New York is a Great Lakes State and Our Coastal Wetlands Need Your Voice!
New York is a Great Lakes State! Our two Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario, provide drinking water to over 4 million New Yorkers and give New York State around 1,000 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. All of that coastline is being impacted by more frequent and intense weather events that are happening with our changing climate. In Western New York, we are seeing increases in shoreline erosion and flooding, as well as the water quality issues that arise from those.
Sometimes the best defense is a good offense! Enter: The Wetlands
Wetlands are critical for protecting against erosion. They can hold excess water during storm events, lessening the disastrous effects of storms and can mitigate pollution downstream and protect our drinking water source. Climate impacts are expected to increase over time, with flooding becoming more intensive and extensive, leaving communities increasingly vulnerable. These impacts affect communities along the lakeshore and those along coastal tributaries.
Article 24 of the Environmental Conservation Law regulates and permits freshwater wetlands. Amid weaker federal protections for wetlands and increasing climate risks associated with warmer lake temperatures, like decreasing ice cover, more precipitation, fluctuating lake levels, and increasingly intense storms, New York has strengthened wetland protections at the state level. This is commendable.
In 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul first proposed changes to the state’s wetlands regulations and that Dept. of Environmental Conservation has been going through the process of drafting and seeking public input since.
Changes to New York State Wetland Regulations
Current
-Wetlands must be 12.4 acres or larger and on a state map.
Proposed
-State mapping no longer required
-2025: Permit required for wetlands greater than 12.4 acres
-2028: Permit required for wetlands greater than 7.4 acres
-Adds criteria for wetlands of "unusual local importance"
Under the proposed changes to Article 24, the criteria for “Unusual local importance” leaves some potential gaps which, if filled, would greatly benefit the Great Lakes ecology. The language as drafted could leave critical Great Lakes wetlands unprotected.
Now is the time to make your voice heard! Tell New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that the wetlands of Great Lakes deserve adequate protection.
We are asking DEC to consider the Great Lakes important on their own merit and add a Great Lakes wetland call out in the state regulation so that those wetlands critical to buffering our Western New York cities from storms and protecting our drinking water source from upstream polluters be specifically protected. Email you comment to DEC and ask them to include three things:
- DEC should critically assess the specific needs of the Great Lakes as a freshwater coastal environment.
- The Unusual Local Importance criteria should include the following language: “the wetland is contiguous to or within 1,000 feet of the mean high-water line of a Great Lakes shoreline, embayment, or tributary.”
- The Niagara River Corridor as a wetland of international importance should be added by name to the regulation.
Comments may be submitted until September 19, 2024.
Comments can be submitted via email to:
Roy Jacobson Jr. at WetlandRegulatoryComments@dec.ny.gov.
