A Case of Missing Wetlands

Although the four federal agencies with national jurisdiction over wetlands- the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Soil Conservation Service- have adopted a common definition of wetlands and a common delineation methodology in the 1989 Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands, state-level discrepancies, such as those between the SCS and Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, continue to foster ambiguity and potentially damaging consequences for private landowners.