Colorado Legislature Passes Enhanced Wetlands Protections

Colorado legislators approved a bill that will extend new protections to the state’s streams and wetlands after the U.S. Supreme Court reduced protections for wetlands last year, reports Daniel C. Vock in Route Fifty. “The issue of wetland regulations is particularly poignant in Colorado, where two-thirds of the state’s waters are temporary in nature and lack year-round flow, according to a friend-of-the-court brief the state filed in the Supreme Court case.” 

Last year’s ruling, which states that “the Clean Water Act only applies to wetlands that have a continuous surface connection to bigger bodies of water,” makes states responsible for enacting — and funding — more stringent regulations that apply to non-contiguous wetlands and seasonal streams.

According to Vock, “Roughly half the states relied on federal rules to determine what waterways they would regulate for dredging and filling activities before the Supreme Court ruled, according to an analysis by James McElfish, an attorney at the Environmental Law Institute.”