5/21/16
A first-of-its-kind report card on the nation’s wetland habitats shows the western U.S. is not doing a good job at keeping these disappearing ecosystems in good condition.
The report, released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this month, found only 21 percent of the 146 surveyed wetlands west of the Rocky Mountains were in “good” condition compared to about 61 percent in poor condition and 18 percent in fair condition.
Common impairments for these western wetlands and those throughout the nation are ditches and draining systems, nonnative plants, loss of native plants, and surface hardening such as road paving and other development — all of which have occurred in Humboldt County, according to Humboldt Baykeeper Director Jennifer Kalt.
“The public lands wetlands are being treated much better than they used to be and the private land wetlands are continuing to be abused and destroyed,” she said.
More than 90 percent of the 9,000 acres of salt marsh habitat that once existed around Humboldt Bay has been lost due to development, diking, draining, leveeing, and invasion by an invasive cordgrass that has taken the place of the native pickleweed plant, according to the Humboldt Bay Wildlife Refuge. This in turn has resulted in the loss of much-needed habitat and food sources for migrating birds.
Wetlands are not just for the birds, Kalt said. They also filter pollutants out of groundwater before it reaches streams, absorb carbon from the atmosphere and slow down coastal erosion, she said. Evidence of what can occur when wetlands are destroyed is evident in Louisiana, Kalt said, where the impacts of hurricanes have taken a devastating toll.
The EPA study collected wetland data in 2011 on vegetation, soils, hydrology, algae, water chemistry and potential stressors from nearly 1,200 wetlands sites throughout the nation.
One site was sampled in Humboldt County, but the report did not specify where that site was.
On a nationwide scale, 48 percent of the wetlands are considered in good health, 20 percent in fair health and 32 percent are in poor health, according to the report.
California’s estuarine wetlands — where rivers meet the sea — were found to be in better shape than their inland counterparts, according to the report.
Kalt said the same finding applies to Humboldt County’s wetlands.
Several public agencies have been working to restore wetland habitats around Humboldt Bay, the Eel River, the Salt River, and other areas, but Kalt said that many wetlands on private lands have been “developed, filled and degraded.”
The McKinleyville and Eureka areas, for example, used to be wetlands before being filled in during the 19th century.
The county has since adopted an ordinance requiring development within 100 feet of a wetland to obtain a permit, but Kalt said the rules are “poorly” enforced.
A specific example Kalt pointed to was a decades- long illegal mining practice of rare peat bogs by the McClellan Mountain Ranch near Bridgeville. The ranch owners, who had sold the peat as a gardening supplement, pleaded guilty in 2013 to violating felony and misdemeanor charges for violating the Clean Water Act, according to a 2013 Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office news release. Five of six rare peat bogs at the site, which can take thousands of years to develop, were destroyed, Kalt said.
Further loss of salt marsh habitats can also increase the risk of water intrusion caused by sea level rise.
“We definitely need to plan on how (the wetlands are) going to move upland or inland to persist or they will eventually get drowned,” Kalt said, “especially because Humboldt Bay is ringed by dikes and levies that are preventing the inward movement of the salt marshes.”
The EPA plans to release an updated report in another five years.
The full report and further information can be found online at www.epa.gov/national-aquatic-resource-surveys.
