News - December   2002 

Everglades Village News

Daytona Beach News Environment   |   Sun-Sentinel:  Everglades Site   |    Commons-Everglades Discussion    |   Sun-Sentinel Everglades Discussion   |   SFWMD News Releases

Environment News Service                      
Environmental News Network                    

  News

31-December-02

Environment: New Federal Wetlands Plan Looks at Watershed-Wide Impact

Wetlands "action plan" includes several 
new guidance documents by 2005
(photo Credit:Environmental Protection Agency)

Federal officials have revised the guidance for determining what sort of mitigation is required when construction results in a loss of wetlands. A key element of the new Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers directive to their field staffers, announced Dec. 27, is to consider the impact of wetlands loss on a broader, watershed-wide basis, rather than just the impact in the immediate vicinity of a project.  The revised guidance on mitigation is one item in a 17-part federal wetlands "action plan," which aims to improve compensatory wetlands mitigation under the Clean Water Act. To do that, the plan lays out a series of further regulatory guidance over the next two years to help agency staffers navigate the contentious issues of how to offset wetlands damage.  According to EPA, the lower 48 states had an estimated 105.5 million acres of wetlands in 1997, the most recent year for which such data are available.  Read more . . . 
Copyright  © 2003  McGraw Hill Construction All rights reserved.

                Related Articles,

                December 27, 2002
                Bush Administration's New Wetlands Mitigation Guidance 
                Has Positive Aspects, but Lacks Specific Safeguards Now

                December 27, 2002
                EPA Releases National Wetlands Mitigation Act, Hope is to Avoid Additional Losses

                December 28, 2002
                US Launches Action Plan to Halt Loss of Wetlands

                January 6, 2003
                New Wetlands Mitigation Guidance Released

                Related Links,

               Corps-EPA Issue Regulatory Guidance Letter and National 
                Wetlands Mitigation Action Plan.

                The National Action Plan To Implement the Hydrogeomorphic Approach
                To Assessing Wetland Functions

Making a Difference
Former Army Corps Employee Helps Green the Corps


Jim Wood poses with his dog Lizzy in Arkansas. 
Wood, a volunteer with the Arkansas Wildlife 
Federation, is now working to reform his 
old employer. Photo: Courtesy of Jim Wood

Exploring the Arkansas River bottoms. Learning to duck hunt. These are among the childhood experiences that helped shape Jim Wood's love of wildlife and wild places. His passion for protecting these resources is also fueled by a lesson learned in youth: "A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits," a teacher once wrote on a blackboard. The words have always stuck with him. For three decades, Wood worked for the Army Corps of Engineers as a power plant employee. Retired eight years, the Arkansas native is now working hard to help reform his old employer. "Jim has volunteered countless hours of his time and traveled thousands of miles to advocate for his cause," says F. G. Courtney, senior grassroots outreach manager at NWF. Read More...
Copyright  © 2002  National Wildlife Federation All rights reserved.

House Echoes NWF's Call 
End Wasteful and Destructive Corps Projects

Great blue herons and other wetland 
creatures were aided by congressional 
action in October, when House leaders 
pulled a bill that failed to reform destructive 
practices of the Army Corps of Engineers. 
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

In a dramatic victory for people, wildlife and the environment, the House of Representatives took the 2002 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) off the floor in early October, a clear signal that the bill lacked adequate support without language to reform the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "This proves that Americans don't want to pay for pork-barrel projects that destroy our environment," says NWF President Mark Van Putten. "The bill sank because an unreformed Corps just won't float anymore." WRDA, which authorizes Corps water projects, was scheduled for floor action under a rule that would have prohibited debate on key amendments critical to reforming the Corps.  Read More...
Copyright  © 2002  National Wildlife Federation All rights reserved.

Western Everglades on a "Road to Ruin"
NWF Releases New Report


Florida panther. Photo: NWF

American taxpayers will have to dole out billions of dollars to repair the damage that's been done to Florida's Everglades by draining the "River of Grass" to build affordable housing and strip malls within a stone's throw of Miami. Yet the same kind of poorly planned development is still ravaging the western Everglades near Naples and posing serious threats to people and wildlife, according to a new report by NWF, the Florida Wildlife Federation and the Council of Civic Associations.  Titled Road to Ruin, the report exposes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for violating federal laws by delaying formal action on the Southwest Florida Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and, instead, allowing the annual development of more than 900 acres of wetlands in the EIS area.  Read More... 
Copyright  © 2002  National Wildlife Federation All rights reserved.

