HD54 - Report of the Virginia Nontidal Wetlands Roundtable

  • Published: 1990
  • Author: Virginia Nontidal Wetlands Roundtable
  • Enabling Authority: Appropriation Act - Item 483 (Regular Session, 1989)

Executive Summary:
The Virginia Nontidal Wetlands Roundtable pursued its study of issues related to management of the Commonwealth's nontidal wetlands resources as directed by the 1989 Virginia General Assembly. The study was conducted within the framework established by the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement, the Living Resources Commitments which followed from the Agreement, and the 1988 Chesapeake Bay Wetlands Policy. Roundtable members concluded that while effective management of nontidal wetlands should be of immediate and continuing concern to the Commonwealth, creation of a new regulatory program for the resource may be premature at this time. The Roundtable believes that the state should immediately take steps to: enhance, coordinate and assess existing programs; institute continuing educational, research and incentive-based preservation programs; and develop a current inventory of the resource. Once these efforts have been undertaken, the Commonwealth will be better able to determine both the need and appropriate design for any new regulatory program. In developing this general conclusion, the Roundtable's deliberations led its members to make the following specific recommendations for action.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. The Virginia General Assembly should enhance the funding and staffing provided to the State Water Control Board for its Section 401 water quality certification responsibilities related to nontidal wetlands.

2. Virginia should decertify the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit No. 26 and any other nationwide permit which the State Water Control Board deems to impair protection of Virginia water quality.

3. The Department of Agriculture and the Division of Soil and Water Conservation of the Department of Conservation and Recreation should utilize, to the extent practical, the Department of Forestry model of non-regulatory interaction with its constituency, emphasizing education, voluntary compliance, peer review and monitoring to help minimize adverse effects on nontidal wetlands resulting from agricultural practices.

4. A comprehensive assessment of existing state programs should be undertaken with the goals of identifying how each program affects nontidal wetlands, how the programs overlap or interact with one another in nontidal wetlands, where opportunities for effective coordination among programs exist and where new or enhanced programs are needed.

5. All state programs affecting nontidal wetlands should incorporate recognition of a Commonwealth policy for management of nontidal wetlands which seeks a short term goal of no net loss in acreage and function and a longer term goal of net resource gain in wetland acreage and function over present conditions.

6. State programs affecting nontidal wetlands should define wetlands as: Those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas.

7. The federal procedures for delineation of wetlands should be included by reference in any state regulatory program.

8. All state programs or activities affecting nontidal wetlands should incorporate goals to avoid impacts on nontidal wetlands whenever possible, to minimize impacts when they cannot be avoided, and to seek full compensation for any impacts which occur.

9. Virginia should encourage and support research on the structure and function of nontidal wetlands with the goal of full elucidation of their functions.

10. The Commonwealth should make an immediate and continuing commitment to education of legislators, administrators, local government officials, and citizens on the scientific, legal, and political aspects of nontidal wetland management.

11. Virginia should make a commitment to the establishment and maintenance of a current inventory of the Commonwealth's nontidal wetland resources.

12. The Commonwealth should pursue implementation of as many types of incentives to preserve nontidal wetlands as possible.

13. Virginia should not pursue assumption of the federal Section 404 regulatory program at the present time.