I think I saw a post on the forum already, but yes this is a real issue. I am assuming you're referring to this podcast:
Fowlweather Podcast: Special Alert - Are the Ducks Done For? Mike, Mike, and Scott and brilliant waterfowl minds and we should all do our best to listen to them as much as we can. When those guys tell you to shut up and listen up, do it.
This is definitely one that should set off alarm bells. And you and everyone on this forum should be leaving a comment that says "we like the rules, they work just fine as they are, we already paid money to protect those lands, no reason to jeopardize our investment". Right now they are asking for feedback, and we should provide it.
As far as farmers and wetlands, there is a lot of info out there. Wetlands protections vary quite a bit depending on which state you live in. Here in PA, the commonwealth protects everything that meets a certain definition. In NJ, the state protects wetlands in a slightly different way. Delaware has historically never had state level wetlands regulations, but has just passed new laws within the last month or so. I could go on state by state... but that's boring for most folks. Federally, most of the prairie pothole wetlands that this proposed change would effect lost their protections in the most recent Supreme court case ruling on interpretations of the Clean Water Act (which regulates what can and cannot be done to navigable waterways in the US). Where a navigable waterway begins and ends is a bit gray and up for interpretation. It used to be a "significant nexus," which essentially meant that if a wetland provided hydrology (even if underground) to a navigable waterway, it fell under federal protection. Most of these prairie pothole wetlands were protected through this line of thought - you won't have navigable waters if the headwaters are dry. However, the new ruling (Sackett vs. EPA) found that wetlands are only under federal jurisdiction is there is a surface water connection. And to your first point, during this drought, there might not be a surface connection. And that's where it gets gray again - wetland have natural wet and dry cycles. Depending on the type of wetland, these cycles vary in length. Now, wetlands are relying on what state level protections they have (see the previous note about Delaware's recent decision to introduce state level wetlands regulations).
All said, farming generally receives significant exceptions from the above. We need food security within the nation, so farmers have special rules. Generally, these are laid out in the Food Security Act of 1985. Violations of the Food Security Act generally lead to ineligibility determinations for federal agricultural aid programs by the Farm Service Agency (like Farm Bill conservation technical and financial assistance). However, these only apply to wetlands that were altered to bring row crops into production after 1985 - known as swamp-busting. Anything that was drained before 1985 and has been kept in production is generally grandfathered in and thereby legal.
I recently had a farmer tell me: I'm a farmer, and inherently I want to drain wetlands. That's not true of all farmers, but there is a certain mindset to taming the land. It's unfortunate, but there are efforts to reverse the effects agriculture has had on the land. The NRCS does a good job of this - check out
USDAs Wetland Reserve Easement Program. But there are other programs as well that don't rely on easements, like CRP, CREP, EQIP... etc. The only issue being that these are voluntary programs, and, like we're seeing, are still vulnerable to adjoining hydrologic stealing.
Anyways, there's a little bit of background for you. I could go one for pages, wetlands, wetland science, and policy are an interesting subject with lots of nuance.
www.federalregister.gov