Editorial: Grubbing for growth -- Grade: D+
State lawmakers had a prime opportunity to put some muscle into Florida's flabby growth-management laws this past year, but never really rose to the challenge.  Sure, school boards and water managers and other protectors of vital resources must now confer with local elected officials making development decisions. But still, there's nothing in state law that requires local officials to turn down new subdivisions if services such as classrooms, road capacity, water, and police and fire protection aren't readily available.  As a result, local officials are merrily tripping down the yellow brick road to ruination, ignoring a looming water crisis in the state and a crush of public-school students that prompted voters this year to require smaller class sizes. State officials are helping communities assess the cost of growth.
Copyright  © 2002  Orlando Sentinel  All Rights Reserved.    

White House Eyes New Pollution Controls
Heavy construction vehicles and other large off-road machinery will have to meet tougher emissions requirements and use cleaner diesel fuel under proposals being discussed by the Bush administration.  The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to send a proposal to the White House next month on dealing with pollution from the off-road vehicles, administration officials said Monday. They said a formal proposal is planned for the spring, with a final rule to come a year later.  Diesel-powered vehicles from huge earth movers to harvesting combines used in agriculture account for more pollution, especially microscopic soot linked to respiratory problems, than the trucks and buses on the nation's highways. Health officials say these emissions account for 8,500 premature deaths annually as well as increased cases of asthma and other respiratory ailments.  
Copyright  © 2002  NY Times, AP online  All rights reserved.

Temperatures Are Likely to Go From Warm to Warmer

Roger J. Braithwaite/University 
of Manchester
The surface of the vast ice 
sheet in Greenland melted more 
last summer than at any time 
in the 24 years that conditions 
had been tracked.

Climate experts say global temperatures in 2003 could match or beat the modern record set in 1998, when temperatures were raised sharply by El Niño, a periodic disturbance of Pacific Ocean currents that warms the atmosphere.  El Niño that year was the strongest ever measured. A new one is brewing in the Pacific but is expected to remain relatively weak, experts say. Still, they say, a persistent underlying warming trend could be enough to push temperatures to record highs.  Some of the warming could be the result of natural climate variation, but the experts say it is almost impossible to explain without including the heat-trapping properties of rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted by smokestacks and tailpipes.  
Copyright  © 2002  NY Times online  All rights reserved.

Southern California Water Officials Race Deadline

Getty Images
The Colorado River dispute has vast
implications for farms like this one in the
Coachella Valley and for the Salton Sea,
shown in the distance.

With a deadline of New Year's Eve nearly upon them, water officials from across Southern California held talks today on an agreement that would avert a showdown with the federal government over water from the Colorado River.  There were several indications that progress had been made, though officials warned that the negotiations were tentative and delicate. The Bush administration has said that if no agreement is reached by midnight on Tuesday, it will reduce water flows to farms and urban areas in Southern California beginning on Wednesday.  "We have been meeting continually, day and night, throughout the weekend and the holidays," said Dennis Cushman, an assistant general manager at the San Diego County Water Authority, one of four water agencies involved in the talks.  
Copyright  © 2002  NY Times online  All rights reserved.

Bush Administration Planning to Extend Cuts of Diesel Emissions
In an effort to reduce a dangerous source of air pollution, the Bush administration is devising rules that would sharply cut diesel pollutants from construction vehicles, certain farming and mining equipment and other off-road vehicles.  Environmental groups are hopeful that the standards, which may not take full effect for almost a decade, will continue the administration's stance against health hazards caused by diesel engines.  Those policies, which include strong support of a Clinton administration plan to cut pollutants from trucks, buses and other diesel-powered highway vehicles, have drawn praise even from environmentalists who criticize the Bush administration for its stance on other air-quality issues.  Government officials said the plan would prevent more than 8,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of respiratory illnesses every year.   
Copyright  © 2002  NY Times online  All rights reserved.

