There is no one type of wetland in Illinois. The state boasts fens, bogs, swamps and wet meadows and forests. There are just over a million acres of wetlands in the state today.
In the last 200 years, experts estimate that more than 85% of Illinois wetlands have been destroyed, mainly through development and agriculture.
It’s unclear what changes the next federal administration will make related to the environment. But in Illinois, there is proposed legislation to protect the state’s remaining wetlands. It comes after last year’s Supreme Court ruling that rolled back some of those protections.
Conservationists say the Supreme Court’s Sackett v. EPA ruling put even more of the wetlands in the state — and across the country — at risk.
The ruling changes which wetlands are federally protected. After the Supreme Court decision, the only protected wetlands are ones that have a continuous surface connection to a water body like a river, lake or ocean. This could mean nearly all of Illinois’s wetlands are left unprotected, according to experts.
The Prairie Rivers Network is a policy advocacy group that is working to replace the rolled back regulations at the state level.
Robert Hirschfeld’s the director of water policy with the group.
“But what we know, he said, "is that wetlands across the country, many wetlands, have likely lost federal protections. Prairie Rivers Network and many of our partners here in Illinois are trying to respond with state legislation in Illinois to basically recreate what was done at the federal level at the state level.”
Before the Sackett decision, the EPA regulated and protected wetlands across the country with permits. Before a developer broke ground on a new project, they needed to go through a lengthy permitting process with the agency. These permits mandated that developers avoid projects that would destroy wetlands. If it couldn’t be avoided, developers had to create or restore a wetland elsewhere.
Hirschfeld points to the widescale destruction of ecosystems across the state: prairies were largely replaced by agriculture, but the wetlands have faced the same fate.
“Not only did we break the prairie," he said, "but we drained all of these historic wetlands.”
Several groups have come out in opposition to the proposed bill. The Illinois Farm Bureau, and state corn and soybean associations cite the extra regulation that could fall on private landowners.
Most agricultural land was exempt in the federal protections, and they are exempt in the state proposal as well.
Wetlands act as nutrient filtration systems. Besides offering flood protection and carbon storage, wetlands slow the flow of water — and nutrients — across the landscape. They could serve as a powerful protection against pollution and runoff from agricultural practices in the state.
Jeff Matthews is an associate professor at the University of Illinois. He’s also a plant and wetland ecologist. Matthews studies restored wetland ecosystems. He wants to understand why some restoration projects are more successful than others. He’s also looking into why invasive species take over some wetlands, and which restoration techniques are the most effective.
“The loss of wetlands," Matthews said, "is linked, in a lot of ways, to our historic attitudes about the value of these places. The Western attitude to land has been, if land is not productive, under what, what we might consider to be productive land, then it is being wasted. Wetlands were always historically seen as wastelands. Negative attitudes have been attached to wetlands for a really long time in Western culture”
The Prairie Rivers Network’s Hirschfeld emphasizes the possibility of building wetlands protections into state level ag policies.
“We know," he said, "that wetlands are a critical piece to dealing with the water pollution problem caused by industrial row crop agriculture. And it's just another piece of why it's so important that we not only protect the wetlands that we have, but actually, we really need to be rebuilding these wetland complexes and incorporating them throughout the state.”
Jeff Matthews from the University of Illinois reimagines a future where wetlands aren’t seen as wastelands, but instead, as complex systems with inherent value.
“I think changing the attitude of what responsible land use looks like," he said, "changing the attitude from land — unless it's productive, it's not valuable — changing that attitude, and really recognizing the value of more wild lands in a state like Illinois, where we've lost so many of those.”
Meanwhile, there are organizations like The Wetlands Institute and The Nature Conservancy that are conducting landscape-scale restoration projects on wetlands. Farmers can also opt into conservation programs and incentives to support wetland restoration and prevent further destruction.
The bill has since been introduced to the state legislature, where it may be heard in the November veto session.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the spelling and title for Mr. Hirschfeld. He is Director of Water Policy.