With the recent Supreme Court ruling in Sackett v. EPA, certain wetlands are no longer protected at the federal level.
We are here to help!
The Transect platform has stepped in to fill this gap. The "Disputed Wetlands" feature uses advanced algorithms to flag potential disputed wetlands based on the new definition of protected wetlands under the CWA. This means that developers can now easily identify which wetlands are protected and which are not, saving them time and money in the development process.
For all Transect Reports that have a wetland with a protected status that’s under dispute:
- Raise an alert in the Waters Executive Summary card letting the user know that their AOI intersects a Disputed Wetland.
- Add a Map Layer in the report map for “Disputed Wetlands” that shows features with protection status under dispute.
DEFINITIONS
We consider a wetland non-disputed if it meets one of the following criteria:
- It’s connected to any navigable water.
- It’s adjacent or connected to any non-disputed water identified in (1).
We identify wetland (NWI) features that do not intersect hydrography (NDH) features that are perennial, intermittent, or artificial paths and mark them as “disputed”.
DATASETS
National Wetland Inventory Dataset
The NWI dataset is pulled from the Fish and Wildlife Services public dataset https://www.fws.gov/program/national-wetlands-inventory.
National Hydrography Dataset
The NHD dataset is pulled from the “NHDPlus High Resolution” public dataset https://www.usgs.gov/national-hydrography/nhdplus-high-resolution.
*Disputed Wetlands still await official definitions from EPA and the United States Army Corp of Engineers.