the biggest
benefit is that it provides protection commensurate with the
value of the wetland. A wetland that is providing a lot of very
important benefits to society or the environment gets more
protection than those that are providing fewer benefits.
Classification provides some connection to the wetland
function. This is one of best reasons for talking about clas-
sification: it gets us back to the functions and values of
wetlands. The delineation controversy was getting people so
focused on hydrophytes and hydric soils, that people were
forgetting that it is not the cattails or the podasois that we
should be focusing on, it is the flood protection. It is the
habitat. It is the water quality. Classification gets us back to
that. It makes us look at the functions the wetland is provid-
ing within the regulatory scheme.
Classification may increase regulatory efficiency by pro-
viding some framework for decisions. If you have some sort
of management framework that ties in with the regulatory
scheme, then it can be valuable.
Let's look at some of the problems of classification.
Classification becomes a real problem when people look to
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