The following letter was sent to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) regarding the need to eliminate the National Wetlands Inventory program of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I have another US Senator (Marco Rubio) and my local Congressman (Vern Buchannan) but both are more interested in importing bags of tea than in governing so I'm sending this only to Nelson in the hope that he does something.
September 1 2013
Senator Bill Nelson
716 Senate Hart Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Nelson,
The Emergency Wetlands Resources Act of 1986 (16 U.S.C.
§§ 3901-3932, November 10, 1986, as amended 1988 and 1992), required, among
other things, that the Secretary of the Interior acting through the US Fish and
Wildlife Service … “complete by September
30, 1998, mapping [of wetlands] of
the contiguous United States; to produce, as soon as practicable, maps [of
wetlands] of Alaska and other
noncontiguous portions of the United States;…"
Today is September 1, 2013, almost exactly 15 years since
the September 30 1998 end date mandated by the Congress, and the National
Wetlands Inventory is still alive and functional in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. Given that the final date of
authorization provided in legislation by the Congress ended 15 years ago I am
writing to inquire why the Congress continues to appropriate funds annually for
the Inventory. I ask this not as a Tea Party
wing nut but as a former US Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist who
worked for the last 14 years of my career in the National Wetlands Inventory in
Washington DC. The concept of the NWI
was a good one when it was conceived in the late 1970s but the program has
become mired in “we always did it that way” mindset and quite frankly the
mapping program no longer has any relevance.
The EWRA also mandates that “…A digital wetlands database for the U.S. is to be produced from the
various maps by September 30, 2004. The Secretary also shall archive and make
available for dissemination wetlands data and digitized maps”. It is now 9 years after the digital wetland
database mandate expired and the digital database is nowhere near
completion. The reason for the failure
to complete the database lies entirely with the US Fish and Wildlife Service
and its former National Wetlands Inventory coordinator who placed emphasis on
producing paper maps and hoped that other agencies and entities would pay for
the digitizing of those maps. Bottom
line here is that the digital wetland database will never be completed and the
Congressional mandate to conduct the work ended 9 years ago.
The Emergency Wetlands Resources Act further directs the
Secretary acting through the Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service to “…produce, by September 30, 1990, and at
ten-year intervals thereafter, reports to update and improve in the September
1982 "Status and Trends of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitat in the Coterminous
United States, 1950's to 1970's." Currently the wetland status and
trends component of the National Wetlands Inventory is the only part of that
program that 1) remains relevant, 2) produces information useful to policy
makers and 3) and most importantly, is the only part of the program
that still has a Congressional mandate with no end date.
The National Wetlands Inventory is funded at about $4
million a year which in the grand scheme of things is not even a blip on the
radar screen. Still, scarce taxpayer-generated funds are being appropriated
annually by the Congress for a component of a law that expired 15 years ago. And with the exception of the wetland status
and trends component of the program, those funds are producing an outdated
product that no longer is of value to resource management decision makers.
I am writing to request that you look into finding a way
to defund the National Wetlands Inventory.
If the entire program cannot be eliminated (my preferred alternative)
then at least change the wording in the Emergency Wetlands Resources Act to
only provide a Congressional mandate for conducting the wetland status and
trends component and then ensure that the status and trends component is funded
at a level where the US Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t’ have to beg other
agencies for money to complete a task mandated by Congress but for which
Congress provides insufficient funds to complete.
Thanks for considering my request and one other
thing. I would like to hear back on your
views on this topic. Sending a letter to
Interior asking for them to prepare a response will result in a letter being
generated by the Fish and Wildlife Service extolling the virtues and values of
a program whose day in the sun ended 15 years ago.
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