The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed Friday an easier set of wetlands rules for Alaska and was immediately accused by environmental activists of kowtowing to developers and the oil industry.
Some 45 percent of Alaskan land, or 170 million acres, is classified as wetlands, environmentalists said."This is an obvious accomodation to the oil industry," said Jay Hair, president of the National Wildlife Federation while the National Audubon Society called it "yet another retreat" from President Bush's pledge of no net loss of wetlands.
Under the EPA proposal, people and firms working in Alaskan wetlands no longer would have to follow the usual "avoidance, minimization and mitigation" process when seeking a permit to release fill or dredged material. However, they still would have to try to minimize impact on wetlands by modifying their projects.
An arm of Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton's campaign said the White House was playing politics with wetlands rules.
The EPA proposal said Alaska could be exempted from the "sequencing" requirement because it had lost less than 1 percent of its wetlands. In addition, assistant EPA administrator Lajuana Wilcher said there were "unique scientific challenges" to creation and restoration of wetlands in Alaska's extreme northern climate.
Ordinarily, attempts must be made first to find nonwetland sites for discharges. If that fails, efforts must be directed toward minimizing the impact or, finally, mitigating the impact by restoring or creating new wetlands.