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.