Wetlands

Development of the Odenton Town Center parcel will destroy forested wetlands, environmentalists, county planners and property owners agree.But how much of those wetlands must be filled and what impact their destruction will have on the Patuxent and Severn river watersheds is a matter of contention among the groups.Earl Bradley, a Sierra Club member, complained that the plan to fill nearly 11 acres of wetlands is "without precedence in the state," and argued that approving it would give other developers license to destroy large amounts of wetlands as well.

STEVENSVILLE -- The patch of woods behind the Kmart store on U.S. 50 doesn't fit the picture-book image of a wetland.There are no cattails, paddling ducks or watery vistas; just loblolly pines and other trees -- red maple, sweet gum and hollies -- poking out of a green tangle of poison ivy.But the blackened leaves that squish underfoot, and scattered puddles of murky water, tell William A. Jenkins that this Eastern Shore woods qualifies as a wetland --...

Severn River Association president Stuart Morris calls it "a surprisingly attractive group of ravine woodlands." Sen. Gerald Winegrad, D-Annapolis, calls it "a drainage ditch."On Friday, environmentalists will try to convince Winegrad, the State Highway Administration and the Maryland Department of the Environment that a tiny section of non-tidal wetlands behind The Capital newspaper offices on West Street in Annapolis deserves to be saved.The SHA plans to fill in the wetlands -- which comprise 3/100 of an acre, or about one-tenth of a football field -- in order to build a new interchange at the heavily congested intersection of routes 2 and 450. The SHA also would cut down about two acres of trees surrounding the wetlands.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed yesterday to narrow the definition of a wetland after months of intense criticism from landowners, farmers and oil industry interests who argued that too much land is included in the classification.EPA chief William K. Reilly handed over the draft report to a Senate subcommittee, saying he expected that the new proposal would require fewer landowners to apply for federal permits to develop their land. The proposed definition would require that land be saturated with water for 10 to 20 consecutive days a year rather than only seven days under the old definition.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dan Quayle and his staff are planning a last-ditch attempt to loosen rules that prevent landowners from developing wetlands, a move that would touch off a final battle within the Bush administration over one of its thorniest environmental policies.The attempt would please landowners such as farmers, whose lobbyists have been pressing hard for the administration to make the change before leaving office.But the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, William K. Reilly, who would have to approve any such change, said in an interview that he was satisfied with the current wetlands rules, which date to 1987.

WOODBINE - Trout and wetlands are among the obstacles to county plans for a reservoir aimed at providing an adequate water supply for South Carroll.About 80 people turned out Wednesday at Mount Olive Methodist Church as county planners delivered an update on the Gillis Falls Reservoir, a 430-acre lake that would supply projected water needs for South Carroll at least through the year 2040.But in the quest for permits, the county has met resistance from the Maryland Department of the Environment and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Carroll planner Marlene Conaway.

WASHINGTON -- Homebuyers, owners and vacation property investors nationwide should be the prime beneficiaries of a new Clinton administration effort to cut environmental red tape for small-scale real estate holders.Effective Sept. 25, the federal government overhauled the way it treats "Mom and Pop" real estate owners whose property contains -- or might contain -- what the federal government defines as a "wetland."Even though the wooded home-site lot you bought is bone dry virtually the entire year and is miles away from the closest stream or shoreline, it still may meet the federal government's standards for a wetland because of its soil composition or plant life.

Coles County, Ill. -- FOR A few weeks now I've been walking my rural acres deep in the Corn Belt, some 200 miles from Chicago, thinking about President Bush. I've been wishing that he would join me here, and bring along his boots.I'd take him, straight away, past my rows of corn, across my tall-grass meadow and down a steep, wooded hillside. Here, along the maple-shaded banks of the Hogs Branch, we'd amble and talk -- about mud and mallards, kidneys and ecology.I began thinking about all this when some of the president's men released new rules concerning the protection of our nation's marshes, bogs and other wetlands.

Maryland officials filed suit yesterday to require an Eastern Shore race horse breeder to pay millions of dollars in fines and restore a 50-acre wetland that officials say was illegally cleared and filled to create a pasture. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and the state Department of the Environment are seeking an order to require restoration of the site and fines of $10,000 a day since Feb. 16 last year, when environmental inspectors first issued a complaint. In papers filed in Caroline County Circuit Court, state officials charged property owner Fred Hertrich with violating the state's Nontidal Wetlands Protection Act and the Water Pollution Control Law. Gregory D. Bee, an excavation contractor, also is named in the suit.

"Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year," by David M. Carroll. Houghton Mifflin. 292 pages with 150 black and white drawings. $27.David Carroll loves wetlands the way Rachel Carson loved tide pools and John Muir loved forests. He loves "the ructious cacaphony of wood frogs" and "the clamorous twangs" of their green cousins, the seasonal metamorphoses of animals and plants, the annual ebb and flow of water and the longer-term fluctuations between wet years and dry.He loves any fresh water he can explore without a boat -- temporary wetlands like vernal pools and floodplains, squishy bogs and fens, shallow marshes, shaded swamps, and deeper open ponds.