Illinois state lawmakers scramble to advance wetlands protection bill as session end nears

With less than a week of legislative session remaining in Springfield, lawmakers and environmental advocates are scrambling to pass a bill that would restore protections for Illinois’ wetlands.

It’s been nearly a year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of federal wetlands protections, and Illinois legislators including Democratic Sen. Laura Ellman of Naperville and Democratic Rep. Anna Moeller of Elgin hope to restore those standards at the state level.

“Illinois waterways and wetlands are left more threatened than ever and need protection to ensure we have safe drinking water, flood mitigation and healthy communities,” Ellman, the legislation’s chief sponsor in the Senate, said in a March news release. “This legislation fills the need to create a long-term program to protect our state waters that are now excluded from the Clean Water Act.”

Lawmakers are now face-to-face with Friday’s adjournment date.

“If we wait, we'd be waiting until veto session or the next year — and then there also is administration of the program. If we wait, there will be wetlands developed,” Jen Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council, said. “I still think discussions about it are positive. We're talking to all the different stakeholders who may have an interest.”

While wetlands including bogs, fens and marshes have enjoyed protection under the Clean Water Act since 1977, the Supreme Court decision severely limited the law last May when it ruled wetlands must have a “continuous surface connection” to the nation’s surface waters in order to come under the act’s protection.

That leaves out innumerable wetlands that don’t have an immediate, adjoining connection to the navigable waters that the Clean Water Act primarily regulates — such as those connected by water flowing underground. Of the country's 118 million acres of wetlands, more than half have lost the federal oversight, environmental legal group Earthjustice estimated.

Illinois was one of about 25 states that did not have statewide wetlands permit requirements in place when the Supreme Court issued its ruling. With other states in a similar boat such as Colorado and New Mexico moving to pass legislation of their own, Illinois legislators are looking to follow suit.

“The Supreme Court ruling muddied the waters about what streams and wetlands are or are not protected. Our proposed legislation will provide clear, long-term guidance that allows businesses and developers to plan accordingly and an efficient, fair permitting process,” Ellman said in the release. “It is a common sense approach in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, and the stakes here in Illinois could not be higher.”

With approximately 80-90% of Illinois’ original wetlands lost to development or agriculture over the years, environmental advocates say its critical to keep safe what remains.

“Having a program which slows down and manages the filling in of wetlands for new development is really critical in a situation where you're down to your last 10% of original wetlands,” said Paul Botts, president and executive director of The Wetlands Initiative.

Wetlands — often described as nature’s sponges — provide habitat for thousands of plant and animal species while also providing flood protection, water quality improvement and shoreline erosion control, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“There's a huge range of benefits of wetlands, and we've destroyed 90% of them,” Jen Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Coucil, said. “Anytime that somebody has their home flooded or that we all have to pay extra for water to be cleaned, it's because we've removed a wetland.”

Botts added Illinois’ pending legislation serves to restore what the federal Clean Water Act lost — and go no further.

“We're not writing a new, state-level Clean Water Act of our dreams,” he said. “Far from it.”

To patch the gap in regulations, the legislation would require wetland developers to apply for state permits in a process known as “no net loss.” The approach means high-quality, rare wetlands will likely remain protected while other areas will require a permit for development.

“The permit is going to require you to help pay for some wetlands restoration somewhere else. It’s called a mitigation bank,” Botts said. “So not every wetland is sacrosanct, but rather overall the policy goal is to have no net loss of wetlands.”

Concerns from opponents such as the Illinois Farm Bureau include worries that excessive regulation of Illinois’ streams and wetlands would create uncertainty for landowners, developers and farmers.

• Jenny Whidden is a climate change and environment writer working with the Daily Herald through a partnership with Report For America supported by The Nature Conservancy. To help support her work with a tax-deductible donation, see dailyherald.com/rfa.