30-December-02

Students take interest in panthers
Program to monitor orphaned kittens

Children at almost 50 elementary schools around Southwest Florida are pitching in to help two panther kitten orphans.  The youngsters are part of the Pennies for Panthers campaign initiated by the Wings of Hope program at Florida Gulf Coast University. Wings of Hope teaches fourth-grade students about the endangered Florida panther and keeps the project going all year by helping the children track individual panthers through remote photographs, maps and updates.  The children have now learned enough to know they want to help the endangered animal, especially the two orphans.  The male and female kittens are being cared for at White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee after their mother was killed two months ago by a male panther. The kittens were 6 months old at the time of her death and could not survive on their own. 
Copyright  © 2002  News-Press All rights reserved.

Real Towns: Making Your Neighborhood Work
Just as owner-builders can learn how to work on their homes, citizens can learn how to work on their communities. The obvious place to start is by looking at the parts that aren't working well - figuring out how they are interrelated - and diagnosing how to fix them together. This book gives local government officials, developers and citizen activists the tools needed to apply time-tested principles to revitalize their neighborhoods.  You can read "The Citizen Planner" - a full-chapter excerpt from Real Towns - in Terrain at www.terrain.org/articles/rue.htm or order the handbook from The Local Government Commission at http://www.lgc.org/publications/puborder.html or (800) 290-8202.  Seed funding for development of the Real Towns handbook and The Citizen Planner workshops was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Sustainable Everglades Initiative.  Read more . . .
Copyright  © 2002  Local Government Commission  All rights reserved.

               Related Articles,

               December 30, 2002
               Commentary: Committed Foundations: Smart Growth's Ace In The Hole

               December 30, 2002
               Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. ...

Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. ...
The Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities was launched in the Spring of 1999 by a group of seven foundations. These foundations included: Surdna Foundation, Turner Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation,  Energy Foundation.  The Network was established to inform and strengthen philanthropic funders' individual and collective abilities to support and connect organizations working to advance social equity, create better economies, build livable communities, and protect and preserve natural resources.  The Network is housed at the Collins Center for Public Policy in Miami, Florida.  The Collins Center for Public Policy, Inc. - http://www.collinscenter.org/ was created in 1989.  Read more . . .
Copyright  © 2002  Funders' Network  All rights reserved.

               Related Articles,

               December 30, 2002
               Commentary: Committed Foundations: Smart Growth's Ace In The Hole

               December 30, 2002
               Real Towns: Making Your Neighborhood Work

Commentary: Committed Foundations: Smart Growth's Ace In The Hole
Will America's sprawl-fighting smart growth movement turn out to be a flash in the pan? Will it subside as championing governors leave office? Will the field be left open to helter-skelter big-box stores, strip malls and suburban expansion roads?  It could happen. Maryland's Gov. Parris Glendening, smart growth's most eloquent spokesman, steps down Jan. 15. Economic hard times may press his successor and other state and local officials to embrace any development idea thrust before them.  But don't count on smart growth to go away.  First, it's picking up potentially strong new backing from such incoming governors as Republican Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Michigan.  Even more significant, since 1999 a grass-roots support system for smart growth has formed with backing from some of the country's most influential foundations--Surdna, MacArthur, Irvine, Turner, Ford, Packard and others.   Read more . . .
Copyright  © 2002  Stateline  All rights reserved.

               Related Articles,

               December 30, 2002
               Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. ...

               December 30, 2002
               Real Towns: Making Your Neighborhood Work

St. Joe Plan Spurs Battle In Franklin
Life in Franklin County drifts along today much as it did 50 years ago.  Oystermen spend long days working out of open boats in Apalachicola Bay, wielding the 20-foot rakes their fathers and grandfathers used to scrape the shellfish from the shallow, grassy bottoms.  Other county residents work in the sleepy fishing village of East Point, scraping precious pink meat out of stubborn blue crabs or bundling oysters in 100-pound bags for shipments all over Florida. Apalachicola Bay provides 90 percent of the oysters eaten in Florida.  Most of the 7,500 working-age residents work in government jobs or restaurants and hotels that cater to sport fishermen and other tourists fleeing the condo-crowded beaches to the south.  Web sites for the Panhandle county advertise it as the "Forgotten Florida,'' a place where time stalled soon after cotton boats quit bringing bales south on the Apalachicola River. 
Copyright  © 2002  Tampa Tribune  All rights reserved.

