Wetlands — whether massive marshes stretching across South Florida like the Everglades or little bitty bogs tucked away in a subdivision — are vital to the environment.

They improve water quality, help prevent and reduce floods, recharge groundwater and store huge amounts of carbon, helping offset climate change.

But wetlands throughout Florida and the United States are at risk of disappearing because of a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case called Sackett v. EPA and the federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations expected to result from the ruling.

In a report issued this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that because of the Sackett ruling, more than 70 million acres of wetlands nationwide could lose their protection from destruction under the U.S. Clean Water Act. That’s 84% of the areas that have protected under the law.

In Florida, 623,103 wetlands totaling 10,073,409 acres are currently protected by the Clean Water Act. The NRDC estimates that up to 7,756,525 acres in 535,868 wetlands could soon be at risk.

How did it come to this?

Up until the early 1970s and the advent of the environmental movement, our country’s lakes, ponds, marshes and oceans were “protected” by a mishmash of local and state laws that were often confusing, contradictory and, above all, ineffective.

Pollution from residences, industries and municipalities flowed unchecked into waterways. It was so bad, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio actually caught fire because of a floating oil slick, a catastrophe that helped galvanize public opinion that something had to be done.

As a result, the Clean Water Act was approved with bipartisan support in 1972, giving the federal government authority to set limits on pollutants entering waterways, improve wastewater treatment facilities and fund research to find new ways to improve water quality.

Under the Clean Water Act, the term “wetlands” means “those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.”

In other words, wetlands can, but don’t have to, be covered with water year-round. They just have to have water above the ground or near the top of the ground at least during the time of year when plants adapted to wet soil conditions (what the scientists call “hydrophilic vegetation”) grow. Wetlands include marshes, bogs, swamps and fens.

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act requires that anyone interested in placing dredged or fill material into “waters of the United States, including wetlands” must first obtain a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.

‘Sackett case’ a major blow

So when the Sackett family in northern Idaho filled in wetlands on their property where water flows underground from nearby Kalispell Fen to Priest Lake without a Corps permit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled that the wetlands were “waters of the United States” and entitled to Clean Water Act protections.

The Sacketts sued the government, and although two federal courts upheld the EPA’s finding, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Sackett v. EPA, ruled in May 2023 that wetlands can be protected under the Clean Water Act only when they have a “continuous surface connection” to other covered waters, like streams, that are protected only if they are “relatively permanent.”

In its analysis, the NRDC says the “Supreme Court has torn the heart out of the country’s principal law to protect people from polluted water and from the consequences of destroying critical waters. In deciding Sackett v. EPA, the Supreme Court has exposed communities to increased flooding; threatened their drinking water supplies; undercut protections for wildlife; and made it less likely that the places people go to fish, swim and boat will be clean and healthy.”

In response to the Supreme Court ruling, the EPA under the Biden administration and the Corps issued regulations and guidance on how to follow the post-Sackett Clean Water Act, but those have also been challenged in court, mostly by states and developers wanting to further weaken the law and make it less protective.

Up to 70 million acres at risk

The question now is: How many wetlands will still be protected, and how many will be at risk, when the final interpretation of the Clean Water Act emerges.

There is no “good” answer. Under the Sackett ruling, at least some wetlands are going to lose federal protection. The NRDC sees possible scenarios ranging from “Dangerous,” in which 38 million acres of wetlands in the continental United States are at risk of pollution or destruction, to “Most Damaging,” which puts 70 million acres of wetlands at risk.

The “Dangerous” scenario basically follows guidelines developed by the Biden administration immediately following the 2023 ruling.

Unfortunately, the current front runner appears to be the “Most Dangerous” scenario. Earlier this year, the Trump administration signaled that it was likely to shift toward polluters’ preferred interpretations of the Sackett ruling.

 And in mid-December, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill containing more than 12 attacks on the Clean Water Act.

How Florida could be affected

To illustrate the havoc that could be wrought, the NRDC used Geographic Information System modeling to analyze water resources across the continental United States and produced estimates of how wetlands and streams would lose protection under the Clean Water Act, depending on how the Court’s decision is interpreted.

Based on the NRDC’s analysis, here’s what some Florida counties could lose under the most damaging scenario:

• Miami-Dade: 5,537 wetlands (606,735 acres)
• Collier: 29,999 wetlands (712,707 acres)
• Broward: 3,637 wetlands (844,951 acres)
• Palm Beach: 6,016 wetlands (148,765 acres)
• Martin: 5,431 acres (49,033 acres)
• Lee: 11,529 wetlands (93,715 acres)
• Charlotte: 8,150 wetlands (76,451 acres)
• St. Lucie: 3,310 wetlands (28,196 acres)
• Okeechobee: 8,513 wetlands (81,520 acres)
• Indian River: 5,429 wetlands (62,791 acres)
• Brevard: 15,200 wetlands (161,268 acres)
• Orange: 11,938 wetlands (91,207 acres)
• Hillsborough: 16,852 wetlands (93,011 acres)
• Monroe: 1,190 wetlands (70,312 acres)

Still time to weigh in

As dismal as it all sounds, the fight to protect wetlands isn’t over. The NRDC is calling for a long-term strategy that would:

• Have federal agencies use the powers they have to protect wetlands.
• Have Congress work to restore protections in the Clean Water Act.
• Have state, local and tribal governments step up to fill in the gaps created by the Sackett decision.

The first two aren’t likely to happen under the Trump administration, said Jon Devine, the NRDC’s director of freshwater ecosystems and an author of the group’s report.

Some action at the EPA level is possible: The agency is accepting public comments on the proposed post-Sackett regulations regarding wetland protection through Jan. 5. To comment, go to https://www.epa.gov/wotus.

As for getting any legislation to bolster the Clean Water Act: “There’s an anti-clean water sentiment in the current Congress,” Devine said.

But there are also congressional midterm elections coming up in 2026, a chance to load Congress with environmentally minded members.

In the meantime, work at the local and state levels appears to be most promising.

“A number of states are already beginning to step up,” Devine said, “and I expect more will if the rules proposed by the Trump administration go through. Local governments can act, too. Wherever we can get them, we should push for more protections for our natural resources.”