Protecting small streams and wetlands in the Intermountain West

In today's editorial – Clearing up the Clean Water Act -- the Denver Post weighed in with their support of the Clean Water Restoration Act. The Clean Water Restoration Act seeks to restore the Clean Water Act's protection to streams and wetlands whose jurisdictional status has been threatened since two Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006.

Those decisions, and policy decisions made by the Bush Administration, have thrown into question the status of the Clean Water Act's ability to protect some wetlands and streams. This National Wildlife Federation fact sheet provides a summary of the basis of the Clean Water Restoration Act and makes a good case for what we stand to lose.

The Post's editorial stresses the real threat to Western streams and wetlands in their discussion of the Colorado ramifications:

More than 76,000 miles of Colorado streams, or 73 percent of the state's waterways, are at risk due to the new, looser regulatory climate, according to The Post's Mark Jaffe. Nationwide, 2 million miles of waterways and 20 million acres of wetlands could be affected.

Colorado is by no means unique in the region, or even in the nation. According to U.S. EPA, 59 percent of stream miles nationally are intermittent or ephemeral and at risk to lose their Clean Water Act protections. Around the Intermountain West, that percentage is generally much higher.

If you're wondering how much protection of these streams and wetlands matters to the health of our rivers and our own health, learn more in American River's Where Rivers Are Born: The Scientific Imperative for Defending Small Streams and Wetlands. Or check out U.S. EPA's The Ecological and Hydrological Significance of Ephemeral and Intermittent Streams in the Arid and Semi-arid American Southwest.

Think about the intermittent and ephemeral streams in your western watershed: how extensive are they? What would it mean if they were no longer protected from pollution discharges, alteration, or even fill? What about the wetlands in your watershed? I'd love to hear your comments about just how important the Clean Water Restoration Act is to the Intermountain West.