Has anyone seen the "new" EPA rules release today (3/31/08). Should preference be given onsite mitigation vs. mitigation banking projects 100 miles across the watershed? What implication do these new rules have on day to day work of wetland scientists?

I've looked at some of it. The questions are good. The answers are good. The slide shows are good. This must be good! I expect that this new stufffffffff will be just another economic stimulus package. This will keep more consultants, lawyers, and regulators gainfully employed prcessing more and more paper work.

And if you think this is going to make anything easier, cheaper or better, I have some Enron stock I would like to sell you!

Thats what I suspected, I just used the headline from the AP story. I have never found anything to do with mitigation to ever be easy or cheap.

As we all know by now, mitigation is not required for non-jurisdictional wetlands, so the EPA's new rules for mitigation are largely irrelevant for non-abutting, non-jurisdictional wetlands until the jurisdictional questions are resolved.

Long before one gets to the mitigation stage of the permit process, issues such as relatively permanent waters, abutting, adjacent, neighboring, significant nexus, Scalia, Kennedy, plurality, ephemeral, intermittent, continuous connection, surface water, ground water, navigable waters, interstate commerce, etc., must first be satisfactorily resolved.

Resolution of these issues will take years of litigation so EPA's new mitigation rules will not have much impact at this time.

The Brotherhood never realized that its words on this forum would have such a devastating impact on the Clean Water Act. We share much of the blame for this sorry state of affairs.

Johnny,

Your frustration with the current mess in 404 jurisdiction is completely understandable. And, "I feel your pain". But, I don't think that the mess was wrought by the illuminating exchanges of "The Brotherhood" on this forum. I think it was wrought by Justice Kennedy and the on-going denial of the "precendential value of plurality opinions in Marks vs. United States" by the Corps/EPA in the development of their "Rapanos Guidance".

Give us a link to these new rule from the EPA.