The status of North Dakota wetlands

Excerpt

NORTH Dakota's prairie wetlands were among the first in the nation to attract widespread public concern for protection and enhancement. Now, more than 25 years after the wetland issue first surfaced on the Starkweather watershed (3), North Dakota's wetlands remain in the forefront. Wetland controversies persist, fueled in part by reactions to the 1985 and 1990 farm bills' swampbuster provision and the Clean Water Act's 404 permitting process.

Controversies aside, the status of prairie wetlands has changed considerably during the past two and one-half decades. While the number of wetlands has diminished, their protection has increased, attitudes toward them have changed, and there is a somewhat better inventory of how many wetlands there are and where they are located.

The numbers

Half of North Dakota's 44 million acres of land lies within the Prairie Pothole region. Most of the five million acres of wetlands that existed in North Dakota before European settlement were within this region (6, 20). By 1984, about two million …