Letters

Just before Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer and the beginning of another busy beach season, the Supreme Court of the United States dealt a devastating blow to the Clean Water Act and the future of our nation’s wetlands.

In Sackett v. EPA, the Supreme Court not only ruled in favor of the landowner’s property development rights but also ruled on a new standard for what constitutes a federally protected wetland under the Clean Water Act. Specifically, under the new ruling, wetlands that do not have a continuous surface connection with navigable waterways are no longer federally protected.

Wetlands throughout the Peconics and south estuaries are absolutely critical to the health of these ecosystems. Along our shorelines, wetlands trap sediment and pollutants, buffer against wave action, sequester carbon, and provide critical habitat for both aquatic and terrestrial organisms.

Tidal and freshwater wetlands throughout Long Island and beyond already face a perilous future and, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, over 60 percent of New York State’s wetlands have already been lost. Decades of filling in shoreline properties to build houses (now being raised higher in the face of rising seas), dredging of wetlands to make navigable canals, mosquito ditching and shoreline hardening have wreaked havoc on the natural coastal processes that allow these ecosystems to adapt and thrive over time. Climate change further threatens these ecosystems, as much of our developed shoreline offers few areas for landward retreat in the face of rising sea levels.

So, what now? While we work to strengthen and restore CWA protections in the face of this erroneous ruling, we must also call on the State of New York and our local municipalities to pull out all the stops in strengthening and upholding their own wetland protection laws. With the weakening of the federal backbone, this is imperative.

I invite the reader to turn to the Legal Notices portion of your local newspaper to get an idea of just how many wetland variances are being sought locally to develop just a little closer to where we never should be in the first place.

Peconic Baykeeper asks us all to do better to protect and restore our wetlands for the immense value that they provide. The future of our bays, creeks and ponds depends on it.

Pete Topping

Baykeeper and Executive Director

Peconic Baykeeper

Hampton Bays