Silicon boosts rice, sugar cane growth
Today's computer-connected world is brought to you by silicon.  The move to make the second-most-common element in the Earth's crust the choice for semiconducting material was made in the late 1950s by engineers who were pioneering the computer revolution. But silicon has other important uses besides lending its name (along with a "Valley") to a tech-happy section of Northern California.  Just ask George Snyder.  The 63-year-old scientist has spent his career working on silicon research in the Glades farming region. It turns out that one of the crops that benefits most from adding silicon to the soil is sugar cane, second only to rice.  "Silicon can have a bigger effect on rice than on any other crop. Next in line is sugar cane," Snyder said. "It happens that in this area we grow both."    
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved. 

For Senate Committee, a Big Change
New Environment Chairman Opposes Many Protections

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), the new
chairman of the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee, has championed 
his state's oil and gas industry and opposed 
many environmental protection initiatives.
(File Photo/ Ray Lustig -- The Washington Post)

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is about to undergo a dramatic transformation, as Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), long a nemesis of the environmental movement, takes control as chairman.  The committee, with jurisdiction over a broad range of environmental issues and government construction projects, traditionally has had a moderate or liberal chairman -- such as the late Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.) and outgoing chairman James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) -- who maintained strong ties to conservation and environmental groups.  Inhofe, by contrast, is a conservative who has championed his state's oil and gas industry and opposed many environmental protection initiatives.  
Copyright  © 2002  Washington Post  All rights reserved.

                Related Links,

                James M. Inhofe - US Senator - Oklahoma

                Friends of Jim Inhofe - Official Campaign Website

                James M. Inhofe: 2002 Politician Profile

Whatever happened to ... Wayne Daltry and Smart Growth?
When Wayne Daltry was hired as Smart Growth director for Lee County in February he said the Smart Growth committee appointed by county commissioners will tell him what smart growth means.  It has. The definition is 567 words long — and growing.  The committee has yet to finalize its issues lists for areas like transportation and community character, but Daltry says the group's on target to render recommendations in April for changes in the way the county does business.  More detailed recommendations will follow as Daltry continues his two-year mission, which will end when the county launches its next Evaluation and Appraisal Report in 2004.  The report is a far-reaching review of the county's comprehensive growth management plan, and smart growth is a movement toward tailoring the land use and zoning regulations driven by the plan to local needs and wants.  The smart growth movement in Lee County dates back to early 2000. 
Copyright  © 2002  Bonita Daily News All rights reserved.

FWC set to protect land crabs
FWC to hold hearings on new plan to protect blue land crabs
A final hearing on protecting blue land crabs in Florida is set for January.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) recently reviewed a draft rule to begin proactively managing and protecting blue land crabs.  The commission has received public input that harvesting effort for blue land crabs has increased in certain areas of south and central Florida.  There have also been reports that blue land crabs are being harvested in commercial quantities.  Harvesters of wild populations can catch hundreds of crabs per night, and harvest effort increases around and during the June through December migration period.  Females migrate from their land burrows to the ocean during full moon cycles and lay their eggs in saltwater where the eggs develop into tiny creatures called planktonic larvae for about one month.   
Copyright  © 2002  Upper Keys Reporter All rights reserved.

Endangered crocs hatch in Key Largo wildlife refuge 
Tramping through the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge last month with a group of visiting biologists from Cuba, Steve Klett discovered a welcome surprise.  Scattered across an elevated nesting site, the refuge manager discovered remnants of crocodile eggs.  Although unable to determine the number of hatchlings, the leathery remnants indicated one of the endangered females that inhabit the refuge had successfully nested there.  “Throughout the Harrison tract, there were six nesting attempts this year, and only two were successful,” Klett said. “One of them was on the elevated berm."  This success is encouraging to Klett and his army of volunteers.  Last winter, 26 people moved peat from one area of the nesting levee to an adjacent site in an effort to build up nesting mounds.  Because the area is only accessible by kayak or canoe, this work was done by hand using shovels and 5-gallon buckets.    
Copyright  © 2002  Upper Keys Reporter All rights reserved.

