The wetlands of Shelby Bottoms in Nashville. (Photo: John Partipilo)

A wetland? Who do you need? They have not spiked the peaks, which offer panoramic views. They are not trees older than the country we live in. But wetlands are important. Many will say they suffer from the syndrome of ugly ducks compared to other natural traits, but as this former farm boy tells you, the most gli pigs always taste the best taste, and those that they don’t see are often the most valuable.

Tennessee wetland sales? How did you get here?

US Supreme Court ruling in 2023 Sackettv. EPA It stripped of federal protections from so-called “isolated” wetlands, or wetlands that lack surface connections with other bodies of water. In addition to removing federal protections for half of the US 118 million acres, the ruling was the stage for a major restructuring of the state legislature’s environmental policies.

Collierville Republican Rep. Kevin Vaughn announced the same time Scotus announced their ruling. bill This limits state surveillance on 432,850 acres. It’s over half of Tennessee’s 787,000 acres Important wetland ecosystems. The bill targets “isolated” wetlands, as identified in Scotts’ ruling, even though such wetlands are not truly isolated.

He didn’t disclose it in the bill, but Vaughn is a real estate developer standing to benefit from cutting wetland regulations. He previously thrust his head alongside the state’s wetland regulatory agency, Tennessee’s Department of Environmental Protection, and in 2019 he was associated with a development project. It was illegally drained and filled the wetlands.

In addition to concerns from TDEC about the bill, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) warned that the bill could lead to. Increase in floods And the nation has suffered the west year in history with flood events since 2019, which has caused loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage.

Wetlands are essential to Tennessee communities

The wetlands provide breakwaters against drought and flooding. They filter aquifers, groundwater, and charge streams, rivers and lakes. Given their biological composition, wetlands maintain important biodiversity and provide essential habitat for organisms that rely on a higher life order.

Vaughn’s bill received enough pushback to send to the Legislative Summer Study Group in 2024. But now the bill is back. It has been edited in several revisions that environmental advocates will not pass the convocation. The amended bill currently proposes wetlands that are less than two acres in size. This means putting most of the state’s wetlands at risk.

all Tennessee Wetlands It’s essential regardless of size. According to George Nolan, director of the Tennessee office of the Southern Environmental Law Center, “A one acre of wetlands can hold more than one million gallons of water. The proposed law supports the developer’s interests for future flood victims for Tennessee taxpayers and the safety of pocketbooks.

Other opposition groups include the Tennessee Stormwater Association (TNSA), which is based in Maryville, where Memphis advocacy groups protect the aquifer.

“In the stormwater community, there is little discussion about the value of wetlands as an important device for maintaining water quality and reducing flooding,” said TNSA president Aaron Lodge. “This is a major change in the way the state manages water resources and is perhaps a product of the current political situation.”

The Harpes Conservancy in Middle Tennessee expressed its opposition by creating an analysis of how wetlands benefit the community. I’ll just look it up One region, Harpeth Conservancy outlined 16,000 risky wetlands along the Duck River in Middle Tennessee, the state’s longest river and the most biodiversified waterway in North America. The Duck River (250,000 Tennessees rely on drinking water) relies on nearby wetlands for drought and flood mitigation. If these wetlands are destroyed, the resulting drought and flooding could destroy communities throughout the Duck River Basin.

Republican lawmakers are willing to risk future prosperity for short-term profits

Under Tennessee’s current regulatory framework, developers will have to pay a large mitigation fee to obtain permission to destroy wetlands on forecasted build sites. The fees will then be used to restore wetlands in other parts of the state, balancing what has been lost by a single construction project.

Duck River, Tennessee, Waterway could see regulatory rollback under two proposed invoices

It’s incomplete, but the current model works. Developers operate solely to maximize shareholder returns and return on investment. Concerns such as environmental health and community safety are not visible on the company’s balance sheet. However, it is important that it is necessary to pay large mitigation fees to reduce the incentives that developers build on wetlands.

If Vaughn’s amended bill passes, it will obstruct the regulations on wetlands and eliminate those essential financial interference.

Protect the wetlands today and choose a new leader tomorrow

Wetlands do things that even great engineers never want to achieve at their own freedom using all the tools of humanity. They absorb floods on a scale that is hard to speculate, something that all Tennessees should care about, as the state continues to experience heavy rains every year. Destroying wetlands for development may lead to some individuals earning large sums of money in the short term, but the loss of these important lands will feel in the rainy season ahead.

President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Wilding and destroying natural resources is to skin and tired the land and seriously undermine the prosperity we should do with the right we can pass on to our children.” Vaughn and his co-sponsors may be interested in short-term benefits rather than long-term prosperity, but every politically striped Tennessee should stand in bipartisan opposition to the fragmented commodification of wetlands, which may call them the phorical “barn ugh hogs,” but nevertheless provide the most breathtaking Tennessee land.