On Thursday, October 3, 2024 the Tennessee State Legislature will meet to consider changes in how the State protects our wetlands – reviving an issue that sparked intensive debate earlier this year when the Bill was first introduced to roll back environmental oversight over nearly half a million acres of the State’s fragile ecosystems.
West TN Representative Kevin Vaughn (R-95) is the lead sponsor for proposed legislation.
Tennessee has about 780,000 acres of wetlands. Vaughn’s legislations focuses mainly on ‘isolated wetland’ with NO surface connection to a river or lake. Nearly half of TN’s wetlands fall into the category. But as we know EVERYTHING is CONNECTED no matter what a map reveals. Draining these wetlands and building on them is a slippery slope.
The Tennessee Department of Conservation released a 183-page reporting outlining 18 recommendations…they are a ‘slight’ improvement from the original January proposal but still fall short of what’s necessary to fully protect these fragile ecosystems. Four most troubling recommendations are as follows:
1. Doubling the size of wetlands developers can build on without having to pay environmental mitigation from the current quarter acre to half.2. Lowering current 2:1 ration that requires developers to fund two acres of wetland restoration for every acre disturbed to 1:1.3. Streamlining current process to obtain a permit to build on a wetland.4. Eliminating a requirement for paid newspaper ads detailing plans to develop a wetland.
TODAY IS THE TIME TO CONTACT YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATORS. LET THEM KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS. It’s time to put ‘conserve’ in conservative and more importantly conservation!!
Thank you.
TOS Conservation and Policy Committee