Lee struggles with land preservation
Development puts strain on areas vital to water supply

LIMITED USES: Land in the 170-square-mile 
Density Reduction Groundwater Resource 
area also can be used for agricultural purposes.
CLINT KRAUSE/news-press.com

All pines, shading acres of spiky palmettos, stand next to bare, raw land where machines dig enormous watery pits — pits so large they could swallow entire neighborhoods.  Pristine and altered lands such as these dot southeast Lee County in an area declared vital to the county water supply. It’s the DRGR, short for Density Reduction Groundwater Resource.  Development pressures are growing, however, and new projects, such as Ginn Co.’s golf course community proposed last summer, are forcing the county to decide the 150-square-mile area’s fate.  The land has been steeped in controversy since commissioners created the groundwater resource designation in 1989 in response to the state’s demands.   
Copyright  © 2002  News-Press All rights reserved.

Letter to the editor: Fast-paced land buys help the Everglades
This month the South Florida Water Management District moved to acquire thousands of acres of land needed for Everglades restoration. This new progress is a result of Gov. Jeb Bush's decision to get in front of the development pressure on Everglades land. With solid commitments of state funds, the governor's actions are making a difference.  Acquiring land may be the most important thing that Florida government can do right now. One project, the Bird Drive Recharge Area in Miami-Dade County, is a favorite of land speculators betting that increasing land values will allow them to gouge the taxpayers.  Fortunately, the agencies are getting ahead of the game.  Another purchased parcel will buffer the water-conservation area in Broward County, and another will preserve wetlands. 
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

                Related Link,

                Audubon of Florida

29-December-02

Wildlife officials to decide manatee status
After more than 100 years of boat propellers and beach developments, the manatee's difficult encounter with human civilization will reach a milestone next month when the state wildlife commission decides whether to take away its status as an endangered species.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is scheduled to vote Jan. 23 whether to downlist the manatee from endangered to threatened. The move would be largely symbolic, since the manatee would retain its protection on the federal endangered species list. But all sides say the symbol would be important and could lead to concrete changes such as fewer slow-speed zones for boats and looser rules on dock-building."If there's a public perception that manatees are better than they are, you lose public support for putting protection measures in place," said Patti Thompson, director of science and conservation for the Save the Manatee Club.     
Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel / Associated Press  All rights reserved.

Guest commentary: Conservation efforts in Cuba transcend international politics
David Guggenheim, former president/CEO of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and now vice president for conservation policy at the Washington-based Ocean Conservancy, invited me to Cuba in November with a group of Ocean Conservancy staff and other donors to get an understanding of what is being done across the Florida Straits to conserve ecosystems.  Why is an American nonprofit organization spending time and money in Cuba? It's important that we engage Cuba in conservation issues because what happens there impacts an ecosystem — the Gulf of Mexico — that is shared with Southwest Florida. Larvae from fish spawning in Cuban waters are believed to move northward and populate U.S. waters.  Sea turtles nesting on U.S. beaches forage in Cuban waters, and vice versa. Ecosystems don't recognize county, state or even national borders. 
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Editorial: Mother Nature knows best
For now, Tigertail beach best without boardwalk
The forces of wind and wave continue to tamper with Collier County's original master plan for a beachfront recreational area on Marco Island.  Tigertail Beach Park, with ample parking and clean facilities coveted by the beach-going public, isn't as popular as it once was. In six years, the number of people using the park has dropped from 420,000 annually to 180,000, according to the county Parks and Recreation Department.  Though the availability of a new beach access point on the south end of Marco and a $4 daily parking fee may be contributing to the decline in visitors, some blame has to go to Mother Nature. She decided a few decades ago to build another island right off Tigertail Beach. What started out as a sand spit became a full-fledged island, with vegetation, a thriving colony of beach birds and a name, Sand Dollar. 
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Environmental issues at top of Lee 2003 priorities list
Land buy, manatee protection highlights
Environmental issues are elbowing their way toward the top of Lee County government’s list of key issues in 2003.  A list of potential leading issues compiled by County Manager Don Stilwell and his communications director, Pete Winton, included: Buying and preserving thousands of acres of the Babcock Ranch proposed for development as a new city, Getting the permits required to expand the county’s waste-to-energy incinerator, Securing a guarantee from the South Florida Water Management District to provide a minimum amount of water from Lake Okeechobee for the Caloosahatchee River, Completing a manatee protection plan.  Another project with environmental impact is the completion of a master environmental plan for the Three Oaks Parkway-Livingston Road project, said Lee County Transportation Director Scott Gilbertson.   
Copyright  © 2002  News-Press All rights reserved.

