The Supreme Court must affirm that the government can stop wetlands from being polluted to death.
Oil washed up on sandy beaches and fragile wetlands from Florida to Texas.
Their latest intended victim is a worthy initiative aimed at protecting streams and wetlands from development and pollution.
The Clinton administration today proposed new rules to protect environmentally sensitive wetlands from development, a response to what administration officials called a recent rash of destruction.
The issue stems largely from a narrow Supreme Court ruling in early 2001 that removed certain small, hydrologically isolated wetlands from federal oversight.
Thursday, Oct. 18, marks the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, a critical turning point in the nation's efforts to rescue its rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands from centuries of industrial, municipal and agricultural pollution.
Shea Penland, a University of New Orleans geologist who has studied the effects of every hurricane since Frederick in 1979, said the damage to coastal wetlands from Isidore was extensive for a tropical storm, but Lili could be much worse.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and Supervisor Frank Petrone of Huntington announced the acquisition of the land, known as the Paumanok Wetlands, from a private developer, as part of the county's open-space preservation program.
He used the federation's legal muscle and the pages of National Wildlife, its magazine, to take increasingly strong stands on a wide variety of issues, like shielding wetlands from development and protecting bald eagles.
In front of a gathering of political figures and proud engineers, nearly 300 huge metal gates were dropped into place, sealing off the inlet and surrounding wetlands from the ocean.
In addition, the group decided that the old runway and airfield would become part of a tidal wetlands restoration project and required the developer to build a levee separating the wetlands from the proposed new housing.
