ST. MARYS, Ga. — The views across grassy salt marshes and the Intracoastal Waterway to a federally protected island wilderness are so picturesque that Home & Garden Television chose the Cumberland Harbour housing development as the location for its 2004 "dream home."
So far, HGTV's large, genteel Victorian with a private deep-water dock is the only house constructed among the cypress and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. But on these 1,100 acres in southeastern Georgia, the developer has plans for a gated community of 1,200 residences -- plus streets, a yacht club, swimming pools and other upscale amenities.
Potential home buyers may be eagerly anticipating the completion of luxury housing on pristine waterfront property, but federal officials charged with protecting rare plants and animals are worried: Two endangered species, the wood stork and the Eastern indigo snake, rely on these wetlands for habitat. But because these wetlands have been designated "isolated," no federal agency has a say in what happens to them.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that under the Clean Water Act, the government can protect waterways that are navigable or tributaries or marshes that drain into navigable waters -- but can no longer regulate "nonnavigable, isolated, intrastate" ponds, wetlands or mud flats just because they provide a habitat for migratory birds.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over the nation's waterways, has interpreted that ruling to mean that isolated wetlands no longer fall under the provisions of the Clean Water Act -- and are thus no longer protected from development.
Before the court's decision, Cumberland Harbour's developer would have been required to seek a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers before filling in or draining any of the wetlands. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would have investigated the potential effect on rare animals and plants. And the Army Corps of Engineers would have either rejected the permit or, at the least, required the developer to make up for the loss of each acre of wetland by restoring or creating wetlands nearby.
Now, once a wetland area is determined to be "isolated," a developer may not even have to notify state or federal authorities before bringing in the bulldozers.
But the environment pays a price each time wetlands are filled, say those who study them.
