CRS-39 



adopted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1980. 3/ In it, wetlands 



are defined as follows: 



Wetlands are lands transitional between terrestrial and 

 aquatic systems where the water table is usually at or near the 

 surface or the land is covered by shallow water. For purposes 

 of this classification wetlands must have one or more of the 

 following three attributes: (1) at least periodically, the 

 land supports predominantly hydrophytes, (2) the substrate is 

 predominantly undrained hydric soil, and (3) the substrate is 

 nonsoil and is saturated with water or covered by shallow water 

 at some time during the growing season of each year. 4/ 



Federal regulatory programs 5/ 6/ take a more circumscribed view, so the 



area regulated is smaller than the area encompassed by the types of conditions 



described as wetlands for scientific purposes. These Federal programs apply 



only to wetlands greater than a minimum size (10 acres) and areas with water 



flows greater than a minimum rate (5 cubic feet per second). The definition 



of each area, this is, whether it is a wetland or not, is critical, having 



economic and other implications. The Federal regulatory definition found in 



the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulations, " describes them in the following 



way: 



The term "wetlands" means those areas that are inundated 

 by surface or ground water with a frequency sufficient to support 

 and under normal circumstances does or would support a prevalence 



3/ The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has interests in both wetland 

 science and wetland management. It has traditionally been the leading 

 Federal agency in wetland science. 



4/ U.S. Department of the Interior, Classification of Wetlands, p. 3. 



5/ Unless otherwise stated, all references to management programs refer 

 specifically to the Federal permit programs administered by the U.S. Army 

 Corps of Engineers under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, as amended, and 

 under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. The complex structure 

 of the Federal programs is discussed in Chapter III. 



6/ A further confusing factor is that State and local regulatory pro- 

 grams, using different wetland definitions, regulate different wetland areas. 



