A great blue heron, a great white heron and egrets find habitat at La Cienega de Santa Clara amidst the cattail. For National Wetlands Month the Environmental Protection Agency is promoting activities and events to help raise awareness of the critical role wetlands and other aquatic resources play in our environment and to build support for their protection and restoration. EPA is posting wetlands information at http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/awm . Photo: Mark Lellouch, Sonoran Institute.

National Wetlands Month, a Time to Value All Wetlands

by Joe Gelt

May is American Wetlands Month, and the Environmental Protection Agency urges us to get involved by conducting appropriate activities and special events to celebrate the auspicious occasion. An obvious question to answer when planning a party is who gets invited. Not all wetlands are the same; do all get invited and have an equal place at the table?

American Wetlands Month might be a good time to ponder the issue.

For example, consider the case of constructed wetlands. A constructed wetland is essentially a water treatment facility. Duplicating the processes occurring in natural wetlands, constructed wetlands are complex, integrated systems in which water, plants, animals, microorganisms and the environment - sun, soil, air - interact to improve water quality.

Although its primary purpose is to treat wastewater, constructed wetlands serve other purposes as well. A wetland can serve as a wildlife site, providing suitable habitat for waterfowl, mammals, amphibians and insects. They also provide a site to conduct research for studying and evaluating the workings of the wetland process. Also a wetland can be a public attraction welcoming visitors to explore its environmental and educational possibilities.

It was not too long ago that constructed wetlands were sufficiently new to the water treatment scene that regulatory agencies generally regard them as non-traditional. A constructed wetland was a nontraditional water treatment method. At the same time, however, constructed wetlands might be considered nontraditional wetlands.

There is another exception to the wetland rule to consider: an accidental or unintended wetland. Arizona water officials are well acquainted with a such a wetland that has figured prominently in discussions about restarting the Yuma Desalting Plant. The Cienega de Santa Clara was an unintended consequence of shutting down the desalter; saline water then flowed in the bypass canal to the dried-out Colorado Delta, creating the cienega. Plans to restart the plant would shut off this essential water source to the wetland.

Officials in favor of operating the plant argued that the cienega was not truly natural but was instead an artificial water body formed when the desalter was shut down. Preserving it therefore was not a priority when considering plans to operate the plant. Environmentalists disagreed. (The plant is now operating on a test run with due consideration given to the cienega after various interests worked out their differences and identified a set of management alternatives agreeable to all.)

National Wetlands Month might be a good time to give pause and consider the line dividing naturally formed wetlands from manmade constructed wetlands. Is it a solid line, dotted line, wavering line or maybe no line at all?

Karl Flessa, a University of Arizona conservation biologist studying the Cienega de Santa Clara, questions the existence of such a line. He says, "We need to face the fact that there are no natural habitats left anywhere on earth. They are all modified to some degree by human activity, intentional or otherwise. We need to face the fact that we are going to live in managed landscapes. It's just a matter of what the landscape is managed for: among the choices are ecological values - as in a constructed wetland - recreation, agriculture, cities ... And it's also a question of how well that landscape is managed."
Flessa adds, "Who cares if the wetland is 'constructed?' The wildlife don't know, and they don't care."