The Republican who roared
For some people he is still "the governor." You may speak of Governor Askew, Governor Bush, Governor Collins, Governor Chiles, but when you say "the governor," there is only one man you could be referring to: Claude Roy Kirk Jr., the first Republican governor of Florida since Reconstruction.  He will be 77 Jan. 7. He lives in Bear Island, a gated community in West Palm Beach, with his German-born wife, Erika Mattfeld Kirk, a stunning blonde he introduced as "Madame X" at his inaugural ball in 1966. He's still active, still lucid, still funny, still unpredictable. For instance, he thinks he'd make an excellent mayor, "better than that idiot (Joel) Daves who lets his wife run the city, anyway," he says.  That's Kirk: still a pistol. You grapple for historical parallels and there really aren't any.  Kirk somewhat resembles Huey Long, the flamboyant "Kingfish" governor of Louisiana in the 1930s who told reporters: "Just say I'm sui generis."   
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

As it runs through Orin Edwards's ranch, the Belle Fourche River bubbles like Champagne. The bubbles can burn. They are methane, also called natural gas, the fuel that heats 59 million American homes. Mr. Edwards noticed the bubbles two years ago, after gas wells were drilled on his land. The company that drilled the wells denies responsibility for the flammable river.  An hour's drive west, the artesian well on Roland and Beverly Landrey's ranch has failed. After producing 50 gallons a minute for 34 years, the well, the ranch's only source of water, stopped flowing in September. A well digger who examined it blames energy companies drilling for gas nearby, but the companies dispute that. So the couple — he is 83 and ailing; she describes herself as "no spring chicken" — hauls water in gallon jugs and drives 30 miles to town weekly to wash clothes and bathe.   
Copyright  © 2002  NY Times online  All rights reserved.

                Related Article,

                January 2, 2003
                Letters: Energy Wells in the Wide Blue Sky

                January 4, 2003
                Letter: Wyoming as Metaphor

28-December-02

U.S. Launches Action Plan to Halt Loss of Wetlands
Goal is "no net loss" of environmentally critical habitat
U.S. environmental agencies -- led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers -- have released a comprehensive action plan to ensure effective restoration of the nation's wetlands that are lost to development.  "These actions affirm this Administration's commitment to the goal of no net loss of America's wetlands and its support for protecting our nation's watersheds," EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said in a press release issued on December 27, 2002.  The National Wetlands Mitigation Action Plan lists 17 action items that the agencies will undertake to improve the effectiveness of restoring wetlands that are covered by laws such as the Clean Water Act, according to the EPA.  Read more . . .
Copyright  © 2003  International Information Systems   All rights reserved.

                Related Articles,

                December 27, 2002
                Bush Administration's New Wetlands Mitigation Guidance 
                Has Positive Aspects, but Lacks Specific Safeguards Now

                December 27, 2002
                EPA Releases National Wetlands Mitigation Act, Hope is to Avoid Additional Losses

                December 31, 2002
                Environment: New Federal Wetlands Plan Looks at Watershed-Wide Impact

                January 6, 2003
                New Wetlands Mitigation Guidance Released

                Related Links,

               Corps-EPA Issue Regulatory Guidance Letter and National 
                Wetlands Mitigation Action Plan.

                The National Action Plan To Implement the Hydrogeomorphic Approach
                To Assessing Wetland Functions