Wetlands in the Neponset River watershed

 

  Protecting wetland resource areas

The Wetlands Protection Act, including its Rivers Protection provisions, is designed to serve eight important “interests”:

1. Protection of public and private water supply;
2. Protection of groundwater supply;
3. Prevention of pollution [wetlands are extremely effective in filtering out pollutants before they can harm public health and the environment downstream];
4. Flood control;
5. Storm damage prevention [wetlands play a critical role in reducing flooding and storm damage because they quickly absorb water from storms and then release it very slowly];
6. Protection of land containing shellfish;
7. Protection of fisheries;
8. Protection of wildlife habitat [Wetlands and riverways provide unique and extremely productive habitats that can easily be destroyed by human alterations and are very difficult to replicate].

The Wetlands Protection Act is administered by volunteer municipal Conservation Commissions, many of which have no staff and need more training from the state Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to properly “condition” proposed projects to fully protect the 8 interests of the Act. MassDEP also writes the rules that Con Comms must administer. DEP rulemaking is extremely complex and watershed associations are intimately involved trying to make regulations and policies as protective as possible.

Finally, DEP hears appeals of individual Con Comm decisions, but due to massive budget cuts over the last decade, it has insufficient staff to adequately perform this function. Watershed groups advocate increased funding and staffing for state wetlands protection.