3.1 The NWPR Decreases Wetland Protections Across NYS Compared to the CWR
In NYS, the NWPR guarantees protections for considerably fewer wetlands by both total area and number when compared to the CWR (Figure 2). Under the CWR, 88.3% of total wetland area was considered jurisdictional by rule, 11.7% of wetland area required further evaluation through the significant nexus test, and less than 0.1% of wetland area was non-jurisdictional. In contrast, the NWPR reduced the area of jurisdictional wetlands to 78.1%, leaving 21.9% of New York’s wetland area non-jurisdictional by rule. The CWR has the potential to protect up to a maximum of 99.9% of wetland area, though the true magnitude of protections is dependent on the site-specific evaluation of the significant nexus test. We estimate that the NWPR decreases jurisdictional wetland area by 11.6% as compared to the CWR state-wide, resulting in a loss in protection for at least 89,000 ha of wetlands in NYS. Additional wetland losses, though unquantified in this study, are likely, given the NWPR’s elimination of the significant nexus test.
Across New York’s 16 USGS HUC6 basins, we found that federal wetland protections varied considerably in space (Figure 2). Between hydrologic basins, CWR jurisdictional wetland area varied from a minimum of 76.5% (HUC 041201) to a maximum of 97.4% (HUC 020302). NWPR jurisdictional wetland area ranged between a minimum of 55.3% (HUC 041201) and a maximum of 86.6% (HUC 020301). We also observed substantial spatial variability in shifts in legal protections from the CWR to the NWPR across basins. For example, the replacement of the CWR by the NWPR resulted in a 27.5% loss of jurisdictional wetlands area in HUC 042701, but only a loss of 4.4% in HUC 